How-To Guides

How to cook tuscan sausages

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What is tuscan sausage?

Known for its lush, green landscape and beautiful wineries, Tuscany is also an Italian hotspot for humble, incredibly simple yet bold, full-flavoured cuisine. Bursting with flavour, Tuscan sausages are made from rare breed pork shoulder and belly.

Characterised by a dappled appearance with both lean and fat visible, on account of a coarse grind and no added rusk or breadcrumbs, they deliver a meaty bite of the Italian countryside. Fragrant fennel seeds, a touch of warmth and acidity from the red wine, and a hint of garlic add complexity for a distinctive flavour that’s truly fantastico.

Swaledale’s Tuscan-inspired sausage captures the essence of this exceptionally tasty sausage, keeping the simple essence of the traditional sausage, using our free-range, pedigree Middle White and Tamworth pigs. These old-fashioned “proper” butchers’ sausages are filled into 100% natural casing.

How long to cook tuscan sausages

Perfect on a warm summer’s day, our Tuscan fennel sausages are delicious cooked on the barbeque, with our preferred cuts of shoulder and belly providing just the right amount of pork fat to keep them moist. They are equally at home in a delicious sausage ragu, be it tomato-based with a hit of chilli, or the Bolognian classic Salsiccia al ragu, rich with wine, stock, and cream.

Of course, you can always lightly pan-fry your favourite Tuscan-style pork, fennel, and red wine sausages in just 10-12 minutes by following the method below.

How to cook tuscan sausage

  1. Take your Tuscan fennel sausages out of the fridge. Remove from packaging and pat dry any moisture.
  2. Heat a splash of olive oil over medium-low heat in a heavy-based, non-stick frying pan.
  3. Add your sausages to the pan and fry gently for 10-12 minutes, turning them every 90 seconds or so.
  4. Don’t overcrowd the base. The sausages must sit fit flat and have enough room to turn over. They should be slowly frying and colouring, as there are no fillers to absorb any fat or juices. They are more susceptible to simmering in their juices than a traditional sausage — at the slightest hint of boiling in their juices, turn the heat up a bit. The heat should be high enough for them not to boil, and low enough for them not to be colouring too quickly.
  5. Wait until your sausages turn a light golden brown and the insides are pale, with no signs of pink or blood.
  6. Serve up and enjoy the succulent pork combined with the mouthwatering Tuscan flavours.

Top tips

  • Never deviate from the medium-low temperature, as cooking your sausages over high heat will dry the sausage out and break the skin.
  • Don’t try to rush the process by fiddling with the sausages.

Tuscan sausage recipe

A big hit in an authentic Italian sausage ragu or for making perfect meatballs, our Tuscan pork sausages are also a wonderful, crumbly addition to any pizza. However, if you fancy serving up one of Tuscany’s most famous bread soups, check out Valentine Warner’s hearty and comforting fennel sausage w/ white beans & chard recipe.

Our Tuscan-style sausages are also available as sausage meat – great if you’re planning a romantic picnic in golden rolling hills (akin to Tuscany) and want to fill your sausage rolls with the love and passion of Italy — a pinch of chilli flakes is a great addition in this setting.

Jorge hails from the Black Mountains where he grew up surrounded by hardy, native livestock. His passion for cookery was sparked by his upbringing, but developed and intensified alongside his respect for British breeds, and zeal for nose-to-tail eating. In 2009 trained chef Jorge launched Swaledale in Haworth, and took his native-breed led whole-carcass butchery philosophy to high profile restaurateurs. Jorge is a passionate procurer and hanger of meat, and is keen to showcase the sublime taste and texture that comes from ageing, higher fat content, and an older carcass. Jorge proudly invests in native-breeds, as maintaining their market demand is crucial to their very survival. Jorge studied Creative Writing at Leeds University, and is a former Welsh athletics champion. He lives with his wife, ceramicist Amy Thomas and their 2 children, Fynn and Bea, on a remote grouse moor in West Yorkshire.