Pork · Slow cooker adaptation

Jamie Oliver Sausage Casserole (Slow Cooker)

Jamie Oliver's bonfire-night sausage casserole, with the Catherine wheel theatrics traded for slow cooker simplicity. Smoked paprika onion-and-bean ragu underneath, browned Cumberland sausages on top, six low hours.

R By Richard · Adapted from Jamie Oliver · Published 3 June 2026
👁 534.6k source views
⏱Prep 30 min
🍲Slow cook 6 hr (Low) / 3 hr (High)
🍽Serves 6
Jamie Oliver Sausage and Bean Ragu Casserole (Slow Cooker)

Source video by Jamie Oliver on YouTube. This recipe was adapted with strict source-fidelity rules and is marked for human review.

Jamie's bonfire-night casserole is built around a Catherine wheel of Cumberland and beef sausages cooked theatrically above a ragu in a wood oven. The slow cooker rebuild drops the Catherine wheel (it needs dry heat to crisp the casing) and turns the dish into something simpler: a smoked-paprika and chilli ragu of chickpeas, butter beans and fresh tomatoes laced with barbecue sauce, sausages browned hard on the hob first so they bring colour and crust, then sat on top of the ragu in the slow cooker for a long low cook. Butternut squash is roasted separately at 180°C (Jamie's instruction) and folded through at the end so it keeps its shape.

Slow cooker notes: Jamie's original is a wood-oven show piece: butternut squash chunks roast in the ragu while a Catherine wheel of sausages roasts directly on the bars above to drip fat into the sauce. None of that translates to a slow cooker. The slow cooker rebuild keeps Jamie's ragu (smoked paprika base, chickpeas, butter beans, tomatoes, barbecue sauce) and his sausage choice (Cumberland and a spiced beef), but the sausages are pan-browned and laid on top of the ragu for a long low cook, and the butternut is roasted in the oven at 180°C separately (so it stays in pieces) and folded through at the end. The Catherine wheel is omitted; the cross-section serving trick goes too.

Ingredients

Ragu
  • 2 onionsonions, peeled and quartered
  • 1 chillifresh red chilli, sliced, seeds in
  • 2 clovesgarlic cloves, finely sliced
  • 2 level tspsmoked paprika
  • 2 tbspextra virgin olive oil
  • fine salt and black pepper
  • 1 tin (400 g)chickpeas, with their juices
  • 1 tin (400 g)butter beans, drained
  • fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
  • water
  • 100 mlbarbecue sauce
  • fresh rosemary, sage and bay, a few sprigs each
Sausages
  • 4 sausagesCumberland sausages
  • 1 sausagebeef-spiced sausages
Squash
  • butternut squash, deseeded, cut into 2.5 cm chunks (skin on) (add late)
  • grated nutmeg (add late)

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160°C fan / gas 4. Tip the butternut squash onto a roasting tray, drizzle with a little olive oil, season with salt, pepper and a rasp of nutmeg, and roast for 30 minutes until tender and just colouring at the edges. Set aside.

    ~35 min

  2. Heat a wide dry pan over a medium-high heat. Add the quartered onions, sliced chilli and sliced garlic and let them char for a couple of minutes, then add the smoked paprika, salt, pepper and the 2 tbsp olive oil. Sweat for 5 minutes until softening and aromatic.

    ~7 min

  3. Tip in the chickpeas with their juices, the drained butter beans, the chopped fresh tomatoes, the rosemary, sage and bay, the 100 ml barbecue sauce, and 100 ml water. Stir together and bring to a gentle simmer.

    ~3 min

  4. Tip the ragu base into the slow cooker.

    ~1 min

  5. In the same pan, brown the Cumberland and beef-spiced sausages hard over a medium-high heat for 6 to 8 minutes, turning every 2 minutes, until coloured all over. They will not be cooked through; they finish in the slow cooker.

    ~8 min

  6. Sit the sausages on top of the ragu in the slow cooker, evenly spaced. Cover.

    ~1 min

  7. Cook on low for 6 hours, or high for 3 hours, until the sausages are cooked through and the ragu is thick and glossy.

    ~360 min

  8. In the last 30 minutes, gently fold the roasted butternut squash through the ragu, trying not to break the pieces. Replace the lid.

    ~30 min

  9. Serve on a platter with steamed greens or buttered cabbage, sausages on top of the ragu.

    ~2 min

Frequently asked

Where's the Catherine wheel?
Skipped. The Catherine wheel is a wood-oven showpiece: tied sausages roast directly on the oven bars above the ragu so the fat drips down. A slow cooker can't crisp a sausage; doing the same construction would give you a soggy ring. The browning-then-on-top approach gets you the colour and the crust without the theatre.
Can I do the squash in the slow cooker too?
You can drop it in raw at the start, but it will turn to mash by hour six. Roasting it separately at 180°C and folding through at the end keeps the cubes intact and adds the caramelised edges the original gets from the wood oven.
What barbecue sauce?
A smoky chipotle-leaning BBQ sauce shines. Bull's-Eye Original, Stokes Smoky Chipotle, or any supermarket sauce labelled smoked or hickory. Avoid sweet honey-BBQ types, the casserole is already sweet from the squash and tomatoes.
Extraction notes (transparency): Substantial adaptation, original is a theatrical wood-oven dish that does not slow-cook in the conventional sense. Stated quantities preserved: 2 onions, 1 chilli, 2 garlic cloves, 2 level tsp smoked paprika, 2 tbsp olive oil, 100 ml barbecue sauce, 4 Cumberland + 1 beef-spiced sausage. Butternut squash weight not stated. Fresh tomato weight not stated. Tin sizes for chickpeas and butter beans not stated; UK standard 400 g assumed. Fresh herbs (rosemary, sage, bay, nutmeg) used as a topping flourish in original; in the slow cooker version they go in the ragu.