![Breakfast Sausage, Ye Olde Cottage Restaurant, Weston MA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Breakfast_Sausage%2C_Ye_Olde_Cottage_Restaurant%2C_Weston_MA.jpg)
Breakfast sausage (or country sausage) is a type of fresh
pork
Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE.
Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved; ...
sausage
A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs may be included as fillers or extenders.
...
usually served at breakfast in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
.
In the United States, the predominant flavorings used for seasoning are
black pepper
Black pepper (''Piper nigrum'') is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, known as a peppercorn, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about in dia ...
or
sage
Sage or SAGE may refer to:
Plants
* ''Salvia officinalis'', common sage, a small evergreen subshrub used as a culinary herb
** Lamiaceae, a family of flowering plants commonly known as the mint or deadnettle or sage family
** ''Salvia'', a large ...
. There are also varieties seasoned with
maple syrup or
cayenne pepper
The cayenne pepper is a type of '' Capsicum annuum''. It is usually a moderately hot chili pepper used to flavor dishes. Cayenne peppers are a group of tapering, 10 to 25 cm long, generally skinny, mostly red-colored peppers, often with ...
. Some breakfast sausage is flavored with cured
bacon.
It is a common breakfast item in traditional American "farmer" or "country" breakfasts, as it originated as a way for farmers to make use of as much of their livestock (usually pigs) as possible. Scraps and trimmings were ground, seasoned and later consumed by the farmer as an inexpensive, high-protein morning meal.
It can be in the form of
smoked or fresh
patties
A patty or burger (in British English) is a flattened, usually round, serving of ground meat and/or legumes, grains, vegetables, or meat alternatives. Patties are found in multiple cuisines throughout the world.
In British and American En ...
, links or loose sausage. Most diners, fast-food restaurants, and family restaurants across the country will also carry one or more versions of it during breakfast hours, whether on a sandwich, in a breakfast platter, or both; some fine-dining establishments will also have a sausage option on their breakfast or brunch menu. The cased link variety is most similar to
English-style sausages and has been produced in the United States since colonial days.
It is essentially a highly seasoned
ground meat
Ground meat, called mince or minced meat outside North America, is meat finely chopped by a meat grinder or a chopping knife. A common type of ground meat is ground beef, but many other types of meats are prepared in a similar fashion, incl ...
, so it does not keep and should be stored and handled appropriately. Newer variations made from pork and
beef
Beef is the culinary name for meat from cattle (''Bos taurus'').
In prehistoric times, humankind hunted aurochs and later domesticated them. Since that time, numerous breeds of cattle have been bred specifically for the quality or quantit ...
mixtures as well as
poultry
Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, their meat or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails, ...
(turkey or chicken) can also be found. There are also
vegetarian
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter.
Vegetariani ...
varieties
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
that use
textured vegetable protein
Textured or texturized vegetable protein (TVP), also known as textured soy protein (TSP), soy meat, or soya chunks is a defatted soy flour product, a by-product of extracting soybean oil. It is often used as a meat analogue or meat extender ...
(TVP) in place of meat.
Breakfast sausage is normally fried in a pan, grilled, or microwaved. Some people like to put
maple syrup onto their breakfast sausages. Cooked breakfast sausage is also mixed into
egg
An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...
casseroles before baking. Crumbled sausage added to white
gravy
Gravy is a sauce often made from the juices of meats that run naturally during cooking and often thickened with wheat flour or corn starch for added texture. The gravy may be further coloured and flavoured with gravy salt (a simple mix of salt ...
is the central component of
sausage gravy
Sausage gravy is a traditional Southern breakfast dish in the United States. After loose pork sausage is cooked in a pan and removed, a roux is formed by browning flour in the residual fat. Milk and seasonings, such as salt and pepper, are adde ...
.
Brands
Some common US brands include: Wampler's,
Bob Evans,
Jimmy Dean
Jimmy Ray Dean (August 10, 1928 – June 13, 2010) was an American country music singer, television host, actor and businessman. He was the creator of the Jimmy Dean sausage brand as well as the spokesman for its TV commercials.
He became ...
,
Swaggerty's Farm,
Owen's Sausage, Purnell's Old Folks Country Sausage,
Tennessee Pride,
Johnsonville,
Farmland
Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous with bo ...
,
P.G. Molinari & Sons, and
Jones
Jones may refer to:
People
*Jones (surname), a common Welsh and English surname
*List of people with surname Jones
* Jones (singer), a British singer-songwriter
Arts and entertainment
* Jones (''Animal Farm''), a human character in George Orwell ...
.
See also
*
Ćevapi
Ćevapi (, ), ćevapčići (formal: diminutive; , ) is a grilled dish of minced meat found traditionally in the countries of southeast Europe (the Balkans). It is considered a national dish of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is also comm ...
, caseless sausage originating from the Balkans
*
Chipolata
A chipolata () is a type of fresh sausage, likely created in France. Sausages by that name appear in the 1903 edition of Escoffier's . Chipolatas are often prepared as a relatively thin and short sausage.
Chipolatas are typically made from coars ...
*
List of brunch foods
This is a list of brunch foods and dishes. Brunch is a combination of breakfast and lunch eaten usually during the late morning but it can extend to as late as 2 pm and 8 pm on the East Coast, although some restaurants may extend the hours to a l ...
*
List of smoked foods
References
{{Sausage
Cuisine of the Southern United States
American sausages
Smoked meat
Fresh sausages