01One pan, one oven, almost no decisions
Fennel and sausage is one of those pairings that feels like someone did the thinking for you. The anise sweetness of the bulb pulls the fat out of the sausage; the pork seasons the fennel as it slumps and caramelises; the whole pan looks after itself while you do something else. It's a proper weeknight traybake — not a shortcut dressed up, but a genuinely good dinner that happens to require minimal effort.
Start with two large fennel bulbs and a pack of good pork sausages — six to eight, whatever the pack holds. Cut the fennel into thick wedges, roughly six per bulb, keeping a bit of the core intact so the layers don't fall apart in the oven. Tear or slice a red onion into similarly large pieces. Toss everything together in the pan with olive oil, a generous pinch of salt, a pinch of chilli flakes, and a few unpeeled garlic cloves, which will soften to a paste you can squeeze out later. Nestle the sausages in among the vegetables rather than on top — contact with the pan gives them colour on the underside while the juices pool around the fennel.
Roast at 200 °C fan for around 35 to 40 minutes. Check at 20: the fennel edges should be beginning to char and the sausage skins tightening. If the pan looks dry, a small splash of white wine or water loosens it and creates more of the sticky fond that makes everything taste as if it took longer than it did. Rotate the pan if your oven has hot spots, then leave it alone.
Pull the fronds from the fennel tops before you start and set them aside — they wilt in the oven but are exactly right scattered over the finished dish. A squeeze of lemon over the pan just before serving cuts through the fat and brightens the fennel's sweetness without tasting like lemon. Decent bread to mop the pan juices is the only other thing you need.
A couple of variations that work well: swap half the fennel for wedges of apple in autumn, which collapse into a sweet-sharp sauce around the sausages. Or add a tin of drained white beans to the pan for the final fifteen minutes — they soak up the cooking juices and turn glossy and substantial without any extra work.
The pan comes out looking like you planned it. The fennel will be golden at the edges and soft in the middle. The sausages will be done. That's the whole thing.
Tear or slice a red onion into similarly large pieces.