Cool weather, dark beer and hot sausage is all you need for a great Oktoberfest get together. While originally focused solely on beer, Oktoberfest now also celebrates one of the greatest foods ever created — sausage. Beer and brats are impeccable complements and Oktoberfest is the perfect time to bring these two together on your table.
Running from the end of September through the first weekend of October, Oktoberfest ushers in the fall and coincides with that other event that kicks off in the fall in the US: tailgating. What goes better with football than sausage and beer? Nothing, that’s what.
Our Sausage Meisters at Whole Foods Market® are highly skilled in the art of craft sausage making. Our sausages are hand mixed with fresh whole muscle ground from meat certified to the Global Animal Partnership’s 5 Step™ Animal Welfare Rating opens in a new tab. The seasonings are fresh and the sausages are made in small batches to impart the peak of flavor. Using natural ingredients and casings, our sausages are carefully hand twisted and hand stacked to bring you a mouth-watering selection. We put so much care into making our sausages and we want you to have the best experience possible eating them, so here are a few cooking suggestions.
Oven: Roast at 350°F for 25 minutes.
Sauté: This is my personal favorite. I use water, stock or, of course, beer to steam them through. Put your sausages in the pan, add liquid to about halfway up the sides of the links and cook over a medium heat until half the liquid is reduced. Turn sausages over and continue to cook until the remaining liquid is cooked out. Then, let the links sear to a nice brown crust on each side, turning once. Serve with German ale in a frosty mug!
Grill: Over a medium-high heat, grill the sausages until you have nice grill marks (about 3 minutes a side) and then move them off of the direct heat and cook for another 10-12 minutes. This allows for thorough cooking without losing any of their juicy goodness.
And the Holy Beer Brat: I know it is hard to do, but you will need to boil beer, not drink it for this recipe. But trust me it’s worth it. You’ll need roughly a quart of beer per pound of sausage. Bring the beer to a boil and drop in the sausages. Meanwhile fire up the grill and get a nice flame going. Boil the links for approximately 10 minutes until fully cooked and the flavor of the beer has penetrated into the sausage. Remove from the boil and take to the grill. Place the sausages on at 45° angle and leave on just long enough to get some nice grill marks. Remove, add to bun with mustard and kraut. Enjoy.
Our favorite Oktoberfest selections include Bratwurst, German-Style Pork Sausage, Kielbasa and Garlic Pepper. We also have a host of already cooked, ready-to-heat and eat varieties. Pork sausages are my personal favorite, but we make great chicken and turkey sausages as well that provide a leaner option with lots of flavor.
There’s a coupon for our Brat Hans varieties opens in a new tab, all pork and chicken, in the September/October issue of The Whole Deal® value guide so be sure to check them out. They made a very traditional flavored mix with a great brat. Interested in branching out? Try the Weisswurst, a German-style white sausage that should be on every Oktoberfest menu.
What’s your favorite sausage concoction?
