I almost didn’t even post this 10 Minute Sausage & Sauerkraut because it’s so ridiculously fast and easy, and requires such few ingredients, that it can hardly even be considered a recipe!
However, I posted pictures of this meal a few times during our March on Motivated Challenge and had several requests for the recipe, so I thought I’d share how I put it together and prove just how easily you can stay on plan – even if you’re the Ultimate Drive Thru Sue!
At the bare minimum, you just need 2 ingredients for this recipe: sausage and sauerkraut! I usually whip it up with 4-5 ingredients by adding a bit of butter, ground pepper, and nutritional yeast to the other two. Caraways seeds are a nice addition too, if you have them on hand.
Essentially, all you do is slice the sausages into coins, fry them up over medium heat until they get a bit crispy on the sliced edges, dump in a pile of sauerkraut, turn up the heat, and stir-fry the two ingredients together until the liquid is evaporated and you’re left with sausage flavor-infused sauerkraut!
A lot of people wonder about what type of sausage they should use on plan, because most contain sugar. A little sugar is necessary for curing for most sausages, and are on-plan if they have less than 2 grams of net carbs per serving.
Breakfast and Honey Garlic Style sausages usually have too much added sugar, so I try to stay away from those. Smoked or precooked Kielbasa, Italian, Farmer’s, and BBQ-style sausages tend to have a low sugar content, and having them precooked makes this 10 Minute Sausage & Sauerkraut main dish super speedy.
I use lacto-fermented sauerkraut in this dish. Since I add it at the end of the cooking time, it still has many of its probiotics. The cheapest and easiest place to find lacto-ferment sauerkraut (if you don’t make it yourself) is at your local Polish or other Eastern European grocery shop. One 8-serving jar costs me a mere $2.00! You’re looking for sauerkraut that’s made with just cabbage, salt, and/or water. Sauerkraut in a vinegar brine kills the probiotics.
I also buy my sausage and lacto-fermented dill pickles at our local Polish Butcher Shop!
I love serving this dish with dill pickles and sour cream on the side for a true, Eastern European flair. We would eat this at the International Village Festival where one of our daughters did Ukrainian dancing (they served it with perogies, of course!).
10 Minute Sausage & Sauerkraut Skillet | THM: S, GF, DF option
Ingredients
OPTIONAL:
Instructions
When I make this, I add some onions cooked until translucent, and about 2 tsp. superset with a drop or two of molasses. Yum!
I cannot wait to make this at home. This looks delicious! Haven’t gone out and made a recipe like this in a while. So excited to try it – thank you for sharing!
Before to cook sauerkraut you should wash it with hot water.Put into a frying pan and let it vaporize until it gets dry.After that add butter,onion,shredded carrot, sugar and salt for taste.Cook approximately for 15 min.Add a sausage or kielbasa.
Why would you want to do that?
I agree – next time I cook this, I will at least drain and lightly rinse out some of the brine with running water. Otherwise the dish came out way too salty and acidic to eat as a main course, and ends up being more suitable like a flavour add/small side.
I add can mushrooms! Great receipe!
Shouldn’t you drain the grease from the sausage before adding the kraut?
Smoked sausage, Kielbasa, etc. doesn’t produce much grease at all and the very tiny amount it does gives it a great flavor. It’s nothing like raw ground sausage, if that’s what you’re thinking of. There’s nothing to “drain.” You would have to actually do something like taking a paper towel and patting each coin dry in order to get any grease out of it.
I think it would make the recipe worse. The reaction between the little bit of juices from the kielbasa and the acidic liquid from the sauerkraut are what makes this have such a great flavor. They need to cook together to get the wonderful flavor you want from this dish. It’s the main reason why this traditional dish has been around for so long.
Note that sugar or molasses will ruin this dish. If the sauerkraut is too sour or acidic for your taste you may balance it by adding dried prunes or/and onions cooked until translucent. If you decide to use onions start by cooking the onions, followed by sliced sausages, sauerkraut and dried prunes.
Nice touch with the nutritional yeast.
is it the same as active dry yeast (mine is by Northstar)? how do I dose?
I love sauerkraut and sausage. It is also good with onions and apples , or cut up some potatoes. The apples sound weird but are delicious after soaking up all the flavors.
Apples make delicious addition to this dish!
This recipe looks great. I will fix it this evening with smoked jalapeno sausage. That should give it a big kick of flavor.
Great ideas here. Decided to go with onions, potatoes, and going to try the apples too! I use turkey sausage as we don’t eat pork. I don’t like to rinse my kraut, as I love the actual taste of good kraut! I don’t like adding sugar either again it downplays the real kraut taste, but to each their own!