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Classic Puff Pastry Pork Sausage Rolls
Classic puff pastry pork sausage rolls are crisp, golden, and wonderfully savoury, with seasoned pork sausage meat wrapped in flaky pastry and baked until beautifully browned. They’re simple to make, easy to prepare ahead, and always disappear quickly whether they’re served warm from the oven or packed up for later. Perfect for parties, picnics, lunches, or an easy snack, they’re one of those reliable recipes that never really goes out of style.
Classic Sausage Rolls
These super simple sausage rolls are one of my easiest and most crowd-pleasing recipes. Buttery puff pastry wrapped around herby sausage meat, baked until golden and crisp – they’re perfect for parties, lunchboxes, or just because. I love how quick they are to throw together with minimal prep and maximum flavour. Whether you serve them hot or cold, with sauce or without, they’re always a hit in my house and never last long.
Ingredients
Sausage Filling
- 550g pork sausage mince
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1 small brown onion, finely diced
- 1 egg
- 50g fresh bread, blitzed into breadcrumbs
- 1 tsp dried mixed herbs
- 1/2 tsp garlic salt
- Salt and pepper, to season
Pastry
- 500g puff pastry (see notes)
- 1 egg, beaten
- Nigella seeds, to sprinkle
Instructions
Sausage Filling
- Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Cook the onion until soft and golden, about 5-10 minutes. Set aside to cool.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix together the pork sausage mince, breadcrumbs, dried mixed herbs, garlic salt, egg, salt, and pepper until well combined.
- Stir through the cooled onions, then cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes to let the flavours develop.
Making the Sausage Rolls
- Preheat oven to 190°C (fan) or 210°C (conventional). Lightly grease a baking tray.
- Unroll the pastry onto a dry work surface.
- About 1 1/2 inches from the left edge, add a strip of sausage filling about 1 inch thick and 1/2 inch high along the length of the pastry.
- Fold the excess pastry over the sausage filling and brush with beaten egg.
- Fold the entire roll over to cover the sausage filling completely and press gently to seal.
- Use a sharp knife to separate the roll from the remaining pastry. Repeat until all the sausage filling is used.
- Brush the sausage rolls generously with beaten egg, then cut each roll into bite-sized pieces with a sharp knife.
- Sprinkle with Nigella seeds and transfer to the prepared baking tray.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until deeply golden brown.
- Transfer to a cooling rack and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.
Notes
- Pork sausage rolls are a British classic and one of the great party foods. Simple, satisfying, and impossible to stop eating.
- Cooking the onions until properly golden before adding them to the filling adds a sweet, caramelised depth that raw onion simply can't give you. Don't rush this step.
- Chilling the filling for 30 minutes helps it firm up and makes it much easier to handle when rolling. It also gives the flavours time to meld together.
- Fresh breadcrumbs made from blitzed bread give the filling a lighter, more tender texture than dried breadcrumbs. Stale bread works best as it's drier and blitzes more easily.
- Always check the instructions on your puff pastry. Different brands have different recommendations for temperature and cooking time, and following the guidance on the packet alongside this recipe will give you the best result. You may need to adjust the oven temperature by 10-20°C or add a few extra minutes depending on the brand you're using.
- Keep the pastry cold right up until you're ready to use it. Warm pastry is sticky, difficult to work with, and won't puff up as well in the oven.
- Brush the egg wash generously and evenly for a deep, glossy golden finish. Don't let it pool in the folds or it'll burn before the pastry is cooked through.
- Nigella seeds add a subtle oniony, slightly bitter flavour and look beautiful on top. Sesame seeds work well as a substitute.
- I use this heavy baking tray for sausage rolls. It conducts the heat evenly and gives you a crisp bottom without burning.
- These are best eaten warm, about 10-15 minutes out of the oven. The pastry is at its flakiest and the filling is perfectly juicy.
- Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. Reheat in the oven at 180°C (conventional) or 160°C (fan) for 8-10 minutes to crisp the pastry back up. Don't microwave them or the pastry will go soggy.
- You can freeze unbaked sausage rolls on a tray until solid, then transfer to a freezer bag and freeze for up to 2 months. Bake from frozen at 190°C (conventional) or 170°C (fan) for 25-30 minutes, or until golden and cooked through.
