Sausages are delicious, but they're too tricky to cook. Hither's how to tell if they're done—with or without a meat thermometer.

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Hearty, piquant, and tasty, sausages are a bona fide favorite among carnivores. And for good reason: every decent shop carries at least a few varieties of sausages—and a single pack can feed the whole family unit inexpensively.

Just ownership sausages is the easy office. Cooking them, less so.

One time you lot've unwrapped the sausages from the grocery bags and you've slapped them on the hot skillet, how do you know when they're washed? (And what'southward the deal with the degree to which meat is cooked, anyway?)

Raw or undercooked sausages can incorporate pathogenic bacteria that can make you ill, the USDA's Food Condom and Inspection Service says. To become rubber to consume, sausages must be cooked to a minimum internal temperature specific to each type of meat.

According to the Centers for Illness Command and Prevention, 48 one thousand thousand Americans get sick from nutrient-borne illnesses every twelvemonth. Of them, 128,000 are hospitalized, and three,000 die.

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Conspicuously, cooking meat to a prophylactic internal temperature is important.

To tell if sausages are done cooking, use a meat thermometer. Insert the tip of the probe into the end of the link and wait a few seconds to get an accurate reading. Sausage is done when the internal temperature reaches 160°F (70°C) for beefiness, pork, and lamb; 165°F (74°C) for craven, duck, goose, and game birds.

With a meat thermometer, you don't accept to pierce the casings on the sausages. If yous do, the juices in the meat will run out, and the sausages will come out dry and tough. The tip of the meat thermometer should exist inserted into the pocket-sized opening on each side of the sausage where it was twisted into links.

Home Cook World

(A skillful instant-read meat thermometer won't set y'all dorsum all that much and, with it, y'all can elevate your cooking to new heights. When in doubtfulness, check out my meat thermometer picks.)

Still, not everyone who's reading this article has a meat thermometer handy—and some don't intend on buying one.

How can you tell if sausages are done without a meat thermometer?

Cook the sausages, turning every minute or 2, until they are golden brownish on all sides. Then remove 1 of the sausages from the heat and cut information technology crosswise towards the end. If it's done, it will be firm, juicy, and taupe-colored. If it's undercooked, it will exist soft to the bear on, bloody on the inside, and colored pink.

The technique higher up applies to grilled, oven-roast, and pan-fried sausages. Boiled bratwursts and other boiled sausages are a globe of their own.

Where exactly to cut the sausages, yous're probably wondering?

The answer depends on what you plan to use them for once they're fully cooked.

Home Melt World

Suppose you're briefly browning the sausages, and so that you tin chop them upwards and throw them in a stew. Test one of them for doneness by cutting a quarter-sized piece from i of the ends.

Let'south imagine that you'll need to cut the sausages into halves anyway, as you plan to put them between hot canis familiaris buns to make sausage sandwiches. Check for doneness by—no prizes for guessing—cutting one of them into halves.

Sausage Doneness Temperature

Sausage Meat Minimum Internal Temperature Resting Time
Beef sausage 160°F (71.1°C) 3 minutes
Pork sausage 160°F (71.1°C) 3 minutes
Pork and beef sausage 160°F (71.1°C) three minutes
Chicken sausage 165°F (73.8°C) 3 minutes
Game sausage 165°F (73.viii°C) 3 minutes
Turkey sausage 165°F (73.8°C) 3 minutes
Wild fowl sausage 165°F (73.eight°C) 3 minutes
Sausage done temperature

Cook all of your sausages to the USDA-prescribed minimum internal temperature equally measured by a meat thermometer.

Balance the sausages for iii minutes after coming off the rut. The meat volition continue cooking in its residual heat, tenderizing itself and sealing the juices in.

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Why Are My Sausages Undercooked?

When your sausages are blackened and burnt on the surface but cold and raw at the heart, this ways that you cooked them on overly loftier heat.

This is a classic problem that many home cooks experience when they prepare meat. Unfortunately, there isn't much that you tin can do to salvage the burnt sausages other than cutting out the scorched bits and cook whatever is left in a soup, stew, or chili.

The skillful news is that putting a stop to raw and undercooked sausages is simpler than you probably recollect.

Melt your sausages—and all of your meats—low and slow. For example, I pan-fry virtually of my meats over medium estrus and roast them in a 350°F (180°C) oven.

Through much trial and error, I've plant the oestrus on those settings to exist "just enough" for proper browning and caramelization on the outside of my meats while being "gentle enough" to melt them through on the inside.

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Should Y'all Cut Upward or Prick Sausages Earlier Cooking?

