Ten Family Meal Ideas with Sausages

Last week I shared a post on meal ideas with Leftover Roast Chicken, and it has been incredibly popular. Presumably this is due to us having less access to ingredients and products due to social distancing; and most people trying to make the most out of the food they do have – which is in turn reducing food waste.

If like me, you have kids and are either stuck home working and home-schooling, or you are just stuck home then you may also feel like you’re on a feeding conveyer belt, as feeding a family of people three times a day, with snacks on top does feel a little relentless. Many people will also be feeling the pinch and some more, so providing three meals a day for their family may be proving to be a bit of a struggle.

I’ve pulled together this post to give you a list of ten simple recipe ideas that will make a lunch or dinner meal for your family using the simple sausage – a relatively cheap meat source which is popular with most children. I hope it helps provide some meal inspiration – we love all of the below and I will be revisiting some of them myself in the coming weeks.

Feel free to message if you are unsure about what to substitute an ingredient for, but these are just the basis for meals, so feel free to tweak to your family’s personal tastes, and of course, to what you have to hand at home. Stay safe everyone, and stay home.


1. English Breakfast for Dinner

Everyone loves a fry up right? Well if you’re struggling for ideas for dinner, a fry of sausages, bacon, eggs, beans, tomatoes, hash browns, mushrooms and a fried slice will go down well with most. If you’re lazy and/or calorie counting you can also do it as a ‘baked breakfast’ by cooking most of it in an oven-proof dish in a hot oven. I would suggest sticking to the frying pan for the mushrooms though as otherwise they turn to mush but this is a great ‘lazy’ alternative when the cooking demands have beat you.

English Breakfast

2. Cumberland Sausage Pasta

I made this for the first time last week as I’d bought a load of lovely Cumberland sausages from our local butchers, and the children wanted pasta, and it’s an absolutely banging, low-maintenance recipe. It’s light but creamy and has a gentle heat running through it too; the recipe is here.

Cumberland Sausage Pasta

3. Sausage Casserole

Everyone’s casserole dish is slightly different, but my preference is to gently fry off and slightly brown the sausages and some chopped bacon or pancetta first then add to the casserole dish (or slow cooker) with diced onion, minced garlic, sliced peppers, a handful of red split lentils, a tin of chopped tomatoes, and the tin filled with water and a chicken stock cube, 1 tbsp tomato puree, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, lots of seasoning (salt and pepper, and some dried thyme or rosemary), a splash of balsamic vinegar and cook away for a couple of hours. Served with buttered bread this is a winner, every time.

4. Posh Dogs

The thing that makes these ‘posh’ is just using a decent sausage and not those tinned, plasticy hot dogs that many a child love and which I avoid like the plague. Use finger rolls, hot dog buns, flat breads, pitta or a sliced baguette – whatever you can use, and pile up with all your favourite ‘dog’ fillings, whether that’s fried onions, mustard, ketchup, grated cheese or whatever weird and wacky things you like. They’re fun finger food and the kids will love them.

Posh Dogs

5.Toad in the Hole
A bit like the Sausage & Mash combo, everyone loves the classics and with more time on our hands, why not. Mine love a Yorkshire pudding, and they love sausages so this is an absolute winner. My version is here.

Toad in the Hole

6.Jamie Oliver’s Easy Sausage Carbonara

Shamelessly stolen from Jamie Oliver’s Five Ingredients book a few years back I cooked this for the first time, and it’s become a family favourite and super easy too.

The link on Jamie’s website is here: Sausage Carbonara but for clarification, for the four of us we double up on the pasta and use two eggs. Also if you haven’t got Parmesan in stock, fear not, use any hard cheese, I’ve used Cheddar before now but even a Red Leicester would work. I’ve also used dried thyme before when we haven’t had parsley.

7.Smoky Sausage & Bean One Pot
Another one that I usually make for breakfast or brunch but which doubles up as an excellent dinner choice either served on toast, or with buttered bread. The recipe can be found here.

Smoky Sausage & Bean One-Pot

8. Giant Sausage Rolls
Use my recipe here, and just make four big sausage rolls and serve with salad, chips or whatever you fancy. Or make the smaller ones and prepare a picnic plate or 'party plate' with a few chicken nuggets, cocktail sausages and dolly sandwiches for an easy meal.

Sausage Rolls

9. Sausage & Red Wine Linguine

Another pasta dish, but completely different to the other two; this one is tomato based and made rich by the addition of just a couple of tablespoons of red wine (whichever you have open) and if you only drink white wine, try that instead or a drop of Port.

You could use a jar of tomato pasta sauce if you like, but I like to make my own, which is really simple, diced onion and minced garlic cooked in a little olive oil until soft, then add the red wine, and a tin of chopped tomatoes and some herbs – oregano, rosemary or thyme work here, as would basil.

Make the sausages into meatballs, as above, and fry off in a different pan, till cooked through, add the sauce, and then the cooked linguine with a little of the pasta cooking water to loosen and help the sauce to fully coat the pasta. Grate over some Parmesan or Cheddar and that’s it.

10. Sausage & Mash 
This meal needs no introduction, whether you like pork, chicken, beef or even vegetarian sausages there is something hugely comforting about a plate full of sausage and mash, with for us, fried onions, peas, gravy and heaps of mustard. No recipe or introduction needed.

Sausage and Mash

Leftover Roast Chicken

Roast Chicken

The humble whole roast chicken is, in my opinion one of the most versatile bits of meat and many of us will undoubtedly be throwing together a roast chicken dinner today. 