What I Cook With
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Nutrition Information:
Yield:
24Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 222Total Fat: 16gSaturated Fat: 4gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 11gCholesterol: 39mgSodium: 295mgCarbohydrates: 12gFiber: 0gSugar: 1gProtein: 8g
Please note, this nutrition information is to be used as a guide only. Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.
Serve this with
- Serve with my Tomato Relish for dipping. Its sweet, tangy flavour cuts through the rich pork filling and buttery puff pastry beautifully, making it a natural match for warm sausage rolls.
- Pair with my Homemade Barbecue Sauce for a classic party-food option. The smoky sweetness works brilliantly with savoury pork and crisp pastry, especially when served straight from the oven.
- Add my Puff Pastry Pizza Scrolls for an easy party spread. Both are brilliant finger foods, easy to make ahead, and perfect served with bowls of tomato relish and barbecue sauce for dipping.
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Classic Sausage Rolls recipe
A Family Favourite with Heart
Who doesn’t love a sausage roll? The answer is nobody, that’s who. Super Simple Sausage Rolls are exactly what they sound like – easy to whip up, no fuss, and always a hit. These flaky, golden parcels of savoury goodness have followed me through countless celebrations, work lunches, and afternoon snacks. And now, here we are. It’s 2020 and I’m bringing this family favourite to the blog after ending 2019 with a big old Hogmanay bash in Scotland. What a year it was – full of weddings, chaos, and all kinds of emotion. So when Lorna opened her home for a New Year celebration, I knew I had to bring a touch of Aussie with me, and that meant one thing: sausage rolls.
Hogmanay in Scotland is a whole different beast to the New Year’s Eve I grew up with in Australia. Back home, it was more about beach cricket, BBQs, and maybe a smooch at midnight. But here, it’s a real celebration. There’s tradition, there’s depth, and it’s all about being with the people who matter most. Still, one tradition I refuse to let go of is never turning up empty-handed. That’s an Aussie rule my mum drilled into me, and it’s one I’m happy to pass on. So, sausage rolls it was! Wrapped up in puff pastry, golden and warm from the oven, they hit the table and vanished within minutes. As they should.
I grew up in a family that entertained often. We always had something on – a birthday, a barbecue, a get-together just because. If we weren’t hosting, we were the guests, and my mum’s sausage rolls were legendary – people genuinely looked forward to them. I still remember standing on a chair at the kitchen bench, tiny hands mashing together sausage meat and breadcrumbs while Mum rolled out the pastry. That’s how you learn – watching, doing, tasting. Over the years, I’ve made these rolls my own, with a few tweaks and updates, but they’re still packed with just as much love.
From Mum’s Kitchen to Mine
I think part of why I love these sausage rolls so much is because they remind me of my mum. She was the kind of cook who didn’t just feed people, she nourished them. There’s a difference, you know? I never really appreciated that until I got older. It wasn’t just food, it was care. Warmth. A sense of being looked after. And in our house, sausage rolls were the edible version of that. When Mum made them, it meant people were coming over. Or it was Christmas. Or simply just because.
These days, whenever there’s a party, a barbecue, or some kind of special event at work, I end up making a batch of my sausage rolls. It’s become a bit of a thing. They’re easy, they’re loved, and honestly, they always get snapped up first. I remember once taking them into work, and one of the guys handed me a tenner on the spot and asked if I could make him a personal stash. Given he was my Work Husband, I had absolutely no qualms – I took the tenner, made the sausage rolls, and earned myself the title of Office Legend for the week.
It’s funny how the foods we grow up with become our go-tos as adults. These sausage rolls are my default setting. They’re the thing I make when I want to show up with something homemade, something warm, something that feels like a hug in pastry form. And let’s be honest – even if the party’s average, a good sausage roll can turn things around.
Update from 2025
Well, hasn’t life changed a bit since I first posted this recipe! It’s July 2025, and I’m sitting here in my beautiful home in Adelaide on a grey, rainy winter’s day – and yep, I’m still making sausage rolls. Some things really do stand the test of time. These days I make them for my bestie’s basketball team on a Saturday – usually just because I feel like it. He’s my ex-boyfriend, but also my best friend, and what can I say? Food is the way to a man’s heart. Plus, it’s a lot harder to stay cranky at someone when your mouth’s full of pastry.
