Cooking with John - Sausage Rolls

John McCollum's Sausage Rolls with redcurrants pictured - a delicious Christmassy treat!

Sausage Rolls

Sausage rolls are great finger food - so perfect for the Christmas period.  Usually they are made with sausage meat which you buy direct from your local butcher.  As that’s a bit harder here (though you could just buy the sausages and remove the filling from the casings) an easy alternative is to make your own sausage meat.

Ingredients

• Pastry (homemade as per link or store bought), preferably puff pastry.

• A medium onion

• 50 grams bacon

• Celery

• Garlic

• Breadcrumbs

• 400g pork mince

• Cummin, sage (whatever other herbs and spices you would like to add)

• 2 eggs (one for the filling and one for the egg wash If you opt for it)

• Optional – half a cup of redcurrants or some other Christmassy fruit

Filling

First fry up the diced onion, 50 grams of diced bacon, half a cup of chopped celery and a couple of cloves of garlic.  Let cool.

Mix this with the minced meat, a cup of breadcrumbs some ground spices (I’ve used cummin, sage and fennel), an egg, a pinch of salt and pepper and whatever else you want to add.  For a Christmassy feel I’ve added half a cup of redcurrants that I softened on the hob in a little water and sugar, just use a little sugar as you don’t want it too sweet.  Full disclosure, this was partly Christmassy and partly to use them up as they were taking up space in the freezer. 

Pastry

Here is a link to an easy puff pastry recipe which will give you flaky buttery pastry for your sausage roll - Easy Puff Pastry Recipe.

You can also buy pastry and although I think puff pastry is best you can use any savoury pastry.

Assembly

Roll out the pastry to approx 2mm thick and trim the edges into a rectangle roughly 30cm by 10cm.  Spread the filling in the middle, moisten the upper side of the bottom edge of the pasty with a little water, fold the pasty over the filling and press the edges together.  You can add indentations using the back side of a fork along the edge.  Make slits on top and portion to your preferred size.

Brush the tops with an egg wash (a beaten egg with a little milk) for a glossy finish.

Cooking

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6 and cook for about 20 minutes.  The pastry should be golden and crisp.

If you want to make sure your sausage rolls are ready to eat using a meat thermometer the internal temperature should reach at least 74°C.

You can play around with the shape and size (if you are making them larger in circumference you may need more cooking time) and experiment with the fillings.  I have successfully added ginger, black pudding, blackcurrants and dates, though not all at once.

—John McCollum, November 2025