What exactly are American recipes containing "smoked sausage" or "smoked Italian sausage" referring to?

Question

I have recently come across several American recipes that call for an ingredient described as 'Smoked Sausage' or 'Smoked Italian Sausage'. Here in Australia, we try to be a little more specific, so is it a longer, skinny item like Cabanossi (Popular on pizza) or Kabanos, or one of a plethora of sausage products that are either smoked or cooked in a brine tank, or even both? Are they short or long? Are they relatively unspiced etc, or garlicky, peppery etc?

Answer 1

This question is difficult to answer without knowing what region of the US the recipe came from, and how old it is.

Sausage making in the US for a long time was highly regionalized, with the sausage style based on where the people of that area primarily emigrated from, so they might be in a Germanic, Polish, or Italian tradition.

These days, however, and for the past 20-30 years, there are major national distributors (e.g., Hillshire Farms) who simply sell products labeled ‘beef smoked sausage’ and ‘smoked sausage’.

Unless you have any other information, assume that you can get away with any pre-cooked, moist (not dried/cured), lightly smoked but otherwise non-assertive sausage, as it’s more about protein and texture than anything else. It would likely be a medium grind (not a coarse sausage like soppressata, but not homogeneous like a frankfurter, either). It’s probably pork, or a blend of pork, chicken, and beef, as that would have been otherwise specified.

Update: I forgot to mention the size aspects. Smoked sausage is usually sold as a loop, which were 16oz until a few years ago. Due to shrinkflation, they’re now usually 14oz. It’s a single sausage, no casing, about 3cm in diameter. “Italian” typically means that there’s fennel seed, but it’s usually sold as a raw sausage (in links maybe 2.5 to 4oz each).

Answer 2

I can’t comment what those specific recipes mean, but based on experience here in the US, ‘smoked sausage’ is pretty generic, albeit with some relatively consistent properties. In particular, ‘American’ smoked sausage usually:

• Has pork as the primary meat, and if not is usually a blend of multiple meats.
• Has the meat medium to finely ground.
• Has a ‘medium’ casing (not super soft, but still pretty easy to cut with a decent knife, and still holds together reasonably well).
• Is pre-cooked, not dried, and not cured.
• Has a rather mild flavor with little in the way of spices or herbs involved.

In theory, any sausage you can source locally that meets all those points should work fine in most American recipes that call for ‘smoked sausage’. There are two special exceptions to this:

• Louisiana Cajun and Creole dishes may assume Cajun Andouille sausage due to the extremely heavy French influence on that area’s cuisine. This is similar to French Andouille sausage, though typically double-smoked and often with a heavy helping of cayenne pepper as part of the seasoning. This will usually be called out explicitly, but is not always.
• Some Hawaiian dishes may assume something closer to Portuguese linguiça. Portuguese cuisine had a major influence on modern Hawaiian cuisine, and this is one big way it still shows. Again, this will usually be called out explicitly, but is not always.

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‘Italian sausage’ is trickier. What most Americans think of as Italian sausage is a fresh, coarse-ground, pork sausage seasoned primarily with fennel, typically with some black pepper and occasionally with sweet basil or cayenne pepper flakes (I believe it’s mostly based on Italian luganega, but I’m not certain about that). It’s almost never smoked though, so I’m not sure if it is what these recipes are calling for or not. In theory, Bologna sausage would fit the description of ‘smoked Italian sausage’, and it’s readily available in the US, but that’s probably not it since most Americans don’t even know it’s sausage (we largely just use it as a cold-cut for sandwiches under the name ‘baloney’).

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After digging a bit further, I’ve learned that apparently some places in the US that make smoked meats actually smoke American-style Italian sausage and sell the result as ‘Smoked Italian Sausage’, and some people go about making these themselves as well. I’ve never had these myself (let alone seen them sold anywhere), but my guess is that they are what the recipe is calling for when it says ‘Smoked Italian Sausage’. From what I can tell, these sausages are usually hickory-smoked like many other smoked meats in American cuisine that don’t call out a specific wood used for the smoking.

Answer 3

In typical "southern style" American cooking a smoked sausage can mean anything between a Kielbasa and a Bratwurst. I normally lean more toward the Keilbasa.

Answer 4

The catch on any American sausage like that is the marketing terms vary wildly, even in the US. Sausage, in general, can encompass

• Uncased or small cased (0.5" diameter) spiced pork (uncooked, usually served with breakfast)
• Cased luncheon meat (refrigerated and commonly 3-4" in diameter)
• Cased 2-3" shelf-stable meat (short tubes, names vary, but sometimes called "summer sausage")
• Cased 0.5-1.5" diameter cooked refrigerated meat. Usually sold in longer length

It's that last one that "smoked sausage" usually falls into. Hillshire Farms (US brand) has an entire section of their website devoted to the category, but you'll note that they all fall into that range of 1-1.5" in diameter

If you can't find "smoked sausage", you can find variants that fit the size requirements. This can include sausages like

• Kielbasa (common in the US)
• Kranski/Kransky
• Polish Sausage (as in it's labeled this)
• Polish Wiejska
• Polish Staropolska

I made sure all of the above are available in Australia.

The one catch here is I would avoid poultry-based "smoked sausage". In most cases, the recipe is expecting a fatty meat like pork or beef. They're generally not as concerned with the smoke flavor. My wife likes to use sausages like this to "fatten" up bean soups and add a meat flavor.

Answer 5

We don't know, either. A bit tongue in cheek, but, I think, that's the literal truth, and the actual intention of the recipe author, too, with an American audience. There really is no coast-to-coast "American sausage" preference. Another answer stated smoked sausage is usually pork but for my whole life I have always bought the ones that are "100% beef". (The ones that don't say "100% beef" are often a mix of beef and pork, but could be 100% pork, or any kind of pork-chicken-beef mix. I will just throw it out there that Americans do not have anything like a standard concept of what a sausage is, beyond the most vague generalities.)

With that in mind, I believe recipes like this are intentionally being vague because you are meant to "insert your own personal favorite smokey sausage here". They know that New Yorkers may use something very different than Texans, but it's meant to work out fine provided it brings some variety of smokey meat flavor to the dish.