15 Types of Sausage to Explore & Excite Your Taste Buds
Author: Anne Cowart | Editor: Omar Alonso
Review & Research: Jen Worst & Chris Miller
It isn’t easy these days to find someone who doesn’t like even one of the types of sausage out there. Over the course of time, sausages have evolved from a leftover meat dish to a staple dish for breakfasts and snacks all over the world.
But you should know, there are a lot of different types of sausage and they all taste good in their own way!
Based on the marination procedure, meat type, additional ingredients, cooking style, and the region — we can divide the sausages into many different types.
When it comes to cooking procedures, we can classify them as boiled, smoked, or raw. Again, if we consider the meat type, it can be pork, beef, chicken, veal, or even mutton!
But worry not, throughout this article, we’ll take you through all the popular and common sausages out there in the world. Let’s hope you can find your type of sausage from here!
15 Types of Sausage
Sausages have been a popular dish for a long while, and truth be told, there are thousands of different recipes and types of them. We have nitpicked the most common, popular, and interesting ones here for your convenience.
A significant chunk of the sausage meat comes from pork throughout the world, so it’s no surprise that there are a lot of different sausage dishes that contain pork. It's time to dive through these various pork delicacies.
Bratwurst Pork Sausage
You can already tell from the name that this is a German sausage. The term Brat refers to finely chopped meat, and wurst refers to roasted.
Together, Bratwurst means split sausage. It is also one of the most common forms of sausages we find all over the world.
The recipes for Bratwurst vary widely from region to region. It’s one of the most common food in Germany, so there are ample ways to cook them. You just need to pick one according to your preference.
According to sources, there are around 40 different varieties of this dish. But the best Bratwurst sausage types originated in Franconia.
Butifarra Pork Sausage
Let’s travel to Spain now, the land of food and music. The Catalan region of Spain, widely known for football, is also quite famous for its Butifarra sausage.
This very dish is based on ancient recipes dated back to the time of the Roman Empire. Butifarra types of sausage are made from different spices infused in raw pork. There are a lot of varieties when it comes to the cooking process.
Firstly, we have raw Butifarra that is basically grilled sausage. It is closest to the original recipe and the most popular one. Then there’s the premium dish, the Black Butifarra that includes boiled pork and blood.
Apart from them, there’s the Butifarra Catalana which is basically cooking the whole sausage like ham. Lastly, we have the Butifarra d’ou, a sausage dish with eggs for special occasions only.
Kurobuta Pork Sausage
Hailing from Japan, this premium sausage is derived from Berkshire pigs that were exported to Japan from England in the 1860's. Since then, they've become a separate breed called the Japanese Kagoshima Berkshire.
Chorizo Smoked Pork Sausage
Chorizo is a tad bit different from the usual sausages. It’s generally made from the intestines of pigs and is a trendy dish in countries like Spain, Portugal, and most other western European regions.
This method is also ancient, dated back to the Roman Empire. The preparation of Chorizo types of sausage is a tad bit hectic, as you have to cure, ferment, and then smoke it to make it edible.
In many areas of Europe, they don’t cook it, they slice the sausage and eat it with whatever types of forks they use. It is also widely used to add flavor to other dishes.
However, the most popular use of Chorizos is inside fast foods like sandwiches and burgers. You can also grill and fry it in liquids like alcohol or apple cider. If preferred, they can also be used as a pizza topping.
Andouille Smoked Sausage
Smokes sausages are usually cooked with the smoke that comes out from burning aromatic wood. The smoke slow-cooks the steak and makes it a delicate dish. There are many varieties of smoked sausages, both cooked and uncooked.
But we’ll be talking about two of the most common kinds of sausage here — the Andouille and the Kielbasa sausage.
This sausage is usually made from pork meat. As the name suggests, it originated from France, and then the cuisine spread through French immigrants.
The usual ingredients for this French delicacy include pork, pepper, wine, garlic, types of onions, and herbs. Add some seasoning on top of them, and the first part of your Andouille sausage is done!
Pig intestines are generally used to cover these types of sausage, and it’s seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper.
After the overall preparation, the sausage is soaked in a vinegar-water bath overnight, rinsed well, and then shaped according to your length preferences. As expected, it is then smoked to perfection.
Kielbasa Smoked Sausage
The Polish call their sausages by the name Kielbasa. It’s considered a delicacy of Polish cuisine and is one of the most popular staple food there.
‘Kielbasa’ refers to a cylindrical-shaped sausage that is cooked through the smoke. The sausage can consist of lamb, beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and veal.
You can make almost all kinds of Kielbasa at home, and recipes for this dish are available on the web. It's one of the most popular sausage varieties, for sure, and fun to try.
