Quick Prep Sausage and Sweet Potato Traybake

With the perfect balance of sweet and meaty rich flavours, this fabulous quick prep sausage and sweet potato traybake takes only a few minutes to prepare then can then be popped into the oven and virtually left until dinner time. It has the added benefit of containing a 3 of your 5 a day veg, so it’s healthy to boot!

This is one of my ‘quick prep oven recipes’; this means that although the total time to make this dish from start to finish is longer than many of my other recipes, the actual time you need to spend on the prep work is only a few short minutes. This means you can make it super fast then pop it in the oven and virtually leave it until it’s ready, freeing you up to spend your precious time on something else. Perfect!

I’d recommend spending a few moments reading the following for useful information and tips on making this quick prep sausage and sweet potato traybake. If you’d prefer though, skip to the middle of the page for step-by-step instructions or jump to the bottom for quick recipe.

Packed full of veg

This quick prep sausage and sweet potato traybake is quick and easy to prepare and it’s such a delicious crowd pleaser with the whole family. It contains a brilliant 3 whole portions of vegetables so you can get a lot of the way towards your 5 a day in only one serving. The vegetables used in this recipe complement the flavour of the sausages well and all of them are quick and easy to prepare – an essential quality in all of my recipes.

I’m a huge fan of sweet potatoes. They’re super healthy, very versatile and also add a gorgeous orange colour to your dish. Sweet potatoes also cook quicker than traditional white potatoes do, meaning your dinner is on the table much quicker than otherwise. For all of these reasons, I find they are the perfect vegetable to incorporate to this quick prep traybake.

Time saving tips

For this sausage and sweet potato traybake, I don’t bother peeling the sweet potatoes. Why? Yes you’ve guessed it – mainly to save on precious time. However, another important reason to put the veg peeler down is that keeping the skins on the sweet potatoes helps to enhance their nutritional benefits – unpeeled sweet potatoes contain a richer source of many nutrients compared with their peeled counterparts and also have a higher content of fiber; which many of us lack in our diet and could certainly benefit from eating more of.

Of course, if you aren’t a fan of sweet potato skins then feel free to peel them, but this will of course increase the total prep time for this traybake a little and reduce the nutritional benefits slightly.

In this quick prep sausage and sweet potato traybake, I actually use chipolatas rather than sausages. They’re thinner than normal sausages and I find when chopped into thirds, they tend to cook quicker and more evenly than their traditional, chunky sausage counterparts. It won’t make a huge difference though if you decide to use regular sausages instead in this traybake or if chipolatas aren’t readily available to you.

One final word on the garlic- as with many of my recipes, I fully advocate using pre-minced garlic in this recipe. Pre-minced garlic is readily available from many shops in jars and squeezy tubes and it tastes great. Personally, I just don’t see the point in spending precious time finely chopping up fresh garlic. Although I appreciate that many people prefer the fresh kind so if you’re happy to spend the extra prep time, feel free to do so.

It’s all about the flavour

One key ingredient in this sausage and sweet potato traybake is the balsamic vinegar. This is a really versatile ingredient and I use in in many of my recipes – such as my Mediterranean tuna pasta. It helps to add a rich sweetness to so many different types of recipe and I just love it.

Very importantly, I strongly recommend investing in a high quality balsamic vinegar. The best ones have a syrupy texture rather than the watery texture that cheaper ones have. Although the high quality varieties costs more, it’s definitely worth it for the improved flavour and because it’s so rich and tasty, you’ll find that you generally only need a small amount so one bottle should last quite some time.

Quick prep sausage and sweet potato traybake – step by step

Serves 3-4

STEP BY STEP METHOD

1) To get started, preheat your oven to 200c / 180c fan (400f / 350f fan)

2) Grab two large sweet potatoes. Importantly, these don’t need to be peeled (unless you really want to), however ensure they are nice and clean. This saves you on prep time but also increases the nutritional content of your sweet potatoes which is a plus. Then roughly chop each sweet potato into 2-3cm chunks. Place these in a large roasting tin.

3) Peel two medium sized red onions and chop each into 6-8 chunks. They’ll start to break apart a bit and that’s completely fine – some smaller and some larger chunks will add to the flavour and texture of the finished dish. Put these into the tin too.

4) Chop one large red bell pepper into 2-3cm chunks and place these in the tin along with the sweet potato chunks.

5) Grab 12 chipolatas (approx 375g / 13oz) – essentially, these are just thin sausages. Note you can use regular sausages if you’d prefer. Chop each of these into 3 chunks. No need to do one at a time – you can simply line up 6 at a time and chop through them with one slice. Place them in the tin with all the vegetables.

6) Mix together four rounded tablespoons of red pesto, 1 tablespoon blended olive oil (not the extra virgin kind as this isn’t so good for cooking), two tablespoons of good quality balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce and finally, two teaspoons of minced garlic (I use the pre-minced kind to save on valuable time) in a small bowl. Then pour this yummy sauce into the roasting tin with all the other ingredients.

7) Toss everything together to combine – you could use a couple of spoons for this or I just use my clean hands as it’s quicker (and more satisfying!)

8) Pop the roasting tin into the oven and cook it for 45-55 mins, turning everything once halfway through to ensure everything cooks nice and evenly.

9) Remove from the oven and portion out onto individual plates. Serve warm!