Description
This hearty Slow Cooker Sausage & Butter Bean Casserole is perfect for lazy autumn suppers, served with lots of crusty bread and a generous sprinkling of flat leaf parsley.
Ingredients
Scale
- 1/2 tbsp light oil
- 4 good quality pork sausages
- 100g (3.5 oz) smoked bacon lardons
- 1 brown onion
- 1 celery stick
- 1 large garlic clove
- 1/2 tbsp sweet smoked paprika
- 6–8 thyme sprigs
- 100ml (1/3 cup) white wine
- 100ml (1/3 cup) chicken stock (made with 1/2 a stock cube if you don’t have fresh)
- 1 x 220g (7.5 oz) small tin chopped tomatoes
- 1 x 400g (14 oz) tin butter beans, drained
- 1/2 tbsp golden caster sugar
- 1/2 tbsp sherry vinegar
- freshly ground sea salt and black pepper
- small handful roughly chopped flat leaf parsley, for serving
- crusty bread, for serving
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium high heat. Alternatively, if you have a sear-and-stew model slow cooker, simply heat the oil in the metal insert. Add the sausages and cook for 5 minutes or so until well browned. Remove from the pan and set aside.
- Meanwhile, peel and finely chop the onion along with the celery stick. Add these to the pan once the sausages have been removed along with the lardons a generous pinch or few grinds of salt. Cook for 8-10 minutes or so until the vegetables are soft, frying rather than sweating, and the lardons have started to brown.
- Stir in the paprika, the garlic clove, peeled and then grated or crushed, and the thyme sprigs. Cook for a further minute until aromatic. Add the wine, and allow that to reduce by 1/2.
- Transfer the cooked vegetables to the slow cooker or simply remove the insert from the heat. Return the sausages and stir in the chicken stock, chopped tomatoes, the butter beans, sugar and sherry vinegar. Season well with salt and pepper before setting to cook for 6 hours on low or 3 hours on high.
- Check the seasoning and fish out the thyme sprigs before serving in two warm bowls, sprinkled with parsley and served with crusty bread on the side.