Getting creative with lunch ideas is as much about advanced planning as it is about actual ideas in the first place.

I love a leftover that can be repurposed into a new dish, so when I made Sausage & Mash last night for dinner – with onion gravy and Yorkshire puddings – I cooked a few extra sausages and kept them back with the sole idea of using them for lunches.

A few will go in a sandwich, sure. But what I had in mind was a hot salad of sausages with a balsamic glaze.

Salad any time of year is great. In winter, though, I think it needs some kind of warm or hot element to it, to add a little something MORE and keep it interesting. And when it’s cold and wet outside, something hot at lunchtime is nice to look forward to.

Here, I’ve used the leftover cooked pork sausages and pan-fried them with some sliced onion and red pepper. I’ve used a dash of rapeseed oil. Then once the sausages were hot and their edges more caramelised, I added a good glug of balsamic vinegar. This then cooks down until it becomes a sticky glaze over the sausages and vegetables. Add to a bowl of mixed leaf salad, extra dressing if you want.

This also works well with leftover new potatoes in with the sausages. You could also swap out the pepper for cooked roasted peppers that you can buy in a jar, or leave them out.

I made three servings:

• 6 leftover pork sausages
• 1 onion – red or white
• 1 red pepper
• Balsamic vinegar
• Rapeseed oil
• Mixed leaf salad