One Pan Roasted Squash, Apple, and Sausage Dinner
Fast family-friendly weeknight meals like this simple One Pan Roasted Squash, Apple and Sausage Dinner are so helpful to have on hand!
Table of contents
Why You’ll Love This One-Pan Squash, Apple and Sausage Dinner
At this time of year, sheet pan dinners, one pan meals and all-in-one recipes are my saving grace. Easy doesn’t mean they have to fall flat on flavor.
You all have been giving me lots of feedback that you agree! You loved my Roasted Potatoes with Apples, Sausage, and Maple Mustard Glaze and this One Pan Chicken, Squash and Mushrooms so much I came up with another variation today.
Trust me, you are going to LOVE the taste of this sausage sheet pan dinner! The sweet, savory and tart combination of maple, apple and squash paired with the rich Chicken Apple Sausage is unbeatable!
It is simple to prepare, but just needs a little trick of timing to get everything to perfect tenderness. The butternut squash gets roasted for a little bit, because it takes longer than everything else. After that, add in fresh kale, apples and sliced organic Chicken Apple Sausage to make it a complete meal.
Ingredient Notes
Chicken Apple Sausage
The lightly sweet flavor of chicken apple sausage is a great pairing with the squash, kale and apples. If you cannot find it, sub in sweet Italian chicken sausage or pork sausage. Breakfast sausage links also work and the spices in it are also good with this combo.
Apples
For the best texture look for crisp, sweet apples such as Ginger Gold, Honey Crisp, Mutsu or Gala. Hard apples such as Pink Lady, Jazz and Pinata are too firm to soften well. Softer apples such as Paula Reds or Macintosh are best suited for applesauce as they break down too much and get mushy. Read more about apple varieties for cooking in my apple guide.
Butternut Squash
You’ll need a small butternut squash about 1 1/2 to 2 pounds. You can also substitute cubed raw butternut squash found in the produce section in plastic trays wrapped in clear plastic. (You’ll need about 1 pound of prepared squash.)
Kale
To make this a complete meal we added in shredded fresh kale leaves. Curly, Russian or lacinato work equally well. Remove the ribs and then finely shred the leaves. Add them to a salad spinner to rinse well. Drain and spin dry.
For The Sauce
The sauce is a combination of 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar, 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup and 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard. If you cannot find sherry vinegar, red wine vinegar is a good substitute. And honey can be used in place of the maple.
How to Make This Sheet Pan Squash and Sausage Dinner
Step 1: Preheat oven and make sauce
Preheat oven to 425ºF. Shake vinegar, maple syrup and mustard in a small jar.
Step 2: Season and Roast squash
Meanwhile, toss squash, oil, smoked paprika, salt, nutmeg and pepper in a large bowl to coat. Spread out on a large rimmed baking sheet.
Transfer squash to the oven and roast 10 minutes.
Step 3: Add Kale, Sausage and Apples
Add apples, sausage and kale and toss to coat. Return to the oven and roast, stirring once or twice until the apples are softened and the squash is tender, about 18 to 22 minutes longer. Remove from the oven.
Step 4: Add Sauce and Serve
Drizzle the vinegar mixture over the roasted mixture and toss to coat. Serve immediately.
FAQs and Expert Tips
This sausage dinner is best enjoyed right away, but leftovers will keep in the fridge for up to three days. You can also meal prep this recipe by chopping the ingredients ahead of time. Store the squash separately and keep the sauce in a jar. Refrigerate up to two days.
Baby spinach can be used instead of the kale but only add it in the last minute or two of roasting.
Menu Pairing Ideas
For an easy fall appetizer, you could make this Pumpkin Pie Dip with apple slices.
This is pretty much a one pan meal recipe, but you could serve it with some Simple Skillet Green Beans if you want to fill out the plate with more veggies.
For dessert, you could make Pumpkin Pie with Chocolate Swirl, or if you are following a gluten-free diet you could make Gluten-free Apple Pie.
More Recipes To Try
Friends, I’m in love with the whole one-pan dinner concept! They’re so easy to make and clean up! So check out this Lemon Butter Chicken from Veggie Balance. It’s another awesome one-pan dinner featuring chicken. I also have been loving this sheet pan salmon dinner with Moroccan Spice and this Chicken Sheet Pan dinner with Broccoli and Honey Sriracha Sauce.
Cranberry Sausage Stuffing and this Apple, Cheddar and Sausage Breakfast Strata are two recipes to keep on hand for the holiday season.
For a lower carb dinner try this Spaghetti Squash with Turkey Sausage Ragu.
Thanks so much for reading! If you are new here, you may want to sign up for my email newsletter to get a free weekly menu plan and the latest recipes right to your inbox. If you make this recipe, please come back and leave a star rating and review. I would love to hear what you thought!
Happy Cooking! ~Katie
PrintOne Pan Roasted Squash, Apple and Sausage Dinner
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 9 cups 1x
Description
Fall means busier schedules, so this one pan roasted squash, apple and sausage dinner is a perfect fast family-friendly weeknight meal!
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
- 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup, dark or amber
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 1 medium-small butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks (1 1/2 to 2 pounds)
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- Freshly ground pepper, to taste
- 3 small apples, cored and cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
- 4 links chicken apple sausages, sliced
- 4 cups finely shredded kale
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425ºF. Shake vinegar, maple syrup and mustard in a small jar.
