A good homemade sausage roll is worth the small effort: flaky, all-butter pastry around a moist, properly seasoned filling, miles ahead of anything from a packet. This recipe uses shop-bought all-butter puff as the sensible everyday default, with a filling lifted by onion, sage, mustard and a little apple.
Two things make the difference. Keep the pastry cold right up to the moment it goes in the oven, so it puffs rather than slumps. And cook the pork right through to a piping hot centre, which is both the safe thing to do and the tastiest. Make them full-size for a proper snack or mini for a party.
Sausage Rolls Recipe: Flaky, Golden and Party-Ready
Makes About 12 full-size or 24 mini, plus 20 minutes chilling
Prep
25 min
Cook
25 min
Total
50 min
Makes
About 12 full-size or 24 mini, plus 20 minutes chilling
Ingredients
For the pastry
For the filling
To finish
Method
- 1
Soften the chopped onion in a little oil for 7 to 10 minutes until golden, then leave it to cool completely. Hot onion would melt the pastry.
- 2
In a bowl, combine the sausagemeat, cooled onion, breadcrumbs, sage, mustard, the apple if using, and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Mix until evenly bound, but don't overwork it.
- 3
Cut the pastry into long strips. Spoon or pipe the filling in a cylinder along one long edge of each strip, leaving a border. Brush the border with beaten egg, fold the pastry over the filling and press to seal, then crimp the seam with a fork. Sit the rolls seam-side down.
- 4
Cut each roll into pieces, about 6cm for full-size or 3 to 4cm for mini. Transfer to lined trays and chill for at least 20 minutes, as cold pastry puffs better and holds its shape.
- 5
Heat the oven to 200°C conventional (180°C fan, gas 6), preheating the trays if you can. Brush the tops with beaten egg, slash each roll diagonally to let steam out, and scatter with seeds.
- 6
Bake until deep golden and crisp, about 25 minutes for full-size or 12 to 15 minutes for mini.
- 7
Check the pork is cooked through: the centre should be piping hot with clear juices and no pink meat, which is a core temperature of 75°C. Return them to the oven if they are not there yet.
- 8
Cool on a rack for 10 minutes, as the filling stays scaldingly hot, then serve warm or cold with chutney or ketchup.
Cook’s notes
- Timings: about 25 minutes to make, 20 minutes chilling, then 12 to 25 minutes baking depending on size, plus cooling.
- All-butter puff gives the best flavour and rise. Keep it, and the assembled rolls, cold right up to baking.
- Sausagemeat and skinned quality sausages are interchangeable. Skinned sausages come pre-seasoned, so taste before adding much salt.
- The breadcrumbs, and the optional grated apple, keep the filling juicy and stop it turning dense.
- Egg-wash only the top surface, not the cut layered edges. Sealing the layers with egg stops them puffing.
- They freeze well raw: open-freeze on a tray, then bag. Bake from frozen, adding about 10 minutes and confirming the piping hot, 75°C centre.
What you’ll need
- 2 baking trays
- Baking parchment
- Rolling pin
- Sharp knife
- Pastry brush
- Fork, for crimping the seam
- Frying pan, for the onion
- Meat thermometer, the reliable way to check the centre is cooked
Troubleshooting
The bottoms come out soggy.
Preheat the tray and oven so the base sets fast, bake on baking paper without crowding, and move the rolls to a lower shelf for the last few minutes to crisp the base.
The pastry stays flat and does not puff.
The butter got warm. Chill the assembled rolls hard before baking and make sure the oven is fully up to temperature before they go in.
The rolls split open in the oven.
Always slash the tops to vent steam, sit them seam-side down, and press the fork-crimped seam firmly so it stays sealed. Chilling before baking helps the seal set.
There is a gap between the meat and the pastry.
The filling was packed with air or too dry. Fill evenly and firmly, and keep the meat moist with the breadcrumbs and a little grated apple so it lifts with the pastry rather than shrinking away.
The pastry is golden but the middle is raw.
The rolls are too thick or the oven too fierce. Cover them loosely with foil, drop the heat a little, and cook on until the centre is piping hot at 75°C with no pink.
More about sausage rolls
Pastry choice. Shop-bought all-butter puff, ready-rolled to save time, is the sensible everyday choice and what most UK cooks reach for. Homemade rough puff or full puff is a worthwhile step up for a special batch, but it is optional. The filling matters more than showing off the pastry, and an all-butter shop pastry beats a homemade one made with the wrong fat.
Seasoning the meat. Sausagemeat on its own is a little flat, so it pays to help it along. Fried and cooled onion, fresh herbs like sage or thyme, a little mustard, breadcrumbs and even a spoon of grated apple all lift the flavour and, just as importantly, keep the filling moist. If you use skinned quality sausages they are already seasoned, so go easy on the added salt.
Sausagemeat or skinned sausages. Both work and swap in for each other freely. Sausagemeat is a blank canvas you season yourself; skinned sausages are a quick, pre-seasoned shortcut. Buy the best pork you can either way, since the meat is the whole point.
Make-ahead and freezing. Sausage rolls freeze brilliantly. Freezing them raw and baking from frozen, adding about ten minutes, gives the freshest, flakiest result. You can also freeze them already baked and reheat until hot through. Either way, always confirm the centre is fully hot before serving.
Mini for parties. For a buffet or a Christmas spread, cut them small. A single batch gives twenty or more bite-size rolls that bake in around twelve to fifteen minutes, and chilling them before baking keeps them neat.
Cooking pork safely
Pork and sausages must be cooked right through and never served pink. The Food Standards Agency's guidance is to cook food so that harmful bacteria are killed, which for whole cuts and sausages means the centre reaching a core temperature of 75°C, or being piping hot all the way through with clear juices and no pink meat (FSA, food.gov.uk, guidance last checked July 2026). Sausage rolls hide their filling inside pastry, so the outside colouring up is not proof the middle is done. A meat thermometer pushed into the centre of the thickest roll is the reliable check, and if the pastry is browning before the filling is cooked, cover the tray loosely with foil, drop the temperature a little, and give them longer.
Frequently asked questions
Written by
UK Homesteading Team
Editorial team
The UK Homesteading editorial team, offering UK-specific, evidence-led guidance on growing, keeping, preserving and the law.
