Slimming World Quick & Easy Sausage & Lentil One Pot Meal

This quick Slimming World dinner, using a pouch of lentils, is a great way to add lots of flavour to lots of lovely speed veg. A healthy family meal, ready in under an hour.

On cold winter days I crave big hearty dinners with lots of flavour and minimal effort.

I also find when I’m following a diet like Slimming world, its especially important for me to think ahead. Otherwise, I end up picking at the kid’s dinner, or using up syns on snacks, while its cooking.

I love that you can still have sausages on plan and I do like the Iceland ones, they certainly fill me up. But if you’ve had them, you’ll know what I mean when I say they can be a bit hard going after a while. They are pretty dense!!  So, I find if they are cooked in a sauce like this one, it lightens them up and turns them into a full meal with plenty of speed food thrown in.

I first made this just using up the veg I had in the fridge. But, the stand out flavour that really cuts through the intensity of the sausages, is the fennel. So, although I sometimes substitute some of the other veg, I try to always include that.

Ingredients

• Frylight
• 8 Slimming World sausages
• 1 Onion
• One bulb of fennel
• 3 Carrots
• A pouch of ready to eat lentils ( I use Jamie Oliver Lovely Lentils)
• Chicken stock pot or cube
• 4 Sweet Potatoes

Method

• Pop the sausages under a medium grill for 10 mins turning regularly, then set aside.
• Preheat the oven to 180, prick and bake the potatos for 40 minutes, or till soft.

• Next prepare the veg. Cut the onion into thin slices and chop up the carrots and fennel into bite size pieces.
• Pop a few sprays of frylight in the a large pan, over a low heat and add the veg. Fry for around 5 minutes. The onion should now be translucent and the veg starting to soften.
• Add the sausages to the pan, along with the pouch of ready lentils and stir through.
• Make up the stock pot with 500ml of boiling water and stir into the casserole.
• Bring the pan up to the boil and then turn down to a gentle simmer for around 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  While the sausages and veg cook through, the base will reduce down to a thick sauce.  Keep an eye on it and if the sauce gets too thick add a bit more water.
• Once the sauce is a nice consistency, season to taste and pour over a cooked sweet potato. (Or if you are having a speed day, its filling enough to serve on its own.
  

Leftovers

As my kids are pretty fussy, especially if a meal has lots of different things in a sauce, although the recipe is for 4, I tend to make this for my husband and myself, and keep the rest for later in the week. When packing it up, I splash a bit of water in the leftovers, so this can cook down. To reheat, simply pop back on the hob over a low  heat, till everything is warmed through and the sausages are piping hot when you cut into one. If a lighter side is needed, a din tai fung cucumber recipe adds a fresh, crisp touch to the meal. 

If you do use fresh sausages instead of the Iceland ones, it also means you can freeze up portions for a later date. Just take out the night before to defrost and then pop in the oven for around 30 minutes or until hot through.

I normally make this using the Iceland Slimming World range of sausages, but I have also used the Aldi Skinny sausage range, these are 1.5 syns each and they work really well too.