20 Meals you can Make From Leftover Sausage

How often do you have one or two sausages leftover after dinner? Usually, they’ll get eaten cold the next day so they aren’t wasted.

However, there are 20 different meals you can make with 1 to 2 leftover sausages, most feed at least 4 people too.

Leftover sausages can be frozen for future use too so you don’t feel like you’re eating the same repeatedly.

For more ideas on leftovers including 100 frugal recipes, check out 26 Ingredients, a frugal recipe book for only $4.95 (digital copy).

Many of the recipes suggested below can be found, or a variation of it within 26 Ingredients.

How to use Leftover Sausage

Leftover sausage can be used the same way as ham and many meats in a variety of meals.

While it’s not the same as having your own whole sausage, it does give flavour and is a bit of meat in an otherwise vegetarian meal.

The following options can help you mix it up with your meal plan.

1. Fried Rice

A super easy meal or side dish if you prefer, fried rice can be made in a variety of ways using whatever you have on hand.

A handful of various vegetables and a cup of diced meat is enough to make it interesting.

Fried rice typically has rice, meat such as bacon/ham/chicken, egg, vegetables and soy sauce.

Chop the leftover sausage into small pieces and use it in your dish instead of other meat.

We have a simple fried rice recipe here.

Typically, we either go vegetarian or use whatever meat we have, including at times one sausage diced.

Using 2 Cups of cooked rice, 2 eggs scrambled/fried then some frozen or fresh veggies chopped smaller such as corn, carrot, broccoli, beans, capsicum etc.

At times we’ve added chilli or other spices for a bit of a change.

Top it with some soy sauce and it’s a great meal any time of year.

2. Pizza Topping

Who doesn’t love pizza? Instead of ordering takeaway next time you don’t feel like cooking, you can do a quick and easy pizza with sausage.

Make a simple pizza base, spread on some sauce, sprinkle on the cheese then add your toppings such as pineapple, onion, capsicum, sliced leftover sausage, then bake until golden brown.

This goes especially well for Italian or other flavoured sausages.

Kids love making their own pizzas and you can either buy a base or make one yourself.

I have a recipe for pizza bases (and everything else from breakfast to desserts) in 26 Ingredients.

Tortillas, toast, crumpets, English muffins, Turkish bread and similar can all be used as pizza bases too. Get creative with what you have and use it up instead of buying specific ingredients.

3. Risotto (Plus Bonus Arancini)

Risotto is typically easy to make and quite versatile in terms of vegetables and optional meat.

Throw in your favourite vegetables or whatever you have on hand, including vegetables that need to be used up soon.

Select a recipe you like and swap out the meat for the leftover sausage.

The key is to use arborio rice and be patient while cooking it. Don’t add all the stock at once or you’ll get gluey risotto.

If you have leftover risotto, turn it into arancini balls the next night and serve with salad or vegetables. Arancini are basically risotto balls.

Roll risotto into a ball, roll the ball in some breadcrumbs and fry them. You can find a good recipe here.

Another variation on the arancini balls is to get a cube of cheese, press the risotto around it then the breadcrumbs and fry.

4. Curried Sausages

Curried sausage recipes usually have 8 sausages for the recipes. Instead, if you have 2 leftover sausages you can make up the difference with potato, pumpkin and carrot.

It is less meat, still filling, though. This recipe is a good base you can modify.

Alternatively, load it up with any vegetables you have available. Potato, pumpkin and carrot are filling as they are heavy on the carbs but they aren’t the only options.

If you serve this with rice or mashed potato it will go further too.

Another option is to serve the sausages over dhal as pictured below.

Or slice them up for any curry dish you like instead of the suggested meat.

We often do this with onion, capsicum, cauliflower, carrot and broccoli with some spices we mix together ourselves and coconut milk.

5. Calzones

A calzone is like a pizza folded in half. Mix up pizza dough and roll it out.