In our family of four, a whole, large roast chicken, will do us for a roast dinner with the usual trimmings, roast potatoes, vegetables, Yorkshire puddings and stuffing; but then I always make sure we get at least another meal out of it for the following day. 

Once I'm done with the chicken, I do try to always make chicken stock too; which can be used as the basis for a soup, stew, a risotto, jambalaya or the likes - and it freezes well too.

As people are having to be a bit more careful with their produce right now - I thought I'd share a round up of my top suggestions to utilize leftover roast chicken. 

Firstly for my generic roast chicken, I usually get a large bird, and I roast in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes. To get the crispy skin that my kids fight over, I drizzle with a little olive oil, then season generously with sea salt and black pepper. I also add a scattering of 1 tsp dried thyme and I place a few garlic cloves around the chicken and inside the cavity too. Sometimes I cut a lemon in half and add this to the cavity too which helps to keep the chicken moist. It's important that you always rest your meat when it comes out of the oven too; it will continue cooking, and it will carve and taste so much better once rested and juicy.

For chicken stock, take the carcass of the chicken and place into a large saucepan or stock pot, with any other remaining bones (such as the leg or wing bones). Now roughly chop a large onion or a handful of shallots into quarters (no need to peel), chop a couple of carrots (again skin on), and a few sticks of celery chopped up and add a bouquet garni or a few bay leaves and a handful of peppercorns and top with water. Slowly heat up and bring up to the boil. Once it has reached boiling point, take off the heat and then pass through a sieve into a large bowl or another sauce pan to remove any bits. Once cooled it can be kept 

Ideas for leftover chicken:

Chicken Noodle Soup

A nourishing bowl full of goodness with Asian flavours.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken and Mushroom Potato Pie 

Creamy, delicious and topped with cheesy mash potato, this is a crowd pleasing dish.

Chicken and Mushroom Potato Pie

Chicken, Bacon and Vegetable Pie

Who doesn't love a creamy chicken pie in flaky, puff pastry?

Chicken, Bacon and Vegetable Pie

Chicken Salad

You can throw your favourite salad items together, or just what you have available, drizzle with your favourite dressing, a drizzle of olive oil or a simple squeeze of lemon.

We love rocket, cucumber, tomatoes, peppers, radish, sweetcorn and croutons topped with Caesar dressing and with a few fresh herbs added in but use what you and your family love. 

Chicken Salad

Claire's Crispy Aromatic Chicken & Pancakes

OK so this is a Chinese take away classic except it's with duck, but my sister-in-law Claire introduced us to this fab way of using up leftover roast chicken (it also works with pork) a few years ago and it is a favourite now. Literally add a little sesame oil to a pan and place on a low to medium heat, shred the chicken and coat in 1 tsp Chinese Five Spice and quickly fry to re-heat and coat the chicken in the Five Spice flavours. In the meantime, slice up cucumber, and spring onions, slice a red chilli, and knock out the jewels from a pomegranate too for a lovely texture, serve with warmed tortilla wraps, and some hoi sin (plum) sauce and scatter with sesame seeds if you have some handy.

Crispy Aromatic Chicken and Pancakes

Quick & Easy Chicken Quesadilla

Shred the chicken and add to a small bowl with 1/2 jar of tomato salsa, a tin of red kidney beans or black beans, some sweetcorn and a sliced, roasted red pepper - if you have some, add a few coriander leaves and mix . Grate some hard cheese such as Cheddar into another bowl. Place a tortilla wrap into a hot frying pan, cover 1 half with the chicken mixture, then some grated cheese and cover the filled half with the empty side of the tortilla and fry for 3-4 minutes on each side. Serve with some chunky guacamole (avocado, tomato, red chilli, coriander, lime juice, sea salt, crushed garlic). 

Quick Thai Green Chicken Curry

Fry off an onion, garlic and some fresh ginger if you have it in a little oil and then add 2 tbsp Thai Green Curry Paste and fry off for a minute or so. Add a tin of coconut milk, the chicken, and your choice of vegetables - mushrooms, courgette, aubergine, peppers and even green beans or peas work well. Elevate with a drop of fish sauce, a squeeze of lime and a few coriander leaves to serve. 

Vicky's Chicken Stew

My Mum's chicken stew was a family staple growing up and has had many variations over the years depending on who is cooking it - but the basis is the cooked chicken (and any bones in the broth for extra flavour), a couple of chopped carrots, a diced onion, a couple of sliced celery sticks, chopped potato and topped with chicken stock, and a bouquet garni or a few bay leaves, seasoned and left to cook away on the hob. I also like peas, pearl barley or lentils which thicken it up a bit and we sometimes have suet dumplings too. Mum used to put small pasta in our stew too and it was and still is, always served with buttered bread.  

Vicky's Chicken Stew

Chicken and Tomato Pasta

A simple tomato sauce of onion, garlic, chopped tomatoes and whichever herbs you might have to hand makes a great basis for a chicken pasta dish, add the cooked chicken once the sauce is done to warm through and add the cooked pasta (any shape is fine) to the pan with the sauce to cook a little, and spoon over 2tbsp of the pasta cooking water. 

Chicken and Tomato Pasta

Chicken Fried Rice

Fried rice requires cooked rice, and I find those pouches of Microwave rice to be the best option here. Add sesame oil to a wok or frying pan and heat, then fry off onion, garlic and if you have it, ginger, add a drop of soy then add any chopped vegetables you might want, such as peppers, mushrooms, peas, sweetcorn - most things work here. Fry off the veg then add the cooked rice and stir well. If you have them, add a teaspoon of Sriracha for some heat and cook through for five minutes. If it seems particularly dry, add a little chicken stock.