Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, you can make this lighter version of bangers ‘n mash at home, completely from scratch. This traditional dish from the British isles is comfort food at its finest, featuring rich homemade chicken sausages served over fluffy, buttery potatoes and slathered with a swoon-worthy onion gravy. Why are they called bangers, anyway? The name comes from World War II, when, due to meat shortages, sausages were often made with a higher-than-normal water content, and they would sometimes explode (bang!) when cooked over high heat. We didn’t have any exploding sausages in our batch, luckily, unless you count the explosion of flavor (har har).
We’ve used freshly ground chicken in place of the traditional ground pork for a lighter version that is by no means short on flavor. A mix of light and dark meats keeps the sausages moist, and a few slices of bacon add extra flavor and fat to ensure a tender sausage. That plus a whole lot of black pepper and other spices makes for an extremely flavorful sausage even without all the extra fat.
Why not just go buy sausages? Well, you could, but making your own sausages allows you to fine tune the recipe to your personal preferences. YOU control the meat quality and spice quantity. It’s a messy process, I’ll give you that, and you’ll definitely need a second pair of hands, but the result is well worth the effort. Speaking of effort… feel free to make double or even triple this recipe, as the sausages freeze beautifully for longer-term storage. If you’re going to go to the effort of making homemade sausages, making 9 or 18 or 32 really doesn’t take all that much more time, so you may as well make the most of it.
That gravy though (all the heart eyes here). Not to be confused with the Thanksgiving variety, onion gravy is another beast entirely. Don’t be surprised if you want to slather it on everything from now on. It falls somewhere between thanksgiving gravy and French onion soup, if that helps you visualize (er, sensualize?) it. Cook those onions low and slow and you will be greatly rewarded. This recipe was originally created in partnership with KitchenAid®. All opinions are my own.
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