Now, let’s talk about the Scottish husband and that picture-perfect family life I mentioned earlier. When I first shared this recipe, I was secretly planning to leave him in April 2020, when he was away at a conference. I’d had enough. The constant anxiety, the mental gymnastics, the physical abuse, the way it was eating away at me. I had it all worked out, and then, well… covid. Lockdowns. Borders closed. Plans scrapped. I held on far longer than I wanted, but in early 2022, I finally did it. I left and came home to Australia and found myself again. The divorce was final in 2023, and honestly, I’ve never looked back.
So here I am, three years post-escape, living a quieter life but one that feels like mine. It’s not perfect, but it’s peaceful. And these sausage rolls? They’re still bringing joy. Still turning up at parties, work events, and basketball courts. Still wrapped in flaky pastry and filled with a little bit of heart – just like always.
Frequently asked questions
Why cook the onion before adding it to the filling? Raw onion in a sausage roll filling stays sharp and has an unpleasant raw texture in the finished roll. Cooking it until properly soft and golden first adds a sweet, caramelised depth that makes the filling taste considerably more developed. Let it cool completely before mixing it through or it will start cooking the egg when they meet.
Why does the filling need to chill for 30 minutes? Chilling firms the filling so it holds its shape when rolling and cutting rather than squishing out the sides of the pastry. It also gives the herbs and seasoning time to meld into the mince rather than sitting as separate flavours in the finished roll.
Does the puff pastry brand matter? More than you’d expect. Different brands have different recommendations for oven temperature and cooking time, and following the guidance on the packet alongside this recipe will give you the best result. You may need to adjust the temperature by ten to twenty degrees or add a few extra minutes depending on what you’re using.
Ingredient breakdown
Pork sausage mince
The filling base and the classic choice for a British sausage roll. Pork mince has a natural sweetness and a higher fat content than beef that keeps the filling juicy and tender during baking. Don’t overwork it when mixing because overworking develops the proteins and makes the filling dense rather than tender and juicy.
Olive oil
Just enough to cook the onion until soft and golden before it goes into the filling. A small amount is all it takes.
Brown onion
Cooked until properly soft and golden before it goes into the filling, adding a sweet, caramelised depth that raw onion can’t provide. Cool it completely before mixing through so it doesn’t start cooking the egg on contact.
Egg
Goes into the filling as a binder, holding everything together so the filling slices cleanly and holds its shape inside the pastry during baking. A second egg, beaten, becomes the egg wash that goes over the outside of the pastry for that deeply golden, glossy finish.
Fresh breadcrumbs
Made from blitzed fresh or stale bread rather than dried breadcrumbs from a packet, giving the filling a lighter, more tender texture. Stale bread is slightly drier and blitzes more easily, but either works. The breadcrumbs absorb moisture from the egg and help the filling hold together during rolling and cutting.
Dried mixed herbs and garlic salt
The seasoning base of the filling, distributed evenly through the mince during mixing. Dried mixed herbs suit the classic, straightforward character of a pork sausage roll well and give it that familiar, comforting flavour. Garlic salt does the double job of seasoning and flavouring in one.
Puff pastry
Kept cold right up until you’re ready to use it. Warm pastry is sticky, difficult to work with, and won’t puff up properly in the oven. Shop-bought puff pastry is completely fine. Check the packet instructions alongside this recipe because brands vary in their temperature and timing recommendations and adjustments may be needed.
Egg wash
Brushed generously and evenly over the assembled rolls before baking, producing the deeply golden, glossy finish that makes a proper sausage roll look as good as it tastes. Don’t let it pool in the folds where it will burn before the pastry is cooked through.
Nigella seeds
Sprinkled over the egg-washed rolls before baking, adding a subtle oniony, slightly bitter flavour and a visual finish that lifts these above a plain pastry roll. Sesame seeds work as a substitute if nigella isn’t available.
I love sausage rolls but have never actually made them myself. Yours look first class. Def want to give them a whirl.
You can’t go wrong with sausage and bread together. Love how simple this recipe is!
Putting this on my to do list for next week! Love how easy this recipe is!
This is the perfect, filling meal for brunch. The onion does add a flavor that sets it apart!
What really takes these over the top for me is the sage. It pairs perfectly with flaky pastry and sausage.