Bangers and Mash with Onion Gravy
Good sausages, buttery mash and a proper onion gravy built from slow-caramelised onions and stock rather than a packet. Pub food at its most straightforward and satisfying.
Photograph credit: Bangers and mash - The Perkin Warbeck 2025-07-26 by Andy Li · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Don't Make These Mistakes
Buy the best sausages you can; with three ingredients on the plate there is nowhere to hide.
A ricer, not a masher. It is the single biggest upgrade to any mashed potato.
Warm the milk before adding it. Cold milk makes the mash claggy and dulls the butter.
Photograph credit: Bangers mash on old China plate on wooden table by Andrew McMillan · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Making Bangers and Mash with Onion Gravy
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Start the gravy first. Melt the butter with the oil in a wide pan, add the onions and sugar with a pinch of salt, and cook over medium-low heat for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring often, until deep golden and jammy.
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Stir in the flour and cook 2 minutes, then add the wine and reduce by half.
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Add the stock, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, thyme and salt. Simmer for 15 minutes until it coats a spoon. Keep warm.
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Meanwhile cook the sausages in a cold pan with the oil over medium-low heat for 15 to 18 minutes, turning regularly, until browned all over and cooked through.
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At the same time, boil the potatoes in well-salted water for 18 to 20 minutes until a knife meets no resistance.
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Drain and leave in the colander to steam-dry for 5 minutes — this is what stops the mash being watery.
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Pass the potatoes through a ricer back into the pan, then beat in the butter a little at a time, followed by the warm milk, salt and white pepper.
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Pile the mash onto warm plates, lay the sausages against it and pour the onion gravy generously over both.
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What's Going On Here
Onion gravy gets its depth from the sugars in onions caramelising over twenty-plus minutes; anything faster gives you onion-flavoured stock rather than gravy. Passing the potatoes through a ricer rather than mashing them avoids rupturing starch cells, which is what makes mash gluey.
Storage and Reheating
Refrigerate 3 days. Reheat the mash with a splash of milk; the gravy keeps 5 days and freezes 3 months.
Serving Bangers and Mash with Onion Gravy
- A pint of bitter or a glass of Merlot
- Serve with buttered peas or greens
- Finish with sticky toffee pudding
Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Braised Red Cabbage, Dairy-Free Scones, Fried Bread.
The Numbers per Serving
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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