A one-pot dish for a cold December evening. If you have time, caramelise the onions first — it adds a depth that makes everything else taste better. If you don't, it still works.

I stumbled across paprika sausages here in Andalucía — more like chipolatas than a British banger, but excellent in a braise. If you can't find them, chorizo works beautifully, or use ordinary pork sausages with a teaspoon of smoked paprika added to the pan. The dish doesn't care — it just needs something with fat and flavour.

Sausage and Chickpea Simmer – The Flexible Chef

Serves 4.

Sausage and Chickpea Simmer – Ingredients

• 500g sausages, sliced into large chunks
• 100g bacon lardons
• 400g jar chickpeas
• 2 onions, peeled and sliced
• 1 small red pepper, sliced and deseeded
• 1 large carrot, peeled and diced
• Garlic cloves, peeled, smashed and chopped — as many as you wish
• 400ml hot chicken stock
• Large glass red wine
• 2 plum tomatoes, diced
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon tomato purée
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• Dash or two of Worcestershire sauce
• 1 dried red chilli, crushed
• Handful flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• Black pepper
• Olive oil

Method

Heat a little olive oil in a large, deep-sided frying pan with a lid. Add the lardons and sausages and cook for around 10 minutes, turning the sausages occasionally, until nicely browned and the fat has rendered. Remove and cover loosely with foil.

In the same pan, add a little more oil and, when shimmering, add the onions. Reduce the heat and let them soften slowly. Add the carrots, tomatoes, pepper, and garlic. Shake the pan and cook for 5 minutes.

Add the crushed chilli and cook for one minute.

Return the sausages and lardons. Add the tomato purée and a good grind of black pepper. Add the red wine vinegar and stir gently. Add the mustard and stir again.

Pour in the stock, bring to a simmer, then cover and cook for 30 minutes.

Add the chickpeas, stir, cover, and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Finish with a generous splash of Worcestershire sauce, stir through, then scatter over the flat-leaf parsley.

This sausage and chickpea simmer recipe is part of my Pork Recipes — The Flexible Chef's Complete Collection and my Gut Health Recipes collection — real food from a rural Andalucían kitchen, built around fermented foods, high-fibre pulses, wholegrains and prebiotic-rich ingredients.

Find more recipes and food adventures here.

Wonky photos, proper food, genuine adventures — The Flexible Chef