Sausage Sweet Potato Cranberry Slow Cooker Casserole - AKA Fall in a Slow Cooker

I've been on a quest to find great slow cooker recipes.

I didn't envision that being a hard quest. Between my cookbooks, Pinterest, and browsing the internet I thought I'd have a plethora of recipes in no time.  

I was right about one thing - I did have a plethora of recipes. But I also learned a lesson.

Though there is a never-ending supply of recipes, there is a shortage of good recipes in my opinion. Especially if you want to keep things on the healthy side. I found many a recipe that called for cream of this and cream of that, or that were just a bunch of packaged foods dispensed into a slow cooker. Not to say that those recipes can't be good. They can even be great! But that wasn't the type of food I was looking to make. I just wanted to use whole, fresh, nutritious foods. After trying many recipes that were just okay, I finally found one, tweaked it, and came up with this delicious variation of the original. It fits all of the bills - tasty, healthy, short prep time, and budget friendly. Finally!

This dish is basically Fall in a slow cooker to me. Between the cider, cinnamon, apple, and cranberries, it's hard to get more Fall than this. Though I haven't tried it, this would probably taste great with some toasted pecans on top! You could also use some kind of squash in place of the sweet potato, but for us the potato was a better choice.

Sausage Sweet Potato Cranberry Casserole

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lb. sweet potato, peeled and cubed

1 lb. sausage, cooked and sliced -- I didn't have a pound and it was still good.

1 sweet onion, sliced

1 apple, sliced -- 2 might be a good idea.

1 cup fresh cranberries

1/2 cup cider

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

salt and pepper

Directions:

Cook sausage links on medium heat until well browned. They don't have to be cooked through since they will also spend a few hours in the crock pot. Set them aside to cool, then thinly slice. Place all of the sweet potatoes in the bottom of the slow cooker, then half of the sausage, onion, apple, and spices. Repeat the layers using up all of the ingredients, ending with the cranberries, spices, then cider. Set to low and cook for about 6 hours.

Original recipe found here

No, this is not what it looks like when it's done. I just didn't to get a picture of that : )

We really enjoyed this and I hope you will, too!