Like Beer and Sausage? Roast Them Together With Peppers and Onions For an Easy Fall Dinner

I love sausages with beer. I love sausages with onions and peppers. And I love sausages with tangy pickles. Throw them all together in a roasting dish and you have a combination I love even more—it also just happens to be perfect for early fall. I came up with the idea for this easy recipe after visiting my local grocery store and finding Oktoberfest-inspired foods like fresh-made German-style garlic sausages on sale. I grabbed some, then thought about how to cook them.

I considered grilling them, but decided instead to roast them: Instead of getting charred and snappy like they do over the coals, oven-cooked sausages end up with a nice, evenly browned surface.

I wanted to roast them with some onions and peppers, but thought those vegetables would balance the rich porky sausages best if they were pickled first. To do that, I took a combination of onion, red bell pepper, and several smallish long peppers and submerged them in an quick brine of cider vinegar with sugar, mustard seeds, and lemon juice. I let them steep for at least four hours, so that's the only thing you'd have to get started a little early to have ready for dinner (you can also make them well in advance and hold them in the fridge until ready to use).

When I'm ready to cook the sausages, I drain the pickles (reserving the pickling liquid to spoon a tiny bit on top of the sausages when serving) and add them to a roasting pan with the sausages. Then I toss it all with a simple basting liquid made of beer, olive oil, and a touch of red wine vinegar and roast it all, basting the sausages occasionally with the pan juices, until the sausages are cooked.

Guess what this goes perfectly with. Yup, you got it: More beer.