Mix and Match Recipes: Roasted Sausages and Grapes
Mix and Match Recipes is a series on what we can achieve with our capsule pantry.
Executive summary: I don’t like turning on the oven in the warmer months, but it’s so cozy in the colder ones. This roasted dish yields such tasty results for such minimal effort and is one of my favorite recipes in my (fall/winter) meal rotation.
Here’s the last post of 2025 coming at ya! I’ll make it a quick one, because it’s a hectic time around here getting ready to head to the grandparents’ for winter break, preparing for our adults-only trip to Switzerland the week after Christmas, and (total surprise, even to us!) going through the process of selling our condo and buying a duplex in our neighborhood … more on that in the new year, I promise. So what I’m here to share today is one of the easiest recipes I have in my minimalist capsule pantry. I got it from Ina Garten’s book “Barefoot Contessa: Foolproof.” And it really is. There are only 5 ingredients:
Sausages (any kind you want to eat! I’ve made it with kielbasa, hot links, bratwurst, anything that catches my fancy at the store)
Grapes (green, red, any color of the grape rainbow)
Olive oil
Black pepper
Balsamic vinegar (I use a glaze from Trader Joe’s)
The recipe is 4 simple steps:
Spread everything out on a baking pan
Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with black pepper
Bake at somewhere around 400° F for 20-25 minutes, or until grapes are as soft (or firm) as you like
Remove from oven and drizzle with balsamic vinegar
This recipe is so easy and makes our place smell so good as it’s roasting.
I like to serve the dish with chewy, crusty bread, which is good for mopping up the juices. Sourdough is a good pick, but again, totally up to personal preference. Sometimes I pre-chop the sausage (if it came fully cooked), sometimes I throw it on the baking pan whole (if it’s raw). Using the oven feels “wrong” to me on hot days, lol, so this is more of a cool day comfort dish, but it’s one I make regularly for half the year. I’ve actually been meaning to write about it for a long time, but taking an appetizing photo is not easy (plus I keep forgetting to do so in the whirlwind of putting meals on the table for the family practically instantaneously every day). But I’ve finally remembered/managed, so happy holidays, happy new year, and off I go to sign a million more documents!