Spread sauce over the base, add your toppings to one-half then fold it over and press the edges together then bake until golden brown.

There’s a recipe for pizza dough and a variety of calzone suggestions in 26 Ingredients. Leftover vegetables with sausage make a great filling.

6. Pie

Make a shortcrust pastry and layer it with vegetables and thinly sliced sausage then cover in a white sauce or pasta sauce.

Top with pastry or cheese and bake until cooked through.

Or fill it with a chunky tomato or gravy and vegetable-based mix with the sausage. The filling is up to you!

You can find a recipe for the shortcrust pastry and a selection of recipes for pies, fillings and more in 26 Ingredients.

7. Sausage Roll

Wrap the leftover sausage up in pastry and cook as a sausage roll. It’s a meal for one. Puff pastry or shortcrust pastry is best for this.

You could take it a step further and wrap the sausage in bacon then in pastry.

Recipes for the pastry and other things like this in 26 Ingredients.

8. Bread and Butter Pudding – Sausage Version

Try a savoury bread and butter style pudding instead of the usual sweeter dessert version.

Use bread, butter, a runny white cheese sauce and thinly sliced sausage for something different.

Lay the bread and sausage slices in a dish.

Pour the white cheese sauce over it for the bread to absorb it then bake in a moderate oven until golden brown.

Serve with salad or vegetables.

9. Sausage Muffin

Similar to breakfast muffins, make any savoury muffins and use diced sausages instead of ham or bacon.

Muffins can be a mix of eggs whisked together, veggies such as capsicum, onion, grated zucchini then add the diced sausage and some cheese. Bake until cooked through.

Alternatively, use a flour-based muffin recipe.

10. Pasta Bake

Cook pasta, stir through a jar of pasta bake sauce or mix up a cheese sauce.

Roughly chop the leftover sausages and stir through.

Cover with cheese and bake until golden brown.

Find more pasta bake recipes and suggestions in 26 Ingredients.

11. Pasta and Sauce

Cook pasta, add the sausages (chopped up) and stir through any pasta sauce, a cheese sauce, or garlic and butter for a tasty pasta dish.

Another option is to stir through a chunky dip like pesto. You can often get them reduced to clear which makes this a cheap and tasty meal.

12. Sausage Sandwich or Bread

It’s stating the obvious but eat it in a sandwich with sauce or make a grilled cheese sandwich by slicing it and adding cheese.

If you are baking bread, dice it up and add it to the mix before baking or create a twist or plait with the sausage folded in.

To create a sausage twist, add the sausage to the dough then split the dough into 2 to 3 balls.

Roll the dough into long sausages you can twist together or plait.

Sprinkle with cheese then allow to rise and bake the same as regular bread.

You could rub each piece of dough with sauce before twisting or sprinkle cheese on the top, add herbs such as Italian herbs or anything you feel you’d like the flavour of.

Get a basic bread recipe in 26 Ingredients.

13. Toad in the Hole

Toad in the hole is essentially a sausage pudding or mini muffins/rolls.

You can put the sausages in dough then divide the dough into mini muffin pans and bake them until golden brown.

Serve with vegetables or salad or have them as a breakfast option on their own.

14. Scrolls

Instead of ham and cheese scrolls, slice the sausages thinly and make sausage and cheese scrolls.

Use some puff pastry cut into squares and spread tomato sauce over it.

Dice the sausage finely and sprinkle across the pastry, add some cheese and roll up then cut the roll into 2cm sections to make scrolls/swirls.

Lay them on baking paper on a tray and bake in a moderate oven until golden brown.

Alternatively, you can use bread dough rolled out to 1cm thin.

Spread the sauce on the rolled out dough, add the sausage and cheese, roll up the same as a Swiss roll then slice into 2cm sections to bake.

Place in a moderate oven and bake until golden brown.

These are great for lunches and can be frozen for later.

