One-Pan Chicken and Sausage Roast

This is definitely one of our favorite weeknight meals ever.  It comes to us by way of Nigella Lawson, and one of its best selling points (other than the amazing flavors and textures) is that you can throw everything in a ziploc bag the night before to marinate and then an hour or so before dinner just throw it all in a pan and walk away. The flavors that develop from the marinade while this is roasting are just heavenly. Be sure to fish out the lemon chunks before serving! Not fun to bite into one of those.

The original recipe made enough for an army, so I've adapted it for 2 or 3 people. You can use either bone-in or boneless chicken thighs, I've done both, but I think I like the bone-in best. Do not under any circumstances use chicken breasts. They will dry out with the lengthy cooking time.

As I mentioned above, this is one of our stand-by go-to weeknight meals, and we never ever tire of it.  Sometimes I change up the sausages and use a spinach/feta or a chicken apple sausage and they all work really well.  Roast up some little potatoes to go with it, maybe a salad and you've got the makings for one heck of a great meal.  The best part?  Hardly any cleanup giving you lots of time for another glass of wine.  Enjoy!

One-Pan Chicken and Sausage Roast
Printable Recipe

Recipe adapted from Nigella Lawson

1 large onion or 2 small onions
1/3 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 tablespoon dried sage
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 lemon
2lbs chicken thighs
3 sausages, cut into thirds*
2 tablespoons fresh sage leaves, chopped

Peel and cut the onion into eighths, and put into a freezer bag with the oil, mustard, dried sage, a good grinding of pepper, and Worcestershire sauce. Cut lemon in half, squeeze juice into bag, and then cut the halves into eighths and add them. Squidge everything around to mix (the mustard needs help to combine) and then add the chicken pieces. Leave to marinade in the refrigerator overnight, or for up to 2 days.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Allow the chicken to come to room temperature in its marinade.

Cut the sausages into thirds (if they're the long kind).  Arrange the chicken pieces in a roasting tin skin side up with the marinade, including all the bits and pieces, and tuck the sausages around them. Sprinkle the fresh sage leaves over the chicken and sausages and then put the tin into the oven to cook for 1 hour.  Turn the sausages over half way through to color them evenly.

I usually serve this with roasted potatoes, but found that you can't cook them in the same oven, the potatoes won't get crisp because of the steam from the roasting meat, so if you don't have 2 ovens, you might roast your potatoes after this comes out of the oven (keep the meat warm while the potatoes are cooking).

* If you are using turkey sausage, add them the last 20 minutes of the roast.  They don't have enough fat in them to keep them from drying out during the roast.  You might also wait and cut them up after roasting.

Enjoy!