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Sausages are enjoyed all over the world. It's an inexpensive but flavor-packed cut of meat used in a lot of home-cooked meals, which is why it has an uncanny ability to make any dish more comforting. When the weather turns crisp and you and your family need a homey meal, give one of these diverse recipes, with sausages from chorizo to weisswurst and everything in between, a try. Please tell us about your favorite recipes in the comments.
This Southern-inspired stew recipe uses andouille, a type of Cajun smoked sausage. It's sliced and browned in the pan first to flavor the other ingredients with its rendered fat and seasonings. Lima beans, shrimp, and the Cajun holy trinity — onions, bell pepper, and celery in Cajun cooking — make up the rest of this spicy dish. It can be eaten with rice or bread to soak up the liquid.
Recipe: Food & Wine
Related: Fall Recipes That Showcase Seasonal Fruits and Veggies
Sausage cheese balls are a crave-worthy appetizer that's great for football parties or holiday snacking. They're super easy too: Just combine Bisquick or other baking mix with raw bulk pork sausage and cheese, shape into balls, and bake. Rosemary, Parmesan, and parsley are simple additions that make this recipe a little different than the standard.
Recipe: Betty Crocker
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Cassoulet is an ultimate French comfort food. It's a meat and bean stew that's cooked for hours to soften the beans and caramelize the top of the stew into a deep brown crust. Most types of raw sausage you have on hand would be great in this, but a garlic-heavy pork sausage is best. They, along with salt pork, chicken, and vegetables, will flavor the beans.
Recipe: Serious Eats
Lap cheong are small, fully cooked Chinese sausages that look red and wrinkled. They're a little dry and chewy, kind of like a dry salami, and are often used in stir fries, like this one for lo mein. Gai lan, or Chinese broccoli, is a dark, leafy green, but you can use bok choy if you can't find it. The sauce is savory with oyster and soy sauces and a little nutty thanks to the sesame oil.
Recipe: Yay! For Food
Bigos, also known as hunter's stew, is a Polish dish made with a number of meats and sausages, sauerkraut, fresh cabbage, and beer. This version calls for two kinds of sausage: smoked kielbasa and fresh Polish sausage. Prunes are an optional ingredient, but the pockets of sweetness they add to the stew are a nice addition.
Recipe: Simply Recipes
Fall is chili time, and Mexican chorizo, orange, and chile powder is a great way to add a new layer of flavor to the standard recipe. This recipe calls for chicken or turkey chorizo, so drain the fat if you use the fattier pork version. Fresh toppings like avocado, cilantro, lime juice, and crema complement the chorizo well.
Recipe: Bon Appetit
Related: 13 Regional Chili Recipes
Bratwursts are well-known German sausages mildly flavored with seasonings like marjoram, garlic, allspice, and caraway. In this recipe, the sausage meat flavors a creamy soup filled with potatoes, onions, and carrots. Mustard, sage, and thyme all go well with the brats, and making it in a slow cooker saves all kinds of time on a weeknight.
Recipe: The Beach House Kitchen
This Italian-inspired rice dish cooks all in one pot right on the stove. Sliced Italian chicken sausages, bell peppers, onions, basil, and garlic all combine to create a saucy rice-based skillet meal. Using instant brown rice is a healthy and fast alternative to long grain white. Make sure to use a pan that has a lid so the rice can cook evenly.
Recipe: Well Plated
Smoked kielbasa or Polish sausage is a mainstay at most supermarkets near the hot dogs. It lends its smoky, garlicky flavor to every dish, including this cabbage and potato skillet. With its tomato-based sauce, paprika, and abundance of chopped cabbage, it's a little bit like a simplified stuffed-cabbage dish.
Recipe: Taste of Home
Olive Garden is well known for its zuppa toscana, a creamy, broth-based soup made with potatoes, sausage, and greens. If that's one of your favorites, it's actually quite easy to recreate at home. Buy hot Italian sausage, don't skimp on the garlic, and always make sure to bake breadsticks for dipping.
