How to Spice Up Sausage

It's easy to spice up store-bought sausage.

There is an infinite number of ways to make sausage. Traditions vary among different families and different cultures. If you're making sausage from scratch, you probably have a recipe that you follow. The addition of a few select spices at just the right time will make your sausage spicier. If you prefer to cook store-bought sausage for your family and want to modify it, there are still several ways that you can spice it up.

Instructions

1. Decide what kind of flavor your want your sausage to have if you're making sausage from scratch. Traditional Italian sausage contains oregano, fennel and basil, Polish sausage (kielbasa) contains marjoram and onions and some Swedish varieties contain potatoes. Follow a recipe, and to make it spicier, increase the amount of spicy ingredient -- black pepper, red pepper flakes or garlic -- in the recipe.

2. Buy the pre-cooked variety of sausage to spice up store-bought sausages. Remove the sausages from the package and separate the casings from the sausage filling. You can do this by snipping one end of the sausage with scissors and squeezing the meat filling into a glass or metal bowl. Or, make a slit lengthwise down the side of each sausage and scrape out the meat filling into a bowl. Discard the casing.

3. Break the meat apart with your hands or a metal spoon. Sprinkle ground red pepper, black pepper, minced garlic or onion powder into the meat and mix it until the spices are evenly distributed throughout the mixture. Note the amount of spice that you add. After you cook the sausage and eat, you might decide that you want to alter the amount of added spice the next time you make it.

4. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and hot water after handling meat. Place the spiced-up sausage meat into a heated skillet containing 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Cook the sausage by pushing it around with a spatula continuously until it is brown. Taste a small amount of the cooked sausage meat. If you want it spicier, sprinkle ground pepper or hot pepper sauce into the mixture and heat it in the skillet for an additional minute.

Tips & Warnings

• Never taste raw sausage.

• Thoroughly wash all cooking utensils and cutting surfaces with hot soapy water after using.

References

• Polish Sausage Recipes
• Let's Make Sausage: Polish Sausage Recipes
• Sausage Mania