Cocktail sausages, mini-party, ready to serve rewards a little know-how: how to choose it, cook it, store it, and substitute in a pinch. Browse 8 recipes to cook with it.

What is cocktail sausages, mini-party, ready to serve?

Cocktail sausages are the little party links, the bite-sized smoked sausages sold ready to serve in a tub or vacuum pack. You know them as lil smokies or cocktail wieners: each one is a couple of inches long and built to be popped whole into your mouth.

They arrive fully cooked at the plant. You are only heating them through and glazing them, which is the whole appeal.

That convenience turns a slow cooker or a sheet pan into an appetizer with almost no knife work. They are a party food, the kind of thing that sits in a warm dish and disappears one toothpick at a time.

How to Serve Them

The classic move is a sweet-and-tangy glaze in a slow cooker. The famous one stirs together grape jelly and chili sauce in roughly a one-to-one mix, drops in the sausages, and warms them on low until the sauce is glossy and clinging, about two hours.

Barbecue sauce with a little brown sugar does the same job. Slow Cooker Cranberry Cocktail Sausages swaps in cranberry sauce for the jelly, and Party Wieners is the old-school chili-sauce version, both running on a sticky, sweet, slightly sour sauce that coats every link.

The oven gives you a different texture. Roasted Korean Sticky Cocktail Sausages and Honey-Sesame Roasted Cocktail Wieners toss the links in a glaze and roast them hot, so the sugars caramelize and the skins blister and brown instead of staying soft.

Then there are pigs in blankets. Wrap each link in a strip of dough and bake until the wrapper is golden, the way Pigs in a Blanket Reuben does with sauerkraut and Swiss.

Glazes and Common Mistakes

Sweet plus tangy plus a little heat is the formula that built this dish. Grape or cranberry jelly brings the sweet, chili or barbecue sauce brings the tang, and a shot of mustard or sriracha brings the bite.

The same links slip into Tangy Brunch Sausages and even bulk out a Surprise Rice.

The biggest mistake is treating them like raw sausage and cranking the heