March – Sheet Pan Mushrooms, Spinach and Sausages

A sheet-pan dinner, also known as a traybake in other countries, is an easy and time saving option during the week. The NY Times cooking section had a recipe for sheet-pan roasted mushrooms and spinach and I wanted to…

1. add a protein and

2. compare the sheet pan to the air fryer

‘What would happen if I added the spinach for the last few minutes in the air fryer?’ I remembered seeing a recipe for sheet pan sausages and thought ‘What would happen if I added sausages to the mushrooms and spinach in the sheet pan?’

Hmm…It would be a one pan dinner. Something we all could use during the week. 

I am going to share this with the Fiesta Friday group party. It’s Fiesta Friday # 371 and I am the co-host with Angie. Come on over to read the other posts with creative recipes, craft or gardening ideas.

So, here it is from start to finish.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. cremini mushrooms (or any combination that looks interesting and wonderful), trimmed and sliced thickly
• 1 small onion, sliced into wedges
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped finely
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more as needed (I only used 1 tablespoon for the air fryer)
• 4 Italian sausages or any kind that are your favorite
• Kosher slat and freshly ground pepper
• 5-6 large handfuls of baby spinach – about 2 6-oz containers

Method:

1. In a large bowl toss the mushrooms, onion, garlic with the olive oil until everything is evenly coated

For the oven:

1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. Line a sheet pan with foil or parchment paper.
2. Spread the mushrooms and onion on the lined pan, nestle the sausages among them. After 10 minutes, turn the sausages over.
3. Roast for 20 minutes total.
4. Then add the spinach to the sheet pan (if not using sausages you may want to add a bit more oil to coat the spinach), tossing with the mushrooms and roast until wilted, about 5 more minutes total. Turn and toss the spinach and mushrooms after 3 minutes. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Note: we found that the sausages added enough additional oil that none was needed.

For the air fryer: 

1. Set the air fryer to 370 degrees F for 20 minutes (see my post about air fryer mushrooms here)
2. After 15 minutes add the spinach and toss to combine, you may need to add a spritz of olive oil.
3. After 3 minutes, toss again.

I didn’t use the sausages in the air fryer although there is no reason they wouldn’t work.

And here are the ones cooked on the sheet pan:

Both methods were easy and resulted in a delicious side dish or meal. My husband preferred the sheet pan dinner, he found the mushrooms meatier. I liked the slight crispness and lighter air fryer dinner. Without the sausages this would make a delicious vegetarian/vegan dinner, serve it with polenta or another starch. Leftover mushrooms and spinach made a lovely filling for an omelet.