Easy Italian Sausage Bake with Potatoes (Tray Bake Recipe)

This Italian Sausage Bake is your answer for easy weeknight dinners! It's cosy, comforting and delicious, and so simple to prepare. A classic "Dump and Bake", sheetpan dinner, the great thing about this recipe is that you toss everything in the oven and half an hour later you have a beautifully rich dinner that the whole family will love. It's one. of those perfect weeknight dinners, any day of the week.

So what is this Italian Sausage Bake, exactly?

In this recipe, we'll add potato wedges to a baking tray (baking sheet) along with olive oil and chicken stock, and place in a hot oven, using the fan-forced grill setting at 220 C (425 F). This setting is super hot and will ensure our vegetables and sausages are cooked through in just half an hour, as well as adding some nice golden brown texture.

The chicken stock also has a role to play here. As well as providing beautiful flavour to our potatoes, the liquid will keep them moist and boil them while they are grilling, for perfectly cooked potatoes. The stock will then (along with our tomatoes) form our sauce for the final dish.

Once you've got the potatoes started in the hot oven, you then slice tomatoes, shallots (or red onion) and remove the skin from the Italian sausages. We make sure to remove the skin so that we can break up the sausage, and the cooked sausage will get a lovely crispy golden brown texture as the fat melts under the grill. It's wonderful.

Remove the baking tray from the oven, add tomatoes and shallots, top with broken-up sausage and return to the oven for another 25-30 mins, turning the sausages at the halfway point.

Once that's cooked, add baby spinach to the tray, mix through until it's wilted, then serve topped with feta cheese and lemon juice.

Ingredients you'll need to make this Italian Sausage Bake

The other amazing thing about this recipe is how simple it is. You only need 10 ingredients, and a lot of these you'll likely already have at home.

• 800 g White potatoes
• 1 tsp Chicken stock powder
• ½ cup water
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 500 g Italian-style Pork Sausages - use mild Italian sausage if making this for kids. Italian sausages contain fennel seeds, and so if this is too rich for your child you can also use another type of pork sausage.
• 4 Truss tomatoes or cherry tomatoes - alternatively you can use diced tomatoes or tomato sauce for pasta (marinara sauce).
• 2 Shallot
• 120 g Baby spinach
• 1 lemon
• ½ tsp Cracked black pepper
• 100 g Feta cheese (or parmesan cheese or pecorino romano).

See full details in the recipe card.

Substitutions and Add-ins

• If you eat a gluten-free diet, make sure you choose gluten-free Italian sausage links.
• If you eat a dairy-free diet, skip the feta cheese or use a dairy-free feta cheese substitute, or use dairy free shredded parmesan.
• Sausages - Italian sausages are fennel and pork sausages. I use a mild Italian sausage so this is suitable for the whole family, but if you want to add some heat, you can use a hot Italian sausage. Alternatively you can use other any kind of sausage like chicken sausages or even turkey sausage or a combination of sausage meats.
• Vegetables - you can swap shallots for red onion or yellow onion, and add any range of veggies that you want to use up, like capsicum (bell peppers), or even kale or celery.
• You can also add aromatics like garlic cloves, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, or fresh herbs you have on hand.
• To serve - I like this served as is, but you can also add penne pasta and make it a delicious pasta bake, or serve it with crusty bread, these are both great options.

How to make this Italian Sausage Bake

This easy meal is so simple, it's just a single sheet pan dinner. Follow these simple steps and you'll have dinner ready in no time.

Prep and Preheat

1. Preheat your oven to 220 C (425 degrees F) using the fan-forced grill setting.
2. Grab a baking tray.

Potato Preparation

1. Wash and slice large potatoes into wedges (cut in half, then slice into ½ cm pieces).
2. Arrange the potato slices on the baking tray.
3. Drizzle 2 tablespoon of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of chicken stock powder, and ½ cup of water over the potatoes.
4. Gently toss everything together for an even coating.
5. Place the tray on the middle rack and start baking.

Sausage and Tomato Mix

1. Slice the skin from 500 g of Italian-style pork sausage and remove it.
2. Quarter 4 truss tomatoes and peel and halve 2 shallots.
3. Add the tomatoes and shallots to the baking tray, giving everything a good mix.
4. Crumble the sausage over the top.
5. Put the tray back in the oven for 22-25 minutes, until the sausages turn crispy and golden.

Finishing Touches

1. When the timer goes off, add 120 g of baby spinach leaves to the tray. Mix until they're wilted.
2. As the tomatoes cook, they release juices that add flavor to the dish. Make sure to mix them well with the other ingredients to infuse their taste throughout.
3. To serve, sprinkle 100 g of crumbled feta cheese on top.
4. Squeeze the juice of 1 lemon over the dish.
5. Finish off with a sprinkle of ½ teaspoon of cracked black pepper.
6. Time to enjoy your delicious and easy dinner!

How to Store this Italian Sausage Bake

Store this Italian sausage bake in an airtight container. It can be reheated the next day, and even served on top of pasta.

Kid-Friendly Variations

This is a great dish for kids. You may wish to serve them potato, tomato, and sausage without the spinach if they don't like it, or add baby peas to their plate.

I've younger kids often find feta too strong, so if that's the case for your child, then don't serve it to them.

Equipment

You will need an oven and a deep baking tray.

More Tray Bake Recipes

Tray bakes are my go-to for the easiest dinner option - you place the entire thing in the oven and let it do all the work. They're brilliant if you want to spend less time cooking.

For more easy recipes, try my Easy Salmon Tray Bake Recipe which also features roast potato and feta. Or you could make my viral Chicken Bake with Mint Yoghurt and Burnt Paprika Butter - this was inspired by Turkish Eggs, and has a to-die-for paprika butter sauce. This Chicken, Mushroom and Olive Tray Bake uses chicken stock and polenta, which cooks right there in the tray.

Recipe