15. Frittata

This is also a great way to use up vegetables. Chop the vegetables and leftover sausages. Place them in a baking dish.

Whisk together a few eggs and pour over the sausages and vegetables then bake until cooked through.

We find roast vegetables such as pumpkin, potato, sweet potato and onion go well in a frittata.

Another option is to bake it in a frying pan on the stove.

16. Sausage Casserole

Casseroles were extremely popular when I was a kid. They are basically a thick, hearty soup consisting of anything you have on hand and enjoyed with crusty bread rolls or dumplings on cold winter nights.

Chop the sausages up, add onion, potato, carrot and other vegetables in a pan over medium heat.

Cover in a stock/gravy/sauce or whatever base you like for a casserole then cook slowly until the vegetables are cooked through and serve with bread.

If you want to make it with dumplings, you prepare the soup base then separately prepare a dumpling mix.

Place balls of the dumpling mix on top of the soup base and cook until they are cooked through.

17. Lazy Noodle Night

This can be as easy as you like. Rice noodles, beef broth and a few other ingredients can make your sausages into Pho.

It is one of my favourite soups from Vietnam and absolutely delicious.

Alternatively, if money is really tight, cook some 2-minute noodles with corn, peas or other frozen vegetables and add diced sausages.

It’s a super basic uni student-type meal but my kids loved it when I really needed to make things stretch.

18. Sausage Paella

Similar to risotto, paella is a rice-based dish that is simple but full of flavour.

Use cooked sausages as the meat in any recipe you like for paella.

Our preference is for a spicy paella but you can make milder versions.

19. Sausage Lasagne

Thinly slice the leftover sausages then layer with vegetables to make a lasagne.

Use lasagne sheets, sausages and vegetables such as zucchini, capsicum, carrot, pumpkin or whatever else you like.

Cover each layer with a pasta sauce, then lasagne sheets, white sauce, more sausages and vegetables, then pasta sauce etc. Keep making layers until you have used everything.

Place in a moderate oven and bake until cooked through and golden brown (usually around 45 minutes to 1 hour).

20. Goulash

Goulash is usually made with Kransky, potato and stock. Use sausages instead and add some more spices to boost the flavour.

This is a dish my Austrian stepmother used to make but she always used proper Kransky.

Kransky has a delicious, unique flavour but if you are simply looking for ways to use up leftover sausages, this is a good meal to make that is quite filling.

Extra Tips

When it comes to wasting food, leftovers often get thrown out. Even with our best intentions, they get pushed to the back of the fridge or freezer and later tossed.

Hopefully, the above recipes have inspired you. Below are a few tips to help further.

5 Meals from a Pack of Sausages

I decided to experiment to see how far I could stretch the leftover sausages using the recipes above.

One day I made 5 meals from a pack of sausages.

We were surprised how much food we could make, using what we had and the things you can do to stretch each meal further such as serving with damper, salad, rice or similar.

Pay Attention to the Flavour

Sausages come in many flavours now so pay attention to which ones you have. The flavour needs to match what else you are doing with them.

For example, a spicy sausage would go great in a paella but an Italian herb one less so.

Label The Leftovers

When freezing the sausages make sure you label them so you know the flavour and when you put them in. Allow them to cool before freezing for best results.

Freeze ASAP

Before they get lost in the back of the fridge, freeze them. Allow the sausages to cool then pop them in the freezer asap so they don’t get wasted.

If you know what you want to make with them in the future, prepare them accordingly to make it even easier.

For example, slice or dice them if you know that is how you will need them.

I’ve found it is easier to prep as much as possible beforehand so on days I feel lazy, I can get out things that are either cooked or almost ready to go without much effort.

Create a Future Meal Plan

Meal planning saves so much money and reduces a lot of waste. When you have leftover sausages, work them into a future meal plan so they actually get used.

What do you do with leftover sausages?

Find more budget-friendly recipes and ideas to use up leftovers in 26 Ingredients.

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