Everything You Need To Know About Cooking With Vienna Sausage

When it comes to canned food, there is little that you cannot do. These cans of ready-to-eat food are meant to be easy to use! Since these are already cooked, ready-to-eat straight from the can, using these in different ways is just a matter of creativity in the kitchen. 

Take a can of Vienna sausage. These are essentially little hotdogs preserved in brine. These are super delicious as is or added to a stew, soup, or even just simply fried or boiled until just heated through. Served like traditional hotdogs, these are the canned alternative to frozen hotdogs. 

One thing that is pretty universal with Vienna sausages is that you do need to drain the sausages from the brine before cooking. The brine is super salty despite it being super tasty! You may want to reserve the brine if you do want to add a touch of salty meatiness to your dish but otherwise, dump the brine.  

What else can you do with Vienna sausages? There are a few decisions you need to make. Here is a quick guide to those decisions:

Photo by Erwin Obcemea

1 To cook or not to cook.

When faced with this decision, you have to think about what dish you’re planning. Does the dish require any cooking at all? If the answer is “yes”, when do you plan on adding these little hotdogs into the dish? If the answer is “no”, you can then proceed to prepare these sausages as needed in the recipe. 

Need an idea on how to not have to cook these little sausages? This hack on seaweed-rolled sushi is a great example of not needing to cook Vienna sausages while satisfying a craving for Japanese. If cooking these, try it in an easy but milky sopas that’s got a surprise spice.  

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Photo by Majoy Siason

2 Use it for fillings.  

Once you decide on your recipe, do you want to leave the sausages whole or should you cut them up? The recipe again can lead to the path that’s best. The sausages are long but this can be an advantage! 

Say you’re making a creamy embutido recipe and want to swap out the hotdog and use Vienna sausages instead. This is a great ingredient substitute that is easy to do if you don’t have hotdogs but maintains the delicious nature of the dish. Slice it to fit lengthwise or leave it whole as needed to make your dish.  

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Photo by Riell Santos

3 Chop it up and add to stews or soups. 

Since these sausages are cooked already, you don’t need to do much once these are added to a dish that you’re cooking. So it’s a great ingredient to bulk up dishes in an instant! Just cook your dish as the recipe instructs, then when it’s time to add the ingredients that cook the fastest, add these in. You may want to chop these up into little rounds first before adding to make it into the same-sized chunks as the rest of your stew ingredients. 

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Photo by Patrick Martires

4 Use it to make meaty dishes meatier. 

If substituting hotdogs with Vienna sausages is a good idea, then you’ll love that these can be the “hotdog” in almost any dish. If you love sweet-style spaghetti, Vienna sausages are perfect for this recipe! Just prepare as you would the hotdogs and add it into the sauce when instructed. The result is the same spaghetti you love with a different ingredient sneaked into the sauce. 

Sweet-Style Spaghetti Recipe Posted in: Recipe

Are there ways you have through of using the Vienna sausage? Drop us a message or comment so we can learn from you, too.

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