Ina Garten Just Shared a Simple Sheet-Pan Recipe from Her New Cookbook

If there's one thing all home cooks need, it's a simple recipe—preferably one that will make some leftovers for lunch the next day. That's why we were so excited when we heard about the premise for Ina Garten's forthcoming cookbook, Go-To Dinners. Garten has described the collection, which comes out October 25, as a group of "easy, make-ahead, prep-ahead, freeze-ahead and simply assembled recipes," which sounds like exactly what we need to make it through a busy fall.

To help us make it to her publishing day, Ina is sharing little previews of the recipes inside her book, and her latest post is a simple sheet-pan dinner we'd make any night of the week.

According to the Barefoot Contessa herself, this New York Times Cooking-inspired recipe for Hasselback Kielbasa is so easy, "it's almost not a recipe." You'll just need nine ingredients to copy this meal, plus pantry staples like salt, pepper and olive oil. To get cooking, gather together some yellow onions, a fennel bulb with the stalks removed, three bell peppers, minced garlic, fresh thyme, fennel seeds, fully cooked kielbasa, Dijon mustard and honey.

To give the veggies a head start in the oven, start by slicing up the onions, fennel and peppers, then toss those slices with the olive oil, garlic, thyme, fennel seeds and some salt and pepper. Put those seasoned veggies in a large roasting pan or sheet pan and roast them at 425°F for about 20 minutes, tossing them after 10 minutes.

While the veggies roast, start making the hasselback cuts in the kielbasa. Ina recommends aiming for slices about ¼-inch apart and cutting only about two-thirds of the way through. You can also go ahead and combine your Dijon mustard and honey in a small bowl. After the veggies have roasted for 20 minutes, just pull the thyme sprigs out of the mélange and place the sausages on top of the veggies. Brush the kielbasa with your honey-mustard mixture and roast the sausage and veggies for 30 minutes more, brushing on more of the mustard mixture every 10 minutes.

Serve up the rest of your honey mustard on the side when you dole out plates of charred veggies and sausage to all your dinner companions. Ina suggests adding one more sprinkle of salt to the veggies, but you can always opt for a little extra thyme or black pepper if you're trying to rein in your sodium intake.

Another fun sneak peek at Go-To Dinners is in the footnote of this preview recipe—Ina has some suggestions for a "two-fer," or ways to shake up your leftovers routine. (That's a huge must for Garten, who says she's never in the mood for plain ol' leftovers.) For this recipe, she recommends adding any leftover sausage to a batch of bean or pea soup, like her Tuscan White Bean Soup or our Split Pea Soup with Chorizo. If you end up with extra veggies, we'd recommend tossing them into a grilled cheese and serving it up with a cup of soup on the side, like our Sheet-Pan Tomato Soup, for instance.

You can pre-order Go-To Dinners from Amazon or from your local bookstore now, or even order a signed copy directly from Ina herself. No matter what, we're sure there will be plenty more quick and easy dinners worth making in the entertaining pro's latest collection.