However, one variety is known as Kielbasa Lisiecka and you can’t find it anywhere in the world other than Poland.
This special dish has been granted PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) and is one of the most famous dishes in Poland.
Fuet Boiled Sausage
In some regions of the world, they prefer it simple. So they just take the meat, shape it into a sausage and simply boil it. In many areas, they don’t use any spices or herbs, or oil. Just healthy boiled meat with some additional sauce if needed.
These types of boiled sausage are known as Fuet in the Catalan regions. It is another unique Catalan cuisine that includes pork meat stuffed inside pork gut.
Fuet is often seasoned with garlic and black pepper, but it is much different from Chorizo because they don’t use paprika.
Longaniza Cooked Sausage
This here is a fully cooked sausage that is originated in Spain. It has a similar cooking procedure as Chorizo, and the taste is similar as well.
However, the ingredients differ between the two types. In Spain, they use paprika in place of Black pepper and uses nutmeg to enhance the flavor. But in the Argentine Loganiza, they use cured and dried sausages.
This dish is widely popular across South American countries as well as the Spanish regions. Even in the Philippines, this dish is famous as the Longanissa. The cooking procedure does change from one region to another, but the taste is always there!
Salami / Italian Sausage
First things first, the types of salami that you have in America are far from the original ones they make in Italy when it comes to the making and the taste. But there's a lot of sausage varieties wrapped up under the name 'salami'.
In general, salami is a kind of cured sausage made from fermented meat. It’s a kind of pork sausage but you can make a beef salami as well.
The American version of Italian sausage includes a lot of fennel as seasoning. However, it’s not the same in Italy, as they use various products and ingredients in different sausages.
However, in America, there are two primary varieties: hot and mild. They add some red pepper flakes to make the salami hot and some sweet types of basil to make the salami mild and sweet.
Morcilla Blood Sausage
Yes, even though it might creep a lot of people out, there are a lot of regions where they use blood alongside the sausage, which thankfully is usually found in the names of sausages.
They use the blood of birds, goats, cows, sheep, and pigs while making the sausage. The blood is either dried or cooked with filler to solidify them to go with the main dish.
Morcilla is one such blood sausage and is a ubiquitous dish in Spain. It has a lot of variants depending on the amount of blood, other ingredients, and the shapes.
For example, the Morcilla de Burgos includes a good lot of pork blood alongside rice and onions. Again, in the Extremadura region, they serve the Morcilla dish with mashed potatoes.
There are varieties like pine-nuts, types of almonds, types of pecans, and sweeteners in the dishes of other regions for these types of sausage.
Liverwurst
As the name suggests, Liverwurst are sausage types that are made from beef or pork livers, which is why some call it liver sausage. The livers are ground into a sausage and then cooked accordingly.
It doesn’t require smoking. This particular type of sausage is common in Eastern European and Scandinavian countries. Liverwurst is generally seasoned with marjoram, various types of mustard seeds, and nutmeg and then cooked accordingly.
Haggis
As served in fast food restaurants in Scotland, haggis comes in the shape and style of a sausage after being deep freid in batter. It's typically served with chips.
It can come in burger shapes or on a platter more as a pudding than anything else. The ingredients are quite gross so I'll let you figure that one out yourself, but people like it so who am I to judge. It's definitely one of the more interesting sausage names, at least.
Sobrassada Raw Sausage
This next type is a raw sausage coming straight from the Balearic Islands in Spain. It’s a cured sausage that doesn’t require any form of cooking.
It’s usually created using different types of spices, pork loins, and pork bacon. The two types of meat are first minced, mixed with salt, black pepper, and paprika, and then shaped in the size of a sausage. Most often than not, cayenne pepper is also added to the mixture.
Chicken Sausage
Chicken sausage types are a relatively new type of sausage, considering the ancient history of pork sausages. They are tasty, much more tender compared to other types of sausages and can be used in various dishes.
As nutritionists say, chicken as a staple food is much safer than red meats like beef or pork, so a chicken sausage can fulfill your cravings for a good sausage while keeping you healthy!
Kiolbassa
Kiolbassa is an excellent beef sausage that is much more succulent and juicy than most other pork/chicken sausages. It's seasoned with sea salt and turbinado sugar and is a staple food to sausage lovers in America.
Types of Sausage for Every Taste
It’s no surprise that sausage is one of the most common food all over the world, with easily over 100 various types out there.
These tasty delights have tons of different cooking procedures, and it’s only natural that we won’t be able to describe all the types of sausage, but we did cover the most common, popular, and interesting for you.