As the temperatures hit single figures and the evenings become longer, I love cooking classic comfort foods: beef stews, hotpots, chicken curries, pasta bakes, roasts, and more. However, one dish truly represents comfort food at its best for me, and that’s the simple sausage casserole.
There’s something incredibly warm and welcoming, not to mention deeply satisfying, about a delicious sausage casserole – with caramelised sausages, veggies and a rich tomato sauce all accompanied by heaps of creamy mashed potatoes. It’s the ideal meal for those dreary days when the weather is less than pleasant. I tend to make sausage casseroles in a casserole dish on the hob, but for this recipe I decided to put my slow cooker to use.
While this casserole is packed with flavour, I’ve kept the veggies very simple – just onions, carrots, celery and garlic (so not too much chopping).
I’ve kept the rich tomato sauce simple too – just chopped tomatoes from a tin, tomato puree and a beef stock cube.
Chopping the veggies and browning the sausages only took about 10 minutes before leaving the slow cooker to work its magic for eight hours.
While I decided to serve the sausage casserole with buttery mash, a few other great options are fluffy rice, sourdough bread or over a baked potato.
Ingredients (serves four)
Olive oilSix to eight sausagesOne large onion, peeled and choppedThree garlic cloves, peeled and crushed800g of tinned chopped tomatoesTwo tablespoons of tomato pureeOne beef stock cube, undiluted and crumbledTwo carrots, peeled and choppedTwo celery sticks, peeled and chopped
Method
I started by pan-frying the sausages with the oil until browned all over. If your slow cooker pan is the type that can be used on the hob too, you can do this in the pan.
I like to use sausages with a high meat content (97% if you can get it) without too many other flavourings, as there’s already a lot in the sauce.
What’s more, it’s worth noting that if you use smaller sausages like chipolata sausages, just reduce the cooking time slightly.
In the meantime, I got to work chopping the vegetables and crushing the garlic.
Once the sausages had browned, I added them and all of the other ingredients into the slow cooker, gave it a good stir and put on the lid.
You can leave the casserole cooking on high for six hours or low for eight hours – I opted for the latter.
When I’m using a casserole dish, I fry off the ingredients on the hob, then put it in the oven for 40 minutes to cook.
Once the casserole was cooked, I stirred it before serving it up. I left the sausages whole this time around, but you can cut them up before plating up.