Recipe: Natasha's Kitchen
Bangers is a British term for sausage, and in particular, a sweet pork sausage. They're fried up and served with mashed potatoes and gravy to form bangers and mash, a comfort food classic. This recipe is from famous Brit chef Gordon Ramsay, but it's not intimidating at all. The additions of rosemary, balsamic vinegar, worcestershire, and mustard really amp up the gravy.
Recipe: Gordon Ramsay
Sweet and savory is a winning breakfast combo—just look at the success of McDonald's McGriddles. This recipe for baked French toast uses that same combination of breakfast sausage and maple syrup but in a simplified, casserole form. Diced apples are an easy addition, especially if you've got some left from apple picking.
Recipe: Dinner Then Dessert
While this stuffing would be amazing on your Thanksgiving table, who says that we can only eat stuffing on holidays? Celery, apples, pork sausage, and fresh sage leaves give this bread-based stuffing a familiar autumn flavor that's too good to only serve once a year. Try it with a roasted pork loin or chicken.
Recipe: Damn Delicious
Feijoada is a traditional Brazilian stew made with black beans and all kinds of meats, including sausage. Linguica, a type of Portuguese smoked sausage with garlic and paprika, is the best sausage to use in this recipe if you can find it, but smoked kielbasa will do. Cook a big pot of this on a lazy Sunday while watching soccer for the full Brazilian experience.
Recipe: Curious Cuisiniere
Gumbo is a Cajun cuisine classic, and it's worth the time it takes to make. Make sure to get the roux, a mixture of flour and oil, nice and dark because it imparts the nutty flavor and dark color that gumbos are known for. Smoked andouille is best in this recipe, but you can substitute smoked kielbasa if you can't find it.
Recipe: Food Network
Spanish style chorizo and Mexican style chorizo are very different sausages. This recipe uses Spanish style, which is a cured sausage with a texture similar to pepperoni. Brussels sprouts are always best in fall when they're in season, and coating them in rendered chorizo fat, paprika, and shallot oil before deeply roasting them takes them over the top.
Recipe: Serious Eats
Biscuits and gravy are a southern staple and make a filling breakfast or brunch when the weather gets chilly. Bulk pork breakfast sausage is browned and then turned into a simple, roux-thickened gravy. Rosemary and thyme give this version a little more flavor than most recipes. Homemade biscuits are best, but canned work in a pinch.
Recipe: Tastes Better From Scratch
Squash is so abundant and inexpensive in the fall that it's sometimes hard to find enough creative recipes to keep up with the bounty. Using Italian sausage in a stuffing for acorn squash is a great way to add flavor without adding a ton of extra ingredients. Bell pepper, celery, and kale lend their crunch and health benefits, while a hefty dose of Parmesan cheese brings it all together.
Recipe: The Recipe Well
Braised sauerkraut with apples, onions, white wine, juniper berries, and bay leaves makes a perfect accompaniment for German sausages. Weisswurst, a white, chubby sausage made with veal, mace, and cardamom, is great in this recipe, but bratwursts will work in a pinch. This is a dish meant to be eaten with a fork and knife, but you could also put the sausages in a bun topped with the sauerkraut mixture.
Recipe: Food & Wine
Sausage and peppers is an Italian-American standby, and it gets a twist in this recipe from the addition of Marsala wine. It lends a sweet depth of flavor to the bell peppers and onions, while a handful of basil leaves adds freshness. Turkey sausages keep the fat and calories in check, but you can use pork sausage as well.
Recipe: Food Network
Fall means tailgating, and in Wisconsin they do it with bratwursts. This recipe is simple: Just gently cook the brats in beer, onions, and butter, then grill them to crisp up the casing and brown them. You can also keep the sausages warm in the beer bath in a crockpot, making this a great make-ahead recipe for football watching parties.
Recipe: All Recipes
Maple is a homey fall flavor, especially when you combine it with something as hearty as baked beans. Kielbasa lends its smoky flavor to these beans so it tastes like it's cooked all day, even though it only bakes for about a half an hour. The recipe calls for canned pork and beans, kidney beans, and butter beans, but you can use any combination of beans you prefer.
Recipe: Taste of Home
