How to Make 5 Unique Meals from a Regular Pack of Sausages
Recently, I set myself a challenge to start seeing how far I can make things stretch. I
‘ve written 20 meal ideas for leftover sausages, 29 meal ideas for leftover roast chicken and 25 ideas for leftover ham.
To take it further, I got a pack of sausages and set about cooking a bunch of meals.
Note: we are a gluten and dairy-free home so my recipes reflect that but I will give options for non-gluten/non-dairy as well.
I had 9 Texan-flavoured sausages in my pack.
Looking through my fridge and pantry I had a few leftover bits and pieces I wanted to use up as well, a limited amount of vegetables but enough for some ideas I had.
When my family had looked at our food earlier that day, they thought we had nothing.
By the time I finished cooking, they were shocked at what I managed to pull together and how much we had for the next few days.
The 5 Meals I Made
I stuck to recipes I knew we enjoyed but they were all different to our normal versions because I was doing it based on what I had.
When looking at any recipe, remember some ingredients can be substituted.
The recipe doesn’t always need to be followed exactly, especially when it comes to mains such as the ones I’ll share.
Our 5 meals were: fried rice, a BBQ stir-fry which also used up the last scraps of BBQ sauce in a bottle, a frittata which also used leftover vegetables, pizza and goulash.
While cooking these, since I had everything heated up and on, I also roasted some extra vegetables, cooked up extra rice, roasted pumpkin seeds and baked a banana cake from bananas in our freezer.
Other Ingredients/Basics in my Pantry
Rice, garlic, salt, pepper, oil, sweet potato, potato, tinned tomato, spices, stock and coconut milk are always in our pantry. In the fridge, I had some cabbage, a handful of beans, a few carrots, a few florets of cauliflower, onions, a chunk of pumpkin and eggs.
When it comes to garlic, we prefer to crush our fresh. See below
Freshly Crushed Garlic
Using a mortar and pestle, we crush garlic with some oil, rock salt and peppercorns.
Doing it fresh this way adds a lot more flavour than premade options from the store.
At times, we add other herbs and spices or ginger and chilli, depending on the recipe we are making.
Crush the garlic to the consistency you prefer.
It doesn’t take long but will make a difference.
5 Recipes from 1 Pack of Sausages
As I mentioned, these were made with Texan sausages.
The flavour of your sausages will change the flavour and suitability of any recipe.
Basic sausages, garlic and herb, BBQ, Texan and similar flavours will work with any of these recipes.
Other flavours might need to be done with different spices and seasonings. E.g. Fried rice will go with any flavour but BBQ stir-fry really needs matching spices in the meat.
The stir-fry could be changed to honey and soy or other flavours to match whatever sausages you have though.
Goulash
This recipe was inspired by my stepmother who is Austrian.
My version is not traditional and uses Texan sausages but my family love it.
It is a hearty meal I served with a damper too.
Try my Potato and Sausage Goulash Recipe.
Pizza
Any sausages can go on pizza with whatever toppings you prefer.
You can either make a pizza base yourself, use a storebought one, or use pizza base alternatives such as toast, toasted Turkish bread, garlic bread, crumpets, English muffins etc. Basically, any bread base can be a pizza base.
Try my basic pizza dough which makes enough for 3 pizzas.
I include a selection of tips and variations for pizza there too.
Fried Rice
Leftover rice, leftover sausage or roast meat and random vegetables can be used to make fried rice easily.
I have a super simple fried rice recipe you can use, along with tips for variations.
Stir-Fry
The one I made is BBQ Sausage Stir-Fry which used leftover sausages and leftover BBQ sauce.
Recipes such as this are a great way to use up things which might otherwise be wasted.
Frittata
Another recipe that is useful for using up leftovers plus it is delicious hot or cold.
My Sausage and Vegetable Frittata recipe can be varied to your tastes, using whatever you have on hand from leftover roast veggies to fresh.
What Can You Make?
My aim is to help everyone reduce waste and eat better.
Everything I share here is what I do or have done but you can alter any of it to suit your taste and life.
Sausages and other leftovers are extremely versatile.
You don’t have to eat the same thing over and over. With these options, you can eat a variety of meals on a budget.
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