One-Pan Sausages and Sprouts

By Catherine Newman

Makes: 4 servings

Total Carbohydrates: 15 grams per serving

Hands-on Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

This comes out of the oven with the sausages sizzling so merrily and the sprouts so deeply browned that everyone flocks around to look. Plus, the oven does all the work here, which is nice. If Brussels sprouts aren’t your thing or are hard to come by, feel free to swap in other vegetables: chunked-up cabbage or cauliflower or broccoli that you’ve cut into florets. Likewise, you don’t need to use smoked sausages—I just happen to love the smokey flavor against the sweetness of the roasted vegetables. (If you use a rope-style kielbasa instead of links, just slice it before roasting.)

If you’re looking to:

Lower the carbs: Swap in cauliflower for the Brussels sprouts, or add 2 extra sausages and turn this into 6 servings.

Lower the fat: Reduce oil to 3 tablespoons.

Lower the salt: Reduce salt to ½ teaspoon.

Ingredients

1 pound Brussels sprouts

1 onion, halved and sliced

4 tablespoons olive oil, divided use

1 teaspoon kosher salt (or ½ teaspoon table salt)

1(12-ounce) package smoked sausage, such as andouille or kielbasa links

2 teaspoons coarse, grainy mustard (or Dijon)

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar (or red wine vinegar or lemon juice)

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 425° F and put a rimmed baking sheet in to heat while you prepare the vegetables. (I’m using a gigantic oven-safe frying pan because I happen to have it.)

2. Trim the bottoms off of the Brussels sprouts, remove any dinged-up leaves, and cut the sprouts in half (you can leave tiny sprouts whole). Put the sprouts in a bowl with the onions and toss it all together with three tablespoons of olive oil and the salt. 

3. Once the oven is heated, take out the hot baking sheet (use pot holders!) and arrange the onions and the Brussels sprouts, and any of their stray leaves, cut-side down on it (or as much cut-side down as you can manage without burning your fingers or becoming irritable). Nestle the sausages among the vegetables and drizzle them with the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. If you like, you can poke each sausage with the tip of a knife to be sure they won’t burst in the oven, but I like the thrill of knowing they might burst in the oven. (They never have.)

4. Put the pan in the oven and roast until everything is deeply browned and crisping (turn a sprout over to check the bottom), around 25 minutes, but check on it a little early.

5. Meanwhile, stir together the mustard and vinegar. Drizzle this mixture over the roasted sprouts and onions. Serve right away from the pan—or move it all to a platter if you’re feeling fancy.

About Catherine

Catherine loves to write about food and feeding people. In addition to her recipe and parenting blog Ben & Birdy (which has about 15,000 weekly readers), she edits the ChopChop series of mission-driven cooking magazines. This kids’ cooking magazine won the James Beard Publication of the Year award in 2013 – the first non-profit ever to win it – and a Parents’ Choice Gold Award. Her book "How to Be A Person" was published in 2020. She also helped develop Sprout, a WIC version of the magazine for families enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), as well as Seasoned, their senior version. They distribute over a million magazines annually, through paid subscriptions, doctor’s offices, schools, and hospitals. Their mission started with obesity as its explicit focus – and has shifted, over the years, to a more holistic one, with health, happiness, and real food at its core. That’s the same vibe Catherine brings to the diaTribe column.

[Photo Credit: Catherine Newman]