Review: Johnsonville Italian Sausage

Thanks to SheSpeaks and Johnsonville Sausage, I received coupons to try Johnsonville Italian Sausage links.  I hadn't cooked much with Italian Sausage in the past and was wary of decasing sausage links, but the instruction booklet showed that it was really quite simple to butterfly the sausage and pull off the casing that way.   Johnsonville Italian Sausage comes in four varieties - mild, sweet, hot, and four cheese.

Luckily, the coupons I received came with a few signature recipes, and last Sunday, I cooked my first recipe using Johnsonville Italian Sausage Mild.  I made the signature Johnsonville Italian Meatballs.  The recipe was simple and didn't call for exotic ingredients.  Best of all, the meatballs were cooked in the oven, instead of multi-tasking meat & spaghetti both on the stovetop. The recipe is as follows and can be found on the Johnsonville Italian website

What You nEED

1

egg, lightly beaten

1/3cup

dry bread crumbs

1/4cup

Parmesan cheese, grated

1/4cup

milk

1/4cup

onion, finely chopped

1pkg.

(19.76 oz.) Johnsonville® Mild Italian Sausage Links

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PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, combine the egg, bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, milk and onion.

Remove sausage from casings.

Add sausage to the bread crumb mixture and mix well.

Shape into 20 meatballs; arrange on a shallow baking pan.

Bake for 20 minutes or until meatballs are cooked through (160°F).

Serve with your favorite sauce and spaghetti.

Sounds simple, and is simple!  Here is what my meatballs looked like before devouring them:

Afterwards, we had a few meatballs left over, and I microwaved them to re-heat them, sliced them in half and mixed them with spaghetti sauce then made Meatball Subs and melted some mozzarella cheese over the meatballs. Those were delicious too!  Hubby couldn't stop raving about this recipe and told me to be sure to keep it, which is better than what he had to say about the last new recipe (none-sausage-related) that I tried out!

Later this month, Johnsonville plans to release new Chicken Sausage with 50% less fat in three delicious flavors - Apple, Chipotle Monterey Jack Cheese, and Three Cheese Italian Style.  Can't wait to try those!  You can also visit the Johnsonville website for coupons, more recipes, and to find locations where the sausage is sold.  I was able to find this product at my local Kroger grocery store and also at SuperTarget Center, both places I regularly shop.