- Meanwhile, toss squash, oil, smoked paprika, salt, nutmeg and pepper in a large bowl to coat. Spread out on a large rimmed baking sheet. Transfer squash to the oven and roast 10 minutes.
- Add apples, sausage and kale and toss to coat. Return to the oven and roast, stirring once or twice until the apples are softened and the squash is tender, about 18 to 22 minutes longer. Remove from the oven.
- Drizzle the vinegar mixture over the roasted mixture and toss to coat. Serve immediately.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Main Course
- Method: Roasted
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 1/4 cups
- Calories: 365
- Sugar: 15 g
- Sodium: 905 mg
- Fat: 13 g
- Saturated Fat: 3 g
- Carbohydrates: 22 g
- Fiber: 3 g
- Protein: 13 g
Looking forward to making this for family, but I would like to substitute ground sausage to make it easier for little ones to enjoy. Do you think adding it in the beginning and spreading it on a sheet pan will cook it through and brown it enough, or would you brown it first and add it later in the baking process?
This was the most delicious fall meal recipe I’ve made yet, the flavors blended so well. I didn’t make any changes to the recipe it’s perfect as is
Oh my goodness! Actually “Goodness” is the perfect word to describe this dish! So happy to have found your blog Katie. Had never cooked with chicken sausage before, but found a pineapple/bacon flavored one and it was amazing. Bit of work man-handling and cutting the butternut squash (probably got too large of one) but thankfully had a super sharp knife to work with. The flavors were spot on and we devoured it. Great version of a healthy comfort food for fall! Thank you!
Love this review Jane and I am so so glad to have you here. Let me know what else you try!
Delicious! My wife and I both loved it, might try it with two granny smith apples (of the size I used) though…
Awesome dish! Didn’t have smoked paprika so I used 2:1 ratio of chili powder and cumin. This was a delicious, keeper recipe.
Love this recipe. I came into the possession of several butternut squash. I tried a couple of other recipes but they just didn’t impress me that much. This recipe is amazing. It’s also easy to modify. For instance, who has sherry vinegar in the pantry? I have rice wine, acai, pepper, apple, red wine and balsamic (probably more). I used red wine. I think spinach would also be a good modification. I used Kielbasa because it was what I had.
The unpeeled apples were fine maybe better than fine. I used MacIntosh apples. I know that they sauce well so I thought that they would add a stew like medium.
It was fantastic.
Hi Steven. I am so happy to hear you liked it so well. I love hearing about your modifications too. For someone who has such a well stocked vinegar selection I gotta give a shout out to sherry vinegar. It is honestly one of my favorites, especially with the flavors of the fall. If you do get some my maple sherry vinaigrette is insanely good. Like, want to drink it straight-good! haha! Here’s the link: https://www.healthyseasonalrecipes.com/maple-sherry-vinaigrette/ Anyway, love connecting with you about this recipe and so glad you reviewed it and left a star rating. It’s super helpful!
I made this recipe with a few tweaks. I browned the venison sausage first, mixed all the ingredients in a ziplock back with the liquid mixture, and used a cast iron skillet on the grill. The dinner turned out delicious. What a great garden to table recipe
That sounds like such a fun way to tweak this recipe. I love using my grill for everything at this time of year. Great idea!
so good and so easy! a perfect weeknight meal!
Oh I am so happy to hear you liked it! Thank you Caroline!
Perfect Fall dish! I googled butternut squash apples and sausage paleo and happy it led me here to your site. I’ve made a variety of recipes with these ingredients but I’m always looking for something new. Substituted/eliminated a few things since we are doing a round of whole30 and what I had on hand and still was great. I didn’t have sausage links so I had to dirty another pan brown some ground sausage. I will try again with the chicken apple sausage and roast all together- so easy. Love the ease of one pan and less fuss for busy week nights.
I am so happy to hear you found this recipe and it came out so well. Thank you Marta!
This was AWESOME! We will be making this again.
I had to do some substitutions because of what I had, but i think you would still recognize it. (Vegan sausage, butternut squash noodles, spinach instead of kale. And I threw in some walnuts — because walnuts. )
This is going to the potluck with me tomorrow — Yum!
Sounds amazing! Love the idea of adding walnuts too. Brilliant! I’ll definitely try that next time I make this. Thanks for coming back by to review Rebecca.
Loved this the first time I made it!! Can the recipe be modified ito use frozen butternut squash instead of fresh?
I think you can use frozen squash. It won’t brown as well but should taste great. Since it is already soft, you can start cooking it at the same time as the apples etc. They should all cook at about the same rate.
Love an easy one pan meal that is total comfort food! The warming flavors are just perfect for this season.
Thanks so much Jennifer!
This is my kind of one pan dinner! So perfect for a busy weeknight when you need something easy to make!
Thanks Lindsay!
Delicious! The sausage gave such marvelous flavor to this easy dinner!
Thanks so much Liz!
Should the apple be peeled as well?
You can peel the apple, but it is a little healthier to leave it on. If you don’t mind the texture- it’s totally fine to leave it on.