So I went shopping at Kroger today and they had a great deal on a large package of smoked sausages. I vaguely recalled seeing a smoked sausage recipe I wanted to make, so I picked up a couple of them. Now I have a laaarge quantity of sausages and I need ideas for dinners to make with them!
I definitely won’t be able to use them all immediately so what I’ll do is separate them into freezer bags, in amounts appropriate for our meals. I’ll probably have four to six sausages per bag, depending on what meals I plan to make. If I have an odd number of sausage left over, I’ll probably freeze them in packages of two for soups or casseroles. What you don’t want to do is freeze them all together in the package, because then you’ll have one lump of umpteen sausages, you’ll have to thaw out the whole thing, and you’ll have to eat sausages every day straight for a week, breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Meal Ideas Using Smoked Sausages
Below are lots of different smoked sausage recipe ideas for very quick and easy weeknight dinners. They’re so delicious-looking, I want to try them all tonight! Most of them are weeknight-friendly, which is a huge plus because every week, the weeknights outnumber the weekends. Why is that?
Anyway, you have a variety of choices in how you cook your sausages. Sometimes the same basic recipe can be adapted to different cooking methods. For example, in the winter you might use similar ingredients as one of the skillet meals, but make it a sheet pan dinner or a delicious hearty soup.
Ways to Cook Smoked Sausage
Smoked Sausage on the Grill: One of the perfect ways to use it is to grill it up and serve it as a standalone meat with summer sides like potato salad, coleslaw, pasta salad, or roasted or grilled vegetables. It would even make a delicious kabab – I’m seeing pinapple chunks interspersed and maybe broccoli, with big chunks of white onion. Add BBQ sauce or not; either way, it’s a win.
Smoked Sausage Skillet Recipes: the idea behind this is to slice up sausages and cook them with rice or potatoes, vegetables, and cheese. Since it’s made on the stovetop, it’s appropriate year-round, including those hot summer days when you don’t want to heat up the oven.
Smoked Sausage Sheet Pan Recipes: These are similar to skillet dishes in that they are simple and require little prep work and are easy cleanup, but you do need to turn on your oven for a smoked sausage sheet pan dish. Smoked sausages share the pan with in-season veggies. Try squash, zuchinni, and potatoes in late summer. Or you could use cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, and broccoli along with potatoes. Lightly toss the veggies in oil before cooking. I like to line my sheet pan with parchment so nothing has to be scrubbed after the meal.
Soups with Smoked Sausage: Wow, this one variety meat is surprisingly versatile, especially when it comes to soups! You can find potato soup recipes flavored with savory sausage, white bean and kale soup that stars smoke sausage, a vegetable soup that provides the perfect backdrop for the sausage, and of course, bean soup welcomes smoked sausage.
Slow Cooker or Instant Pot Smoked Sausage: Smoked sausage and kielbasa are generally pre-cooked, which makes them super-quick to heat up for dinner and they don’t really need to spend all day in the Crockpot. However, it’s not the sausage that benefits from the low-and-slow or pressure-cooked; it’s all the OTHER ingredients that benefit from the flavor – the warmth and smokiness – of residing with the smoked or polish sausage.
Smoked Sausage Meal Ideas
Smoked Sausage with Beans and Rice: The meal idea that started this whole thing and convinced me to buy that big pack of sausage was good ol’ red beans and rice. It can be just beans and rice, rice and beans, but you can also kick it up a notch with kielbasa or smoked sausage. Both are budget friendly, offering top-notch nutrition. Add some green bell pepper and onion. MMMMMM.
- Red Beans and Rice (click for recipe)
- Cheesy Rice, Veggie, and Smoked Sausage Skillet
- Jambalaya
Sausage with Potatoes: This is one of our family’s go-to quick dinners. I’ll keep a jar of sauerkraut on hand and toss it in with some cut-up russet potatoes and the sliced smoked sausage. If you have caraway seed, toss in a few sprinkles to make it even better. Now, if you don’t mind the extra calories, a classic accompaniment to this dish is simple buttered bread. It’s so good, you don’t even know. But leave it out if you’re not doing carbs. (Or if you’re super-duper doing carbs and just don’t care, make or buy crusty rolls like they have in Germany. We called it brochen, which apparently just means bread, but they’re crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, and really good.)
