Home made sausage rolls: worth the faff?

[MorrisZapp]

I've never made sausage rolls before but we've got friends coming round next weekend for drinks and a buffet. I quite fancied giving it a go, is it worth it? And if so, is there a simple and failsafe recipe/ method? I'm not a skilled cook as you can probably guess 😊

I prefer to use shortcrust pastry and I make my own. Much nicer than shop ones

It's no faff at all....so easy...pre made pastry sheets and I use the meat from sausages...just remove the skin. I particularly like using the flavoured sausages like apple or leek. You can add chutney, mustard or cheese too

Get thick Richmond sausages.

peel the skin off
use ready rolled puff pastry
egg wash

easy peasy

Homemade ones are amazing! I make these ones.

Delias homemade sausage rolls are a firm family favourite here. I make them quite a lot throughout the year but stop in about September so we all really look forward to them for Christmas 😂
The pastry is the only pastry I’ve been able to make successfully because it’s a piece of piss, grate the frozen stork into the flour, bit of salt and then I add a glass of water to, give it all a bit of a mix (first with a pallet knife and only going in with my hands when it looks less messy!) - I do make treble the recipe.
the sausage meat is equally easy, I blitz the onions and put them in a sieve for a bit so they aren’t so ‘wet’ but I’ve forgotten a few times and they’re still okay. Mix it in with the sausage meat. I don’t bother with the sage because I don’t like it.
Use tonnes of flour when assembling them, makes it all so so much easier.
Perfection, I might make some tomorrow 😋

Use ready rolled puff pastry
put the sausage meat into a bowl , use a fork to break it down a bit , add a couple tablespoons of water …. And … either brown sauce or ketchup , smoothish chutney
mix well
Then , this is the cunning part , use a piping bag and pipe the sausage meat along the pastry
Roll , glaze , decorate and cook as above

Yes, especially at this time of year.

Experiment with size - it’s quite easy to end up with huge sausage rolls which you may not want for your buffet. Make some big some small some middle and enjoy them all.

I agree with all of this, and for a hit of extra razzle dazzle I like to add some caramelised onion chutney alongside the sausage meat before wrapping the pastry.

I add some (Paxo) sage and onion stuffing to the (Tesco finest) sausage meat, but I'm going to try some of the suggestions here. They're so easy and much nicer than frozen.

I do like many others - ready made puff pastry, remove skins from sausages etc.
I do add some extra seasoning - black pepper, a tiny bit of mace.
I usually do half a batch just sausage, other half with a bit of cranberry sauce in!

Put some small cubes of apple in

Yes. Get the sausage meat and roll it in a bit of flour to stop it being sticky.

My Mum used to make her own shortcrust pastry. They were delicious.

If you have a local butcher, you can ask them for sausage meat. They'll put some of the mix to one side before making that week's sausages and there's no peeling the skin casing off ready made ones.

I make them - OK, that's overstating it - I assemble them quite a few times a year. Ready rolled puff pastry, sausage meat, brush with an egg wash and maybe top with nigella seeds or something.

My kids love them. They are so much better than shop bought. it's a 5 m inute job.

(keep a bowl of water to hand, it makes the job easier)

I normally dig a little channel into the sausage meat and add redcurrant jelly, it’s delicious 🙂

These taste amazing

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/chorizo-apple-sausage-rolls

I am a very basic cook.
I buy Sainsbury's rolled pastry, Sainsbury's Sausgaes, skin them and lay onto the pastry. Stick down pastry with egg wash, egg wash on top and scour it with a knife. Cut to size and bake.

Thinking of adding paxo now, how much do you add for a batch of 12?

I buy sausage meet from the local butcher ( their premium recipe) use bought puff pastry, either home made apple chutney or bought red onion chutney added to the pastry after rolling. Sausage meet rolled out and put on top of chutney. Delicious.

The butcher shop is the best place for sausage meat as you then have a choice of plain pork, Lincolnshire, Cumberland, Black pudding and perhaps their own special recipe sausage meat. But I'd be happy with shop-bought pastry.

I love a homemade sausage roll and agree with another poster that Caramelised red onion chutney is yummy in a pork sausage roll. Also theres some delicious Italian chicken chipolata sausages that work great too think they are the Heck ones. Enjoy op

Good luck op. When I make mine (with ready rolled pastry of course), I add a “liner” of slices of Parma ham under the sausage meat and a sprinkling of grated cheddar before rolling the pastry up and baking.

Get a trays of pigs in blankets that are everywhere now and get a packet of ready roll pastry. Cut pastry into strips and wrap round the pig in a blanket. In the oven till cooked.

I was just going to add about the Heck chicken Italia sausages, but see a PP has beaten me to it! I make sausage rolls with this as my son doesn’t eat pork. He says they’re lovely. I buy the chipolata ones, mash in a bowl and make the usual way. I’ve also made veggie ones, defrost Linda McCartney veggie sausages, add a little paxo, a drop of olive oil and a little water. Mash it up, and use instead of sausage meat.

But they were probably much cheaper than fancy butchers sausage rolls, and the pastry would have been nicer, being freshly cooked. Plus being streets ahead of ready made ones due to better quality sausages.

I've made them on occasion as I would never buy ready made as I can't stand pastry that's gone cold.

I put some out once when DSis and family came round and BIL said they were the nicest sausage rolls he'd ever had despite them being just normal ready made puff pastry and random finest level supermarket sausages. But his mind was blown a little when I said I'd made them because he wanted to know where I bought them. I think he genuinely didn't realise this was something that people made.

But to balance the above both their DC wouldn't eat them 'because they were not the same as Greggs'.