A traybake is not a stew and it is not a roast. It is meat and vegetables on one tray, hot oven, until everything is browned and cooked through. The trick is matching cuts that want the same 40 to 50 minutes at 200°C. That is why traybake meat is thighs, drums, sausages and chops, not a fillet steak.
Chicken traybake
Chicken Thighs 900g-1.1kg (Frozen) or Chicken Drumsticks 900g-1.1kg (Frozen) on a hot tray with chunks of potato, onion and pepper. 200°C for 40 to 45 minutes, turning the meat once. Probe the thickest thigh or drum for 75°C. If the vegetables are browning too fast, cover loosely with foil for 10 minutes then uncover to crisp the skin. Space matters: one packed tray steams, two half-full trays brown. Oil, salt, and a lemon at the end are enough on plain chicken. Flavoured flats and piri-piri cuts also work if you add them for the last 20 minutes so the marinade does not scorch for the full 45.
Sausage and pork chop traybake
6x Pork Sausages - 350g Pack around wedges of potato and apple, 200°C for 35 to 40 minutes, turning once, until the sausages are 75°C. Pork chops from the frozen 1kg pack want 40 to 45 minutes from defrosted; add them skin-side up. Mix sausages and drums on the same tray if you like — they finish together. Do not add a gammon steak or a thin pork loin steak to a 45-minute tray; they will be dry before the potatoes are done. Those are pan cuts.
Air fryer traybakes and what to buy
An air fryer is a small traybake: four drums or four sausages at 190°C for 18 to 22 minutes. For a family tin, the oven is still the tool. Shop chicken drumsticks and sausages in the same order, and use ready to cook meat when you want a flavoured cut that already carries the seasoning. Leftover traybake meat comes off the bone the next day for a wrap or a fried-rice lunch; it is one of the better batch cooks that does not look like meal prep.
Preheat the tray itself for 5 minutes so the first side of the meat sears as it lands. That small habit is the difference between pale chicken and browned skin. Line with foil if you hate washing up, but oil the foil or the sausages will weld on. Leftovers keep two days in the fridge.
Same time, same temperature, space on the tray. That is a meat traybake that actually browns instead of stewing in its own juice.