This easy sausage casserole for kids has a smooth thick gravy and is a hearty and warming dinner the whole family will love.
Perfect cold-weather comfort food, easily adaptable, and delicious served with cheesy mashed potato and seasonal vegetables.
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✔️ Why should you try it?
- Hearty and filling
- Change the vegetables to suit your kids tastes
- Can be frozen
- One pan only
- Easily doubled to feed a crowd
🥘 Ingredients
- Pork Sausages - 12 chipolata sausages (my kids prefer them) or 8 thick sausages. If you want to make this vegetarian, use veggie sausages.
- Olive Oil - for frying.
- Red Onion - adds a lovely sweetness to the casserole. I slice mine thinly but if your kids don't like onion, I suggest using a mini chopper to cut it up so small they won't even know it's in there!
- Garlic - 2 cloves peeled and finely chopped.
- Carrots - adds an earthy and rustic feel to the dish.
- Red Pepper - for colour and mild spice.
- Flour - used to thicken the sauce.
- Thyme - my favourite herb to use in casseroles.
- Smoked Paprika - Adds a smoky undertone to the dish. You can use normal paprika if you don't have smoked.
- Tomato Puree - adds a tomato flavour to the thick casserole sauce.
- Chicken Stock - made with a stockpot or stock cube.
🔪 Instructions
The recipe card with ingredient quantities and detailed instructions can be found at the bottom of the post
One: Heat the oil in a non stick shallow casserole and brown the sausages. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Two: Add the onion and garlic and cook on a medium heat for 4-5 minutes until the onion becomes soft.
Three: Stir in the chopped carrot and sliced pepper and cook for a further 3-4 minutes.
Four: Add the flour, thyme and smoked paprika and stir for 1 minute on a medium heat.
Five: Pour in the stock and squeeze in the tomato puree. Bring everything to the boil then turn down the heat to low. Place the sausages back into the sauce.
Six: Simmer with a lid on for 30 minutes until the sauce has thickened. Stir occasionally to prevent the sausages from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
🍴 Serving suggestions
This easy sausage casserole recipe is delicious with sides such as cheesy mashed potato, roast potatoes, sweet potato, or rice. I like to serve a portion of seasonal vegetables on the side too like roasted tenderstem broccoli, honey roasted carrots and parsnips, or slow cooker red cabbage.
Leftovers can be served on a baked potato the next day for lunch, or stirred through pasta (just slice the leftover sausages up into bitesize pieces).
📖 Variations
- Swap the pork sausages for veggie sausages to make it vegetarian-friendly.
- Use different vegetables in the casserole such as mushrooms, courgettes, spinach or leeks.
- If your kids struggle with eating vegetables just use the ones you know they will eat, even if that means there's just carrot! A handful of frozen peas or sweetcorn could also be added for the last 10 minutes of cooking.
- Up the protein by adding a drained can of butter beans or cannellini beans for the last 10 minutes of cooking.
- Make it spicy by adding 1 teaspoon of chili powder at the same time as the smoked paprika.
- Use beef stock for a richer flavour, or vegetable stock if you're making this vegetarian-friendly.
- Use fresh thyme instead of dried if you have it to hand.
- Make it in your slow cooker! Place everything into your slow cooker basin, give it a good stir, then cook on low for 6-8 hours. I advise reducing the stock to 500ml if you decide to slow cook it. You may need to thicken it at the end, and the easiest way to do this is with thickening granules.
🥡 Storage
The cooked casserole can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days and reheated in the microwave.
The casserole can also be frozen for up to 3 months, so why not make a double batch and freeze half for another day? Place the cooled casserole into a freezer-safe container and stash it away for future use.
❓ FAQS
Flour can be added to the casserole before you add the liquid, or alternatively, you can thicken the casserole at the end of cooking with a cornflour slurry, gravy granules or thickening granules.
Sausages are browned mainly for aesthetic reasons, so you don't have to brown the sausages beforehand if you don't want to. If you would prefer not to brown them first, just pop them into the pan after you have softened the onion and garlic and carry on with the recipe.
😋Related recipes
More warming comfort food to try!
- Smoky Chorizo Bolognese
- Creamy Sausage Pasta
- Mild Chilli Con Carne for Kids
- Easy Sausage Curry
- Chicken and Mushroom Stroganoff
- Lamb Tagine with Apricots
- Chicken and Broccoli Pasta Bake
- Slow Cooker Pulled Beef
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More easy dinner recipes from the Effortless Foodie kitchen!
Recipe
Easy Sausage Casserole for Kids
Ingredients
- 12 Pork Chipolata Sausages or use 8 thick pork sausages
- 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
- 1 Red Onion peeled, halved and sliced
- 2 Garlic Cloves peeled and chopped
- 1 Carrot peeled and chopped
- 1 Red Pepper sliced
- 1 teaspoon Thyme
- 1 teaspoon Smoked Paprika
- 1 tablespoon Plain Flour
- 2 tablespoon Tomato Puree
- 600 ml Chicken Stock
- Salt and Pepper
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large shallow casserole with lid and brown the sausages on a medium heat. Remove to a plate and set aside.
- Add the sliced red onion and garlic and cook on a medium heat until the onion has softened (about 4-5 minutes)
- Add the chopped carrot and red pepper and cook for a further 3-4 minutes.
- Add the flour, thyme and smoked paprika and stir for 1 minute.
- Pour in the stock and add the tomato puree. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat to low. Put the sausages back into the pan at this point.
- Simmer with a lid on, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season before serving.
Notes
- Swap the pork sausages for veggie sausages to make it vegetarian-friendly.
- Use different vegetables in the casserole such as mushrooms, courgettes, spinach or leeks.
- If your kids struggle with eating vegetables just use the ones you know they will eat, even if that means there's just carrot! A handful of frozen peas or sweetcorn could also be added for the last 10 minutes of cooking.
- Up the protein by adding a drained can of butter beans or cannellini beans for the last 10 minutes of cooking.
- Make it spicy by adding 1 teaspoon chili powder at the same time as the smoked paprika.
- Use beef stock for a richer flavour, or vegetable stock if you're making this vegetarian-friendly.
- Use fresh thyme instead of dried if you have it to hand.
- Make this in your slow cooker. Just chuck everything into your slow cooker basin and cook on low for 6-8 hours. I advise reducing the stock to 500ml if you decide to slow cook it.
Dannii
We love sausage casserole. We always add a can of beans to ours to bulk it out.
Anjali
I can see this being a totally kid-friendly recipes! Can't wait to make this for my family soon!
Jacqueline Meldrum
I make a lot of sausage bakes or casseroles and you are so right, kids love them.
Danielle Wolter
A casserole is the perfect winter food. Love how great this came out and how easy it was to make!
Gina
Such an easy dinner and everyone loves it! We serve with some mashed potatoes or cauliflower for a complete meal.
Marie-Charlotte Chatelain
Could this casserole look any prettier? Love your photography! Will try this with smoked turkey sausage!
Maria
Seems like a great simple recipe! It's good to have go-to family-friendly ideas.
Gail Montero Raines
We absolutely love sausage casserole and I am looking for a new one to try and this is totally perfect!
Jessie
We have a few more cold days on the way and this sounds like an amazing way to warm up. running to the store tonight to get everything.
Michelle Boule
This was a great meal and we are already planning on making it again next week. Your photos are gorgeous too!