Meat Dishes
Bangers and Mash with Onion Gravy
Good pork sausages browned slowly in the oven, served on buttery mashed potato and smothered in a rich onion gravy of slowly caramelised onions, thyme, a splash of red wine and beef stock.
- Serves 4
- Hands-on 30 min
- Cook 45 min
- Sausages 25–30 min at 190°C
- Gravy can be made a day ahead
- British
Method
Heat the oven to 190°C (fan 170°C, gas 5). Toss the sausages (650 g) with the oil (1 tbsp) in a roasting tin and roast for 25–30 minutes, turning once or twice, until browned all over and cooked through.
Meanwhile make the gravy. Melt the butter (25 g) in a wide pan, add the onions (3 onions), thyme (a little) and a pinch of salt, cover and cook gently for 10 minutes. Uncover, stir in the sugar (1 tsp) and cook for 15–20 minutes more, stirring often, until soft, sticky and deep golden.
Stir in the flour (1 tbsp) and cook for 1 minute. Add the wine (100 ml) and let it bubble for 1 minute, then gradually stir in the stock (400 ml). Add the mustard (1 tsp) and Worcestershire sauce (1 tsp) and simmer for 5–10 minutes, until thickened. Remove the thyme stalks and season.
For the mash, put the potatoes (1 kg) in a pan of cold salted water, bring to the boil and simmer for 15–20 minutes, until completely tender. Drain well and leave to steam-dry in the colander for 2 minutes.
Mash the potatoes, or press them through a ricer, then beat in the warm milk (100 ml) and butter (50 g) and season. Serve the sausages on the mash with plenty of onion gravy and peas or greens.
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Chef’s notes
- Cook sausages slowly rather than fast: high heat splits the skins before the middle is done. They are ready at 72°C in the centre.
- The onions need time. Rushing them gives a pale, sharp gravy rather than a sweet, brown one.
- A spoonful of the sausage fat and juices from the roasting tin stirred into the gravy adds a lot of flavour.
Why they are called bangers
Sausages and mashed potato had both been eaten in Britain for centuries before they became one dish. Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747) already serves sausages with potatoes, and the pairing became popular with working people during the Industrial Revolution because it was cheap and filling; it became a national staple during the First World War.
“Bangers” is recorded as a slang word for sausages by 1919. The usual explanation is that sausages made during the meat shortages of the First World War had so much water in them that they were liable to burst with a bang in the pan. In 2009 a survey commissioned by the television channel Good Food named bangers and mash Britain’s favourite comfort food.
Sources for these notes
For the history above.
How this recipe was developed
We compared the bangers and mash recipes on Allrecipes (with its onion gravy for British bangers) and on BBC Food (Donal Skehan’s, and Tom Kerridge’s with onion gravy).
- Slow-cooked onions. Allrecipes’ Onion Gravy for British Bangers and Mash (4.5/5 from 61 ratings) cooks three sliced onions in butter with red wine, Dijon mustard and Worcestershire sauce; we follow that pattern with beef stock.
- Thyme and mustard. Tom Kerridge’s BBC Food version (4.8/5 from 19 ratings) ties thyme into the onions and adds English mustard; we use thyme and Dijon.
- Oven-cooked sausages. We roast the sausages so they brown evenly while you make the gravy and mash.
- Plain buttery mash. Allrecipes’ Bangers and Mash (4.4/5 from 169 ratings) uses butter and milk; Donal Skehan (BBC Food) adds cabbage and spring onion for a colcannon-style mash.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 1 November 2026):
- Allrecipes (Lupin Pooter): Onion Gravy for British Bangers and Mash (4.5/5, 61 ratings)
- Allrecipes (AMANDA FAIR): Bangers and Mash (4.4/5, 169 ratings)
- BBC Food (Tom Kerridge): Bangers and sweet potato mash (4.8/5, 19 ratings)
- BBC Food (Donal Skehan): Bangers and mash (3.4/5, 10 ratings)
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.