When it comes to cutting upwardly or pricking sausages earlier cooking, in that location seem to be two schools of idea out in that location. The jury's out on which is correct, and which is incorrect.

The advocates for this technique claim that sausages must exist cut upwardly or pricked in several spots to permit the steam escape, preventing the casings from bursting.

The critics say that it lets not just the moisture—only also the fats and the juices—escape from the meat, and that sausages come out dry out and chewy when you cut them upwards or pierce them before cooking.

My experience is that cooking sausages low and tedious, as I suggested above, won't cause their skin to rapture. And I concord that the less you poke, pierce, or cut them before (or during) cooking, the more succulent they come out.

How to Pan-Fry Sausages on the Stove

Frying sausages is quick, requires only a skillet, and works with pretty much whatever sausage variety. You could even throw in a few white onions, peeled and cut into quarters, to impart some sweetness to the sausages.

  • Bring the sausages to room temperature. I commonly do this by taking the sausages out of the fridge—and resting them on the counter for a few minutes earlier breaking the original packaging and frying them upward.
  • Grease the skillet with cooking oil and preheat it for 2-3 minutes over medium estrus. You lot but demand one-2 tablespoons of oil to grease the bottom and sides of your skillet to prevent the sausages from sticking and keep their casings intact.
  • Fry the sausages, turning them occasionally, until they've turned golden brown on all sides. If the sausages showtime to blacken on the surface or the oil in your pan begins to emit excessive smoke, adapt the knob on your stovetop; that's a sign that you're using besides much heat.
  • The sausages, depending on their size and the amount of heat you employ, normally cook in 10-xv minutes. Y'all know that they're done when yous test their internal temperature with a meat thermometer, and information technology reads at least 160°F (70°C) for sausages containing beef, pork, or lamb; 165°F (74°C) for poultry.

It'due south best to use a thick-walled, heavy-bottomed skillet for the job. Then open your kitchen cabinets and whip out that well-seasoned cast atomic number 26 skillet. Alternatively, a carbon steel or stainless steel frying pan volition also do.

(Teflon and ceramic pans, at least in my experience, won't chocolate-brown the sausages too as uncoated skillets will.)

How to Roast Sausages in the Oven

If pan-frying is the quickest way to melt sausages, oven-roasting is by far the easiest. Preheat the oven, pop the sausages in, plow them mid-cooking, and they're pretty much done.

  • Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) for xx minutes. The longer, the better; an oven preheated for sufficient time has few cold spots and roasts meat more evenly.
  • Use that fourth dimension to bring the sausages to room temperature. Take the sausages out of the refrigerator and go out them on the counter, keeping the packaging that they came in intact.
  • Lay the sausages on a canvass pan with a wire rack. The rack volition elevator and keep them from coming into contact with the lesser of the pan, promoting browning on all sides and separating the sausages from the dripping fats and juices.
  • Roast for 20-30 minutes depending on the size of the sausages, turning them over to the other side mid-cooking. Don't spiral cut the sausages; most of the juices volition flow out, causing the meat to come out stiff and dry.

My favorite kind of pan for the chore is a sturdy aluminum sail pan with a wire rack. In case you don't happen to take one, you can use your cast iron skillet (every bit long as it'southward got bare-metallic handles).

How to Grill Sausages

Always cook your sausages on indirect oestrus, no matter if you're grilling over charcoal or gas.

On a charcoal grill:

Ignite the charcoal, then let information technology fire for xx-30 minutes until it starts to ash over. In one case you lot're at that place, lift the grates with your BBQ gloves on and rake the charcoal to the left. Put the grates back on and melt your sausages with the lid off over the correct, coal-free side.

On a gas grill:

Open the chapeau, prepare the burners to high, and light your gas grill. Once information technology's burning, close the lid and preheat for 15-20 minutes. Turn half of the burners off, go along the other half on loftier, and grease the grates with oil. Cook the sausages on indirect rut for 5-6 minutes on each side until they've reached the minimum internal temperature (or they look washed).

P.S. Thank you for reading this far! If you're curious to learn more on the topic, head on over to our guide on how to cook sausages.

For your information

We beginning published this commodity on September xv, 2022. Quite a few readers gave us feedback that they wanted to get tips for testing sausage'southward doneness not only with, but also without a meat thermometer.

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So my editorial team and I scoured the Internet for communication, collecting and testing what seemed to exist the most promising of it. After much argue—and many eaten sausages—we updated this article on October 31, 2022, with updated guidance.

Founding Editor

When Jim isn't in the kitchen, he is usually spending time with family unit and friends, and working with the HCW editorial team to respond the questions he used to ask himself back when he was learning the ropes of cooking.