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Sausage and Butter Bean Stew
Serves 4 Prep 10 min Cook 35 min Total 45 min Type Meal Origin British

Sausage and Butter Bean Stew

Pork sausages browned then simmered in a tomato-and-rosemary sauce with creamy butter beans. The fastest stew that tastes like it took all afternoon. Weeknight food at its most useful.

Serves 4 Prep 10 minutes Cook 35 minutes Units Rate

Overview

The British weeknight stew that takes twenty minutes start to finish and tastes like it took two hours. You brown decent sausages hard in a heavy casserole until they're caramelised on every side, then drop in onion, garlic and rosemary to soften in the rendered fat, then tip in a tin of tomatoes and a tin of butter beans. Twenty minutes on the hob, lid off, and the sauce thickens around the sausages while the beans soak up the smoky pork fat. Eaten straight from the pan with crusty bread to mop, a green salad on the side, no ceremony. The kind of dinner that gets cooked once and then again the next Wednesday.

Ingredients

  • 8 good-quality pork sausages
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 onion (sliced)
  • 3 garlic cloves (sliced)
  • 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary (chopped) or 1 teaspoon dried
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 1 tablespoon tomato purée
  • 400 g tinned chopped tomatoes
  • 800 g tins butter beans (drained and rinsed)
  • 200 ml chicken stock
  • 1 teaspoon brown sugar
  • salt
  • pepper
  • A handful of fresh parsley (chopped, to finish)

Method

Stage 1 - Brown the sausages

  1. Heat the oil in a heavy casserole over medium heat.
  2. Brown the sausages on all sides for 8-10 minutes (they don't need to cook through; they'll finish in the sauce).
  3. Lift out and set aside.

Stage 2 - Build the sauce

  1. In the same pan, cook the onion for 6-7 minutes until soft.
  2. Add the garlic, rosemary and smoked paprika; cook 1 minute.
  3. Stir in the tomato purée and cook another minute.
  4. Tip in the chopped tomatoes, butter beans, stock and sugar. Season.

Stage 3 - Simmer

  1. Cut each sausage into 3-4 chunks; return to the pan.
  2. Bring to a simmer, partially cover, and cook 20-25 minutes until the sausages are cooked through and the sauce has thickened.
  3. Taste for seasoning; scatter parsley on top.

Notes

  • Brown the sausages whole: Easier to handle and gets a better crust than chopped pieces. Cut into chunks once browned.
  • Smoked paprika is the flavour: A scant teaspoon shifts the dish from "sausages and beans" to "stew you want to make again".
  • Crusty bread to mop: This isn't a stew you serve over rice or pasta. Bread for the sauce.

Storage

  • Keeps 3 days refrigerated; the flavour deepens overnight.
  • Freezes 2 months.

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