- Sausage, Sauerkraut, Onions, and Potatoes – Fry this up in your cast iron skillet or use a big dutch oven to feed a crowd.
- Potato Soup with Smoked Sausage – The sausage can replace the ham or bacon just beautifully!
- Smoked Sausage Hash by Living Chirpy – Sausage stars in this easy breakfast (or breakfast-for-dinner) recipe.
- Kielbasa and Potatoes by The Forked Spoon – A hearty, easy, weeknight one-pot dinner with a classic flavor profile.
- Easy Kielbasa Sheet Pan Dinner – Roast a variety of seasoned vegetables along with the kielbasa for a hearty and scrumptious sheet pan dinner.
Smoked Sausage with Pasta: From cheesy macaroni to cous cous, pasta is a great accompaniment to sausages. You can use jarred sauce or make your own – red marinara, white Alfredo, or cheddar would all work nicely in concert with plump dices of sausage with pasta.
- Macaroni & Cheese with Smoked Sausage
- Cheesy Bowtie Pasta with Sausage and Tomatoes
- Easy Fettucini Alfredo with Smoked Sausage and Broccoli
Smoked Sausage with Greens (and a Carb): It can’t be easier. Unless you’re a purist and/or a soul foodie, buy your greens in a can and add them as a side or mixed in with your sausage. Add cooked, cut up potatoes or cornbread or another complimentary carb. Adapt the dish to what you have to work with, in terms of ingredients, equipment, and time. You can cook the sausage and potatoes together on a sheet pan and heat the greens in the microwave or on the stove. Or you can nuke the potatoes and the greens, then fry your sauage pieces in the skillet on the stove. You could probably make it a skillet by starting with browning the sausage in the skillet, adding the greens and potatoes, and covering and cooking over medium heat until the potatoes are tender.
- Smoked Sausage, Greens, and Cornbread
Smoked Sausage and Seasonal Veggies: Suitable for grilling, pan-frying, or roasting, an easy and nutritious – plus quick! – meal is to serve cut up veggies with your sausage. Choose whatever’s in season: we like zuchinni, yellow squash, onion, and tomato.
- Cut Veggies and Sausage
- Smoked Sausage and Summer Squash Skillet
- Sweet and Sour Crockpot Kielbasa by Maria’s Mixing Bowl – take your veggies and sausage to the tropics with this slow cooker sausage recipe!
Sausage or Polska Kielbasa with Cabbage: A solid variation on the sauerkraut and sausage combo, sausage and cabbage is just as simple, though you will need to chop your cabbage. Oh, and don’t make this on the night when fellowship folks are coming over (unless they’re coming for dinner!). It’s delicious, but there’s no disguising the smell of cooked cabbage. Cabbage cooks down a whole lot, so you probably want to use a half or even a whole head. Yes, at first it will look ridiculous how much you have cut. Don’t worry – it will all work out. When I make this, I like to cut all my cabbage, put it into a ginormous bowl, heat the skillet, then brown the kielbasa or smoked sausage slices. While sausage is browning, I’ll chop an onion and an apple or two. When the sausage is browned, remove it and you’ll hopefully have some brown stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan. That’s called flavor, and we release it by putting a tablespoon or three of cold water into the hot pan (be careful, because it will sizzle and spit), then use a spatula to scrape and dislodge the brown stuff. Now toss in your onion, stir it around a bit, until it starts to look a little softer, then start adding your cabbage – as much as you can reasonably fit. If you have a lid to the skillet, now is the time to use it since it will trap the moisture inside and help the cabbage cook down. Finally, once all your cabbage is in the pan and looking cooked, throw in the sausage slices and apple dices. Stir until the whole thing is heated through again.
Smoked Sausage Soups: Nearly every meal idea of smoked sausage listed above could be turned into a soup! Use a base of broth, then beans, potatoes, or pasta and add appropriate vegetables. Here are a few soups I like to make with smoked sausage.
- Sausage Lentil Soup – homemade, simple, quick and delicious!
- Hearty potato soup with smoked sausage – smoked sausage is the perfect complement to this soup that is commonly made with ham.
- You could easily substitute smoked sausage for Italian sausage in this copycat of Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana soup recipe. It would be great.
- Smoked sausage and white bean soup with spinach or kale. These ingredients are made for each other.
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