A quick and easy stew full of North African flavours, this delicious Moroccan Lamb Sausage and Chickpea Tagine is made with lamb sausages, cutting down the cooking time dramatically and making this a great way to enjoy a tagine on a busy weeknight.
If you follow my blog regularly, you will know I LOVE tagines and especially lamb tagines – they are one of my absolute favourite things to cook! For example my Lamb, Date and Butternut Squash Tagine or this delicious Lamb and Apricot Tagine.
The thing about a good lamb tagine or stew, is they do take a bit of time in the oven. Usually this is something I love, as I can quickly prep my tagine earlier in the day and get it into the oven, then leave the oven to do all the hard work whilst I get on with other things – it’s one of my favourite ways of cooking.
But sometimes I just don’t have that much time! So I came up with this lamb sausage version instead. Instead of taking an hour or two to chunter away in the oven, this quick and easy lamb sausage stew is ready in just 30 minutes, making it brilliant for busy nights when you haven’t got much time, but still want fabulous flavour packed food!
I have been working for a while now as a Lambassador with the ‘LAMB. Tasty Easy Fun’ campaign, creating and reviewing recipes and helping spread the word about how great lamb is.
I have shared lots of lovely lamb recipes using different cuts of lamb, for example: diced leg of lamb, lamb shanks, lamb mince and lamb chops…but I haven’t yet shared a recipe with lamb sausages. Lamb sausages are a little harder to track down than other cuts of lamb, but well worth it if you can find them! Lamb makes delicious sausages and, in fact, lamb is the meat most commonly found in the North African ‘merguez’ sausage.
I didn’t actually use merguez sausages in this tagine…(but you absolutely could if you wanted to – they would be delicious!) Instead I went to my local butcher, who just so happens to be an award winning sausage maker, and bought some delicious minty lamb sausages (He also does lamb sausages with rosemary and garlic, but I thought the minty ones would go best here.)
The minty lamb sausages worked a treat in this Moroccan style recipe and complemented the other North African flavours of cinnamon, cumin, paprika and chilli beautifully!
You could absolutely serve this stew with bulgur wheat or couscous, but I went for buttery mashed potatoes and it worked brilliantly – after all, you can’t get a much more comforting classic than mashed potato with a sausage stew! For a super simple one pot version, serve with flatbreads or pittas.
This spicy sausage tagine would go brilliantly with gutsy, rustic Southern French red wines such as Cotes du Rhone or Cotes du Roussillon. A Rioja would also be a great choice here.
Moroccan Lamb Sausage and Chickpea Tagine
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive or rapeseed oil
- 8 lamb sausages
- 2 onions sliced
- 1 red pepper sliced
- 3 cloves garlic crushed
- 1 stick cinnamon (or 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon)
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon chilli flakes
- 2 teaspoons ground paprika
- 400 g tin chopped tomatoes
- 6 stoneless dates finely chopped
- 400 g tin chickpeas don’t drain!
- Salt and pepper
- 2 tablespoons chopped coriander plus extra for garnish
- Mashed potatoes, couscous, bulgur wheat or flatbreads to serve.
Method
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Put the oil in a large pan and heat for 1 minute. Add the sausages and brown on all sides. Remove the sausages from the pan and set aside on a plate.
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Turn the heat down and add the onions and peppers to the pan. Cover with a lid and cook for 3 minutes until softened, but not brown. Stir occasionally.
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Remove the lid and add the garlic, cinnamon, cumin, chilli and paprika. Cook for 2 minutes. Add a splash of water if it gets too dry.
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Add the sausages back in, plus the chopped tomatoes, dates and chickpeas (including the chickpea water) and add salt and pepper to taste. Turn the heat up and bring to the boil then put the lid on and turn down low. Cook for 15 minutes stirring occasionally.
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When the tagine is ready, stir in the chopped coriander.
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Sprinkle over a little coriander for garnish and serve with mashed potatoes, couscous, bulgur wheat, flatbreads or pittas
Notes
Nutrition information is approximate and meant as a guideline only.
This is a collaborative post with the ‘LAMB. Tasty Easy Fun’ campaign. ‘LAMB. Tasty Easy Fun’ is an EU funded campaign which aims to increase the use of lamb in everyday cooking. Lamb is often considered difficult to cook, expensive, or something to be saved for Sunday roasts. The aim of the campaign is to demonstrate just how tasty, easy and fun lamb is to cook with every day of the week! They also have a wonderful website, full of tasty and easy lamb recipes that go way beyond the traditional roast lamb we all know and love.
Love Lamb? Check out my collection of Easy & Delicious Lamb Recipes
Want more delicious and hassle-free midweek meals? Find more here…
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Linkies
I am linking this up to Brilliant Blog Posts, Cook Blog Share, Free From Fridays, Recipe of the Week and Cook Once Eat Twice.
I love the look of this, rich and delicious!
Thanks Emily – it so is! And super quick and simple to make too 🙂 Eb x
This looks and sounds brilliant – I am constantly looking for interesting midweek meals the whole family will enjoy, that are also speedy! will definitely be bookmarking this one. Thank you!
Aw, thanks Ciara! If you need more midweek meal inspiration check out this post: 20 Delicious and Hassle Free Midweek Meal Ideas for loads more! And stay tuned…easy but delicious midweek meal ideas is what I do best! 😀 Eb x
Oooh yum! I recently read a different recipe that used either dates or prunes in a savoury dish, I never think to use them but must have a try! This sounds delicious! Thank you for sharing with #CookBlogShare x
Thanks Kirsty 🙂 Dates are amazing in tagines – you’ve got to try it! Eb x
I am glad that I am about to go out and eat as reading this has made me very hungry. I love tagines too and was gutted when my tagine dish that I brought back from Marrakech broke. Not that that has stopped me cooking them. just cant serve them in the pretty dish anymore. The idea of using Moroccan flavours with sausage for time savings is a great one I shall put this on my list of recipes to try.
Aw, thanks Jacqui – I still haven’t got myself a proper tagine dish, yet! I keep meaning to as it would look so pretty in the photos!! But that doesn’t stop me cooking them either. I usually make them in my cast iron pot, which is perfect for starting on the stove then going in the oven, but this one I just did in a regular pan on the stove top as it is so quick and easy! Eb x
YUM! love the idea of using lamb sausages, this would be fab to come home to after we’ve been on the allotment all day!
Thanks Midge 🙂 Yes this is the perfect sort of food to come back to after a long hard day somewhere…or a lovely country walk, maybe! Eb x
This is the stuff food dreams are made of. When I was pregnant with the twins I could NOT get enough lamb. Lamb and spinach.
Thanks Kristin 🙂 Pregnancy cravings are so weird aren’t they? At least you craved nice healthy food. I didn’t get to many cravings, but they were mostly unhealthy things! I mostly got it the other way and got food aversions…like I couldn’t stand peanut butter or bread that was more than about a day old! Eb x
It sounds delicious – I’m such a big fan of anything with North African flavours! I’ve realised reading this that although I’ve had Merguez I don’t think I’ve ever had any other lamb sausages! I definitely need to track some down. Thank you so much for sharing with #CookOnceEatTwice ! x
Thanks Corina – me too! Such fab flavours!! I think most people don’t eat lamb sausages very often, but I don’t know why – because they are lovely and such a quick and simple way of getting all the delicious flavours of lamb…I definitely think lamb sausages need to become more of a thing! Eb x
This sounds delicious. I’ve nerv tried Lamb sausages but I love the idea. #freefrmfridays
Thanks, Emma. Lamb sausages are fab. I have no idea why we don’t eat more of them in this country! They are well worth seeking out. Eb x