Sausage bake is one of those non-recipe recipes we all need up our sleeves.
Cooking sausages in the oven, nestled into a pan of vegetables, is fast, hands-off and just plain tasty. I highly recommend it for any night where dinner is fast approaching and you know you need a real meal but don’t have much prep time.
This sheet pan sausage dinner can be cooked just fine in a regular oven, but it makes for a great steam oven recipe too. Cooking the sausages and vegetables in your steam oven means the whole dish cooks faster, and the texture of your vegetables will be more silky than if you cook without the steam.
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Why cook sausages in the oven?
Now, I know that traditionally sausages are grilled or barbecued. That’s great, it makes them smoky and a little charred and generally all around delicious. But many nights I don’t have time to light the grill, wait for it to heat, stand by turning the sausages AND prep side dishes.
My kids love sausages, though, and would eat them every week. Here’s where the oven comes in.
Roasting is a fantastic way to get golden, perfectly cooked sausages every time, and it’s almost totally hands off, save for turning them once during cooking. You won’t get the slightly charred finish like you do with gas grill or open flame cooking, but the trade-off is worth it for a popular mid-week dinner.
Cooking sausages in the oven might not be the conventional approach, but it sure is easy.
Other delicious (and easy!) sheet pan dinners to make in your steam oven:
30 Minute Tandoori Roast Chicken
Steam Oven Mediterranean Vegetable and Haloumi Bake
Steam Oven Fish with Almond Crumbs and Sweet Potato Chips
Pork Tenderloin with Courgettes, Peppers and Green Olive Salsa
How to make a sausage bake
I hope you’ll think of this post as a jumping-off point. Change up the type of sausages you use, swap different vegetables for the ones I’ve used, and make it your own thing.
Here’s the basic approach:
Cut your vegetables so they’ll cook in a similar time as one another. For potatoes, I like to use smaller ones and slice into thick pieces instead of cutting into chunks. I’d take a similar approach with pretty much any root vegetables here.
Pop the veg into your pan and toss with olive oil, then add the sausages. You want to kind of wiggle them down in between the vegetables. They shouldn’t be buried, but you don’t want them sticking up so high that they’ll burn before the veg gets cooked.
Drizzle a little more oil over the sausages and season everything, then into the oven! Don’t do what I did and forget to add your herbs until the pan was already in. Ha.
Give the pan about 20 minutes, then turn the sausages so they get some color on the other side. 10 or so minutes longer and you’re done!
I put the whole sausage bake straight on the table, allowing everyone to serve themselves. If you have *ahem* three growing boys, a loaf of bread served alongside would not go astray at all.
That’s really it! Short, easy and appealing, just the way we want most of our dinners to be. 😉
Happy steam oven cooking, see you here again soon.
Have you made and enjoyed this recipe? I’d love if you’d be kind enough to rate and review it via the stars in the recipe card, or leave a comment below! Ratings and reviews help other readers to find and know whether one of my recipes will suit them.
Sausage Bake
Ingredients
- 6 potatoes small, washed and sliced into ½”/1½cm discs
- 4 cloves garlic bruised but left whole
- 1 bell pepper deseeded and roughly chopped (or 6-8 mini bell peppers, deseeded and left whole)
- 2 stalks rosemary fresh, left whole
- 2 stalks thyme fresh, left whole
- 2 tomatoes roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
- 6 pork sausages thick, preferably with natural casings
- 1/2 tsp salt kosher
- 1/4 tsp cracked black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C, combi steam setting. If your oven has variable steam settings, choose 50% (med steam). If not, don’t worry! Just select combi steam and the correct temperature and the oven will take care of the rest.
- Put the potatoes, garlic, bell pepper, herbs and tomatoes into a large ovenproof pan. I used an enamel rectangular 9×13”/32x22cm pan, but use anything you have as long as everything can fit in a single layer.6 potatoes, 4 cloves garlic, 1 bell pepper, 2 stalks rosemary, 2 stalks thyme, 2 tomatoes
- Drizzle the vegetables with most of the oil and all of the red wine vinegar, and season well with salt and pepper. Toss gently to combine. Add the sausages to the pan, wiggling them a bit so they nestle into the vegetables. Drizzle with the remaining oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar, 6 pork sausages, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp cracked black pepper
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Turn the sausages over and cook until the sausages are golden and the potatoes beginning to colour, about a further 10-15 minutes.
- Serve immediately with crusty bread to mop up the juices.
Notes
- If you want to use another type of sausage here, go for it. Any thick, fresh sausages will work. Thinner sausages (what we call ‘bbq sausages’ in Australia) will work too, but you’ll need to add them to the pan a little later, once the vegetables have cooked for about 8 minutes.
- Change up the vegetables here for other root veg, eggplant, zucchini or squash.
- If you want to add more protein to this dish, add a drained and rinsed can of beans to the pan for the last 5 minutes of cooking. I love to do this because it makes the meal go further and the beans soak up lots of delicious pan juices while they warm through.
This was quick to assemble and yummy. The entire family liked it and went back for seconds. I had everything on hand, except for the fresh rosemary, however I had fresh sage so I added that instead (it went really well with the pork sausages). I added some additional vegetables I had available: a little kabocha pumpkin, a few carrots, and a quarter of a red cabbage. I also added the can of beans at the end. I will definitely do this again and I will ensure the cabbage is included, because it was my favourite of all the vegetables in the dish. A really great family meal that can easily be converted to include what’s available in your fridge.
Another staple in our household…easy, delicious and on the table in no time. Thank goodness for Emily’s steam oven recipes as I didn’t use my steam oven that much previously.
This was a tasty and easy dish. My cooking time was a bit longer but it was a hit with my family. Would definitely make it again.
Made this recipe last night for dinner. Mine looked just as beautiful as yours. My prep was longer but the actual cook time was right on. I opted for the 15 minutes after turning the sausage. My brother was visiting and said it smelled great. The rosemary was wafting through the kitchen. It tasted great and was simple to make. Will definitely be making this again. Thank you sharing this recipe.