Sausages – Forcemeat Academy

When you make too many sausages at a time—like when you buy the family pack and it’s just you—you’re bound to end up with leftover sausage. If eating all this leftover sausage as is seems too boring, don’t fret. There are lots of creative ways you can use it up. I’m more of an as is sausage eater but I researched some creative ideas for leftover sausages and wrote this article for you. It’s not the same-old leftover list—we’re going creative here! For each entry, I’m including links to a recipe you can use or the recipe itself in a few cases. Plus, I start out with some troubleshooting tips to avoid sausages that feel like cardboard in your mouth. 25 ways to make sausage leftovers exciting and delicious (in alphabetical order): Adam’s cumin noodles with sausage. Bangers and beans. Cold out of the fridge while in your underpants. Curry in a hurry. Dad’s Rajmah [with sausage]. Fry-up with hash browns and sausage. Hors d'oeuvres for adults. Hors d'oeuvres for kids. Hungarian braised cabbage with sausage. Lebanese fried potatoes and sausage. Meaty pasta puttanesca. Modified Gobble Oink Pie. Pasta salad with vinaigrette. Pigs in a blanket. Pizza. Sausage and apple curry. Sausage dog in a crusty roll. Sausage ragù. Sausage and caramelized onions over mushy peas. Sausages and eggs. Sautéed sausage slices with 30-second Hollandaise sauce. Shelly’s hot dog and cheese casserole. Spoon bread. Stir fry, Korean style. Ten-minute Tantanmen ramen. But first, let’s talk about a major troubleshooting point when it comes to sausages… Sausage troubleshooting: How to cook sausages so they’re moist and delicious instead of like cardboard Years ago, after I went from a decade of vegetarianism back to eating meat again, I was kinda scared of undercooked pork. So scared that I’d overcook pork until it was dry and awful. A couple of times, I did this for company (but I can’t remember for who, that’s how traumatic it was). Finally, I asked this youngster at the butcher shop how to cook sausage properly and I’ve been doing it his way, plus one other way, ever since. My method for cooking sausages on the stove top For thicker sausages, the kind that would be five sausages in a 900 gram (two pound) pack, I put the cast iron pan on the stove, turn the stove to five (halfway on my stove) and let it heat up for five minutes. (I use the stove timer.) Then I put the five sausages in the pan and cook for seven minutes (also timed). After that, I turn it down to three, throw a bit of water in the pan, put a badly-fitting lid loosely on the pan and cook it for another 12-15 minutes. At the end of this, I remove the sausages from the pan. They should look pink inside but also have clear juices running from them. But do not poke holes in the sausages or all that juice will run out and your sausages will end up dry! Three ways to cook sausages in the oven My way: Put 10-12 sausages (skinnier than the ones mentioned above) onto a stoneware baking sheet at 350°F for 20 minutes. Remove from oven. My cousin Tara’s way: Put sausages in the oven on a baking sheet at 180°C (356°F) for 15 minutes. Tara’s a trained chef so you can take that tip to the bank. Richie_Engineer’s way: Put a bunch of sausages in the oven on a baking sheet lined with tin foil at 225°F until they reach an internal temperature of 165°F. I’ve done this before, and it works great but I’m sorry to say I forgot how long it took. Richie_Engineer is a Reddit Zero Carb moderator and pleasant member of that community. To provide a balanced approach, I also want to let you know what official sources say. According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s Safe Minimum Internal Temperature Chart, the minimum internal temperature all ground meats (which would include sausage) should be cooked to is 160 °F (71.1 °C). They also say leftovers should be cooked to a minimum internal temperature 165 °F (73.9 °C). I can’t tell you what the internal temperature of my sausages are. But so far, so good. Now let’s get onto the many ways you can make magic with leftover sausage. Yummy meal idea #1 for leftover sausage: Adam’s cumin noodles with sausage This recipe is from The Northern Exposure Cookbook: A Community Cookbook from the Heart of the Alaskan Riviera by Ellis Weiner. If you watched this wonderful show from the 1990s, you’ll remember that Adam was the bare-footed, grumpy gourmet chef (and possibly spy) played by Adam Arkin. It’s been a long time since I’ve made this recipe, but I remember it being delightful. It calls for chicken breast but let’s replace that with our leftover sausage. My adjustments to the ingredients are in [square brackets] and I’ve shortened the directions as appropriate. The recipe: Adam’s cumin noodles with sausage Ingredients: ½ pound fresh Chinese water noodles [any noodles will do, even veggie-based ones if you’re keto] 2 tablespoons vegetable oil [ack, don’t do this, use butter or bacon grease instead] ½ pound boneless chicken breast, thinly sliced [replace the chicken with leftover sliced sausage meat] 1 tablespoon soy sauce 1 tablespoon sesame oil 2 teaspoons ground cumin ½ cup homemade chicken stock or canned chicken broth 2 green onions, cut into 1-inch pieces Directions: Cook your noodles. When finished, drain and rinse them. Heat your oil/grease over medium heat in a wok or frying pan. Add the sliced sausage (or chicken, if going by original recipe) and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the noodles and all other ingredients. Raise the heat to high and cook for another two minutes, stirring constantly. Serve immediately. Feel free to eat your creation while sitting in front of the TV re-watching an episode of Northern Exposure. Seriously, this show is so good! Yummy meal idea #2 for leftover sausage: Bangers and beans Sausages and beans are a great combo. If you’re British, you might say bangers and beans. If you’re French, you might call it a cassoulet. If you’re North American, you might say beans and wieners (wieners, ha ha). Whatever you want to call it, this dish can be as easy as frying up some sliced sausages and cracking open a can of baked beans on top. However, I do encourage you to make your own baked beans (with fatty pork) as it’s pretty satisfying as I recall. Recipe suggestion for bangers and beans: Bangers and Beans by Di Warren on The Sommelier Chef site. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: Cook for less time as your sausages are already cooked. Or to go even faster, slice the sausages up and mix them in with the beans (instead of putting them on top). Yummy meal idea #3 for leftover sausage: Cold out of the fridge while in your underpants I read The Guardian’s article, 12 recipe ideas for leftover sausages and while I enjoyed the article, I enjoyed the comments section even more. The comments section had many suggestions for leftover sausages but also a few astute observations. According to the commenters, the concept of leftover sausage recipes is questionable because: If you’ve got leftover sausage, you’re not living right. There’s no need to do anything with leftover sausage except eat it. Guardian reader and commenter, CastawayInLondon gives us his or her recipe in only 31 words, “Best best best leftover sausage recipe is: Sunday morning hangover. Open fridge. Find plate of bbq'd sausages from day before. Eat standing at open fridge whilst waiting for kettle to boil.” Yummy meal idea #4 for leftover sausage: Curry in a hurry This is another idea from the Guardian comment section. Commenter, MarionGwendolyn, says, “Visiting German showed me this. Mix tomato ketchup with curry powder. Cut up your sausage and drizzle this on.” She wasn’t quite convinced by this demonstration as she also said, “Why smother with filthy goo?” Also, I bet this visiting German heated up his curry ketchup and sausages for a more delicious goopy lunch. However, if you want a curry in a hurry that’s not almost 100% ketchup based, don’t worry. I’ve got a recipe suggestion for you. Recipe suggestion for curry in a hurry: Sausage-Tomato Coconut Curry by Jessie Apfe on the Taste of Home website. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: None. It already calls for fully cooked meat. Yummy meal idea #5 for leftover sausage: Dad’s Rajmah [with sausage] Now we’re moving into kidney beans, Indian style. This was my favourite recipe in Anupy Singla’s book, The Indian Slow Cooker: 50 Healthy, Easy, Authentic Recipes. Except, as her dad told her, the amount of chilis in this recipe is, “for spicy people, it’s no big deal.” I’m not one of those spicy people so I reduced the chilis by about 95%, ha ha. Since we know beans and sausage go together so well, why not fry up some leftover sausage slices and throw a cup of Dad’s Rajmah on top? You can get this recipe in Anupy’s book. If you don’t have this, the recipe is on the web. Recipe suggestion for Dad’s Rajma [with sausage]: Dad’s Rajmah posted on the Indian Slow Cooker Recipes site. (I don’t think this site is associated with Anupy Singla.) Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: Just heat up your leftover sausage and add some rajmah to it. Yummy meal idea #6 for leftover sausage: Fry-up with hash browns and sausage It’s hard to go wrong with fried potatoes. So, why not turn your potatoes into hash browns and sizzle up your leftover sausage alongside? As with my other suggestions, I recommend slicing your leftover sausage because then you can cook it up fast. The less time you have to spend re-heating food, the better for your time management and the nicer it is for the sausage. Recipe suggestion for a hash brown fry-up: Emily's Famous Hash Browns by “your mom” on the allrecipes.com site. Would your mom lead you astray when it comes to hash browns? I think not. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: Follow the recipe and eat them with your leftover sausage and perhaps some ketchup. [Sidebar note: This whole post is really taking me down food memory lane.] Yummy meal idea #7 for leftover sausage: Hors d'oeuvres for adults Did you ever watch the movie Mermaids with Cher, Bob Hoskins, Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci? Fabulous movie about family. Winona’s character, Charlotte, narrates some of the movie and there was one line that struck me as brilliant and hilarious, even though I really was too young to fully appreciate it at the time. Charlotte says about her mother, “Mrs. Flax only served hors d'oeuvres for meals. She said that anything else was too much of a commitment.” It hasn’t quite come to that for me, but as I eat fewer things (which is mostly meat as you’ll know if you’ve seen my about page), the side dishes I make for my husband get more and more Mrs.-Flax-like. All that to say, when you don’t feel like a big commitment, slice up that sausage and turn it into hors d'oeuvres with whatever else you have in your fridge. Cream cheese is excellent for sticking all of the elements together. Yummy meal idea #8 for leftover sausage: Hors d'oeuvres for kids One summer when three of my nieces were visiting our too-small-for-five-people apartment, I discovered that if dinner was finger food, it was easier to prepare and the kids thought it was pretty fun. In that case, finger food also included eating with toothpicks instead of forks and off of one giant platter (saving on dishes too). Slice up your leftover sausage and get creative. Stack it on cucumber slices (affixing the sausage with cream cheese). Make skewers with sausage pieces, mini mozzarella balls and cherry tomatoes. Throw an olive in there, depending on the adventurousness of the taste buds you’re dealing with. Again, like the adult version, go to your fridge and create little appetizers out of whatever child-friendly sausage-topping options you’ve got. Or better yet, have your little one(s) play the hors d’oeuvres game and make their own. [I know this can be done as I’ve played a similar game—called the Make Salad for Dinner game—with the brother of my goddaughter before. And he loved it!] As you can see from the picture below, this is an opportunity to make some wacky and delicious finger food. Yummy meal idea #9 for leftover sausage: Hungarian braised cabbage with sausage About two years ago, I did a cookbook purge and I got rid of this Hungarian or Polish cookbook because I just wasn’t using it (as might be obvious by the fact I can’t remember if it was Hungarian or Polish). But I’ve never had a more successful cooked cabbage experience than I did with one of the recipes in this cookbook. It was thinly sliced cabbaged braised in a generous amount of butter, possibly a touch of ketchup or tomato paste and a splash of vinegar at the end. I can’t remember if it had onions, but it was so tasty and un-cooked-cabbage-like, it doesn’t even matter. All that to say, this would make an excellent accompaniment to some re-sizzled sausage. I found a recipe that reminds me of the one I used from this book. Recipe suggestion for Hungarian braised cabbage with sausage: Hungarian Cabbage Noodles with Caramelized Cabbage and Onions – Káposztás Tészta by Kelly, a homeschooling mom of five, at her Foodtasia blog. One reader, Lola, said about this recipe, “Absolutely delicious! It takes a while to caramelize the onions but if you’re patient, it pays off with extraordinary flavors in the end. We served with grilled bratwurst. Thanks for sharing. This is now added to my comfort food list.” Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: This recipe includes the instructions for homemade noodles, which you may or may not be into. You can follow the whole recipe with the noodles or just do the caramelized cabbage and onions. At the end, throw in your re-heated, sliced sausages. I’m sure this would be a crowd pleaser. Yummy meal idea #10 for leftover sausage: Lebanese fried potatoes and sausage Okay, back to the humble potato. I found this recipe in my 1992 cookbook, Lebanese Cooking by Susan Ward. This book is an oldie but a goodie. If it’s not garlicky enough, you can enhance this recipe with the garlic sauce recipe (also below) which, if memory serves, is the most garlicky thing I’ve ever eaten. The recipe: Fried potatoes – Batata Harra According to the recipe introduction, this is an unusually spicy dish for the Lebanese kitchen. You can cut down on the chilies if you like. Ingredients: ½ cup olive oil 1 ½ pounds of potatoes, peeled and cut into small pieces Salt and pepper 3 garlic cloves, crushed 2 hot chilies, seeded and chopped 1 cup coriander, finely chopped Directions: Heat the olive oil on medium and add in the potatoes. Add the salt and pepper. Cook the potatoes for about 20 minutes or until done. Stir the garlic, chilies and coriander into the cooked potatoes and serve. Bonus recipe: Garlic Sauce – Taratoor Bi Sade Ingredients: 45 (!) garlic cloves ½ cup olive oil Juice of one lemon Directions: Put the garlic into the food processor and chop it finely. Slowly add the oil while the food processor is running and purée until smooth. Add the lemon juice. Transfer the mix to a bowl. Serve with whatever needs a bit of garlic! So, make the potato recipe (and the garlic one if you love garlic), sizzle up your leftover sausage and enjoy! Yummy meal idea #11 for leftover sausage: Meaty pasta puttanesca Puttanesca was my favourite pasta sauce because it’s just so darn flavourful. Now, imagine all that flavour with some sausage meat too. Yum. Of course, if you don’t do pasta, you could do a keto option like zoodles or whatever the latest trend is. I no longer have the cookbook that my puttanesca recipe was in, so I hunted down another one for you. It’s by David Lebovitz who has a gift for food and words (he’s a professional chef and baker who’s been working in kitchens since his teens). His recipe pages are fun to read … really, I should read his books too! Recipe suggestion for meaty pasta puttanesca: Pasta Puttanesca by David Lebovitz on his website. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: So, for this recipe, I would chop the leftover sausage into small chunks to match the chunkiness of the capers, garlic and olives. After you fry those up in the recipe, add the sausage and cook for a minute, then add the tomato paste and purée and carry on with the recipe. Yummy meal idea #12 for leftover sausage: Modified Gobble Oink Pie You know this isn’t your half-hearted leftover listicle article when it includes amazingly fun words like gobble and oink. Alas, they’re not mine. They come from Jamie Oliver’s cooking site. According to the recipe, “Gobble-oink pie is a great way to get the kids involved in the kitchen – create pie perfection for all the family using leftovers from your fridge.” By the way, it calls for a swede. I figured not too many people would have a Swedish person on call for a dinner invite so I looked it up. Turns out a swede is a rutabaga, also known as a yellow turnip. Recipe suggestion for modified Gobble Oink Pie: Gobble-oink pie with a swede & sweet potato topping by Sarah Tildesley at Jamie Oliver’s website. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: This recipe calls for raw turkey mince or leftover turkey mince so just substitute your sausage for this and follow the recipe. Since you’re replacing mince, chop your leftover sausage into small pieces by hand or wiz it up in the food processor. Yummy meal idea #13 for leftover sausage: Pasta salad with vinaigrette This is one of the ideas I got from my pre-teen niece who’s already quite gifted in the kitchen. She said that leftover sausage would go nicely with a pasta salad but “of course” you wouldn’t want the sausage flavours to clash with the dressing, so a vinaigrette is best. I got schooled! Recipe suggestion for pasta salad with vinaigrette: How to Make the Best Pasta Salad Without Mayo by Meghan Splawn on the Kitchn site. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: Basically, you just chop the leftover sausage up and throw it in. If you slice the sausage and then halve those slices, the size will probably fit in nicely with the rest of the chunky ingredients. Yummy meal idea #14 for leftover sausage: Pigs in a blanket Well, this is fun, leftover sausage wrapped in pastry. The easy way is to use a store-bought (gasp!) pastry. The hard way is to make and roll your own pastry. Whatever works best for you is a-okay; both options are below. Recipe suggestion for easy pigs in a blanket: Best-Ever Pigs in A Blanket by Alyssa Rosello on the Delish site. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: Replace the package of mini cocktail wieners with your leftover sausage links. If you’ve got large sausages, you might want to cut them in half or thirds to get smaller pigs in a blanket. Recipe suggestion for pigs in a blanket the harder way: Homemade Pigs in a Blanket by Julie on her Lovely Little Kitchen site. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: Replace the hotdogs with your leftover sausage links. If you’ve got large sausages, you might want to cut them in half or thirds for smaller pigs in a blanket. Yummy meal idea #15 for leftover sausage: Pizza Okay, so this is a classic. And with that leftover sausage, you can turn it into a meat lover’s classic! If you have a spare tortilla, tomato paste, cheese, your leftover sausage and some Italian spice, you probably don’t need a recipe. But if you want to go all out and make your own dough, check out the recipe below from Laura, a homeschooling mom of five (six in 2021). She’ll set you up! Recipe suggestion for pizza with leftover sausage: Easy Homemade Pizza Dough by Laura on her JoyFoodSunshine site. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: No adjustments necessary, just add sliced up sausages as one of your pizza toppings. Yummy meal idea #16 for leftover sausage: Sausage and apple curry Thanks to Guardian commenters, QueenBoadicea and MizPepperpot for this idea (they both raved about sausage and apple curry in the article comment section mentioned earlier). I’d never heard about sausage and apple curry before and I’m sure it’s more nuanced than the curry-powder-in-ketchup recipe we saw in idea #4. Unfortunately, neither QueenBoadicea nor MizPepperpot linked to their favourite recipes in their comments. Alas, nothing to worry about as I’ve found one that looks promising by Nadia Lim. Recipe suggestion for sausage and apple curry: Kiwi lamb sausage, kumara and apple ‘curry’ by Nadia Lim on her website. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: Skip step one where Nadia cooks the sausage. Cut your sausage into thick slices, set aside and carry on with the recipe. Yummy meal idea #17 for leftover sausage: Sausage dog in a crusty roll This idea is basically making your leftover sausage hotdog-style. Heat it up (if you like), put it in a bun, add toppings, done. The limit is only your imagination and the contents of your fridge and pantry. However, if you’re going with a crusty roll, you could take this opportunity to explore the flavours of Vietnam with banh mi, which is basically a Vietnamese sandwich using a crusty bun. Recipe suggestion for sausage banh mi: Vietnamese Banh Mi by Liz Della Croce on her website The Lemon Bowl. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: Just replace the fully cooked chicken sausage with your leftover sausage and follow the recipe as is. Yummy meal idea #18 for leftover sausage: Sausage ragù A ragù is a rich, meaty sauce that also includes tomatoes (but not too many). It can be made with many types of meat, including pork. You can turn your cooked leftover sausages into a quick ragù. A true Italian ragù simmers for a couple hours. But we’re not covering that story today, we’re talking about leftovers! Recipe suggestion for sausage ragù: Easy Sausagemeat Ragu by Ciara Attwell on her My Fussy Eater website. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: Skip step 3. Instead, chop up your leftover sausage and add it to the pot when it’s time to simmer the ragù for 12 minutes. Yummy meal idea #19 for leftover sausage: Sausage, caramelized onions over mushy peas This is Rachel Kelly’s #9 idea from her leftover sausage article in The Guardian mentioned earlier. She says, “One of my favourite ways to use cooked sausages is to serve them with caramelised onions or leeks on a bed of buttery, crushed peas.” As soon as I read this, I knew—in my gut—it was an amazing idea. And, fortunately for us, Rachel has this entire recipe on her own website. Recipe suggestion for sausage and caramelized onions over mushy peas: Summery sausages and caramelised onions with crushed buttered peas by Rachel Kelly on her Marmaduke Scarlet blog. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: Skip step one. In step two, reheat the sausages so they’ll be ready to serve alongside the onions and buttered peas. No other changes necessary. Yummy meal idea #20 for leftover sausage: Sausages and eggs You can’t go wrong with this classic. Slice up your sausage, fry it up a little, push it to the side of your frying pan, add a little butter in the newly empty space (just in case) and crack a few eggs over top of that sizzling butter. This will work for over easy or sunny side up eggs. If you want scrambled, poached or even an omelette, go for it! And maybe combine this idea with the next one for extra luxuriousness… Yummy meal idea #21 for leftover sausage: Sautéed sausage slices with 30-second Hollandaise sauce So far, I’ve eaten this twice today. For you. To make sure you know how much I stand behind yummy meal idea #21. Actually, the first time I tested this out, I sautéed the leftover sausage slices and poured the warm Hollandaise sauce over top. The second time, I sliced up a stone-cold sausage and plopped stone-cold Hollandaise over top. Equally good. You’re welcome. But who we should really be thanking is the angel who published this so-simple-and-not-at-all-fussy Hollandaise sauce. It was one of my goals to learn how to make this sauce in 2020 and mission accomplished! Recipe suggestion for this super easy Hollandaise sauce: 30 Second Hollandaise Sauce by Sue on her The View from Great Island website. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: None required. Heat up your sausage, make the sauce while that’s happening. Combine the two elements—sausage and sauce—in the quantities that you find most pleasing. As you can see, I believe sausages deserve to be swimming in sauce. Yummy meal idea #22 for leftover sausage: Shelly’s hot dog and cheese casserole Here’s another classic from The Northern Exposure Cookbook by Ellis Weiner. Shelly Marie Tambo and Holling Vincoeur had the most charming May-December relationship I’ve ever seen on TV. As Shelly says in the intro to this recipe, “This is what housewives served to their nuclear families in the fifties, before I was born. It’s a little fancy for me, but when I made it for the Big H, I had something to prove.” I haven’t had it in some time now (since I don’t eat pasta anymore) but I remember this being darn good. Since this whole article is about finding ways to use leftover sausage, just replace the hotdogs in this recipe with your sausage. Easy peasy! Actually, some of those buttery peas from idea #19 would go good with this. The recipe: Shelly’s hot dog and cheese casserole Ingredients: 1 8-ounce box of macaroni ½ pound hot dogs, slicked [use the sausage here instead] 2 ¼ cup American cheese, shredded 5 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 small onion, finely chopped ¼ cup all-purpose flour 2 cups milk ¼ teaspoon pepper ½ teaspoon salt Directions: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cook and drain the pasta according to the package directions. Grease a 2-quart casserole dish, add the macaroni, hot dog slices [sausage slices] and 2 cups of the cheese. Mix well. Put the butter and onion in a saucepan and sauté the onion until it’s wilted (5 minutes). Whisk in the flour until it’s incorporated and remove it from the heat. Slowly add the milk to the flour and butter mix, whisking the whole time. When the milk is added, return the pot to the heat, add the spices and keep whisking until the mixture boils. Pour the milk mixture evenly over the casserole. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the casserole. Bake for 18-20 minutes until the cheese is browned. Serve with catsup and a cold martini. [Good ole Northern Exposure humour.] Yummy meal idea #23 for leftover sausage: Spoon bread Gosh, I have fond memories of Martha Stewart’s spoon bread. I made it once when we had some ladies over for dinner, but I probably could’ve eaten the whole thing myself. If you like the taste of cornmeal and richness, you’ll love this. Do not be fooled by the spoon bread recipe on Martha Stewart’s website that calls for milk: it is not the spoon bread I’m talking about. Use the recipe below; it’s amazingly rich. It’s written up in the Kitsap Sun article, ASK MARTHA: Special side dishes for portable feast but I’m including it here in full so you’re not tempted to go over and use that low-fat version I warned you about, ha ha. This recipe calls for chorizo, so you don’t even have to do any substitutions with your leftover sausage. I think the one glorious time I made it, I didn’t even add sausage and it was still amazing. The recipe: Spoon Bread from Martha’s American Food by Martha Stewart Ingredients: 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for dish 1 medium onion, cut into ½ inch dice 5 ounces chorizo (a peppery pork sausage), cut into ½ inch dice 2 cups water 1 cup white cornmeal 1 ½ cups corn kernels, cut from 2 large ears corn, or frozen 1 ½ teaspoons coarse salt 5 large eggs 1 ½ cups heavy cream Directions: Heat 2 tablespoons butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add onion and cook until softened for about 4 minutes. Add the chorizo [your leftover sausage] and sauté until the chorizo is lightly browned, about 4 minutes more. Drain the excess fat, put the sausage and onions into a medium bowl and set aside to cool. Heat the oven to 350°F. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a small saucepan. Slowly pour in the cornmeal, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook until thickened, about 2 minutes. Add the cornmeal to the sausage mixture and stir in the corn kernels, salt and the remaining tablespoon of butter. Combine this well. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and cream. Stir the egg and cream mix into the sausage mixture until it’s well incorporated. Pour the entire mixture into a buttered 2-quart souffle dish or deep pie dish. Bake until the spoon bread is set and the top is a golden brown, about 1 hour. Serve hot or at room temperature. Yummy meal idea #24 for leftover sausage: Stir fry, Korean style Everyone loves a stir fry, including home cooks because it’s a simple way to create a tasty dish. But do you ever think about making a Korean stir fry? No? Well, today could be the day! I spent almost a year and a half teaching English in Korea when I was younger and that gave me a real appreciation for Korean people and Korean food so that’s why I wanted to include some Korean food bloggers on this list. Recipe suggestion for stir fry, Korean style: Korean Style Sausage Stir Fry by Sue from her site, My Korean Kitchen. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: Substitute the Vienna sausages for your leftover slices. Cut them into thick slices. Other than that, just follow Sue’s recipe. Yummy meal idea #25 for leftover sausage: Ten-minute Tantanmen ramen This is a ramen recipe by Korean food blogger, Seonkyoung Longest. I’ve spent hours watching her YouTube videos and I love her positive attitude! Plus, I remember being touched by the honesty in Seonkyoung’s about page. She says about this recipe, “Tantanmen is Japanese ramen version of dandanmian (dandan noodles), a noodle dish originating from Chinese Sichuan cuisine.” It looks pretty tasty! Recipe suggestion for tantanmen ramen: 10-Minute Easy Tantanmen Ramen Recipe & Video by Seonkyoung Longest on her website. By the way, the video for this recipe shows just her hands and the ingredients. This is fine but I prefer the ones where she’s front and centre because then you really get to see her personality and the food. Recipe adjustment to make this leftover friendly: Shorten step three which is the one where the pork gets cooked. I’d chop up the leftover sausage into small pieces so it can look more like minced pork in the final presentation of the dish. Conclusion Well, there you have it. 25 creative ideas for what to do with your leftover sausage, if you ever have any. I hope you enjoyed reading these ideas and what turned out to be a love letter to my former ways of eating (mmm…spoon bread…). May you always enjoy your sausages the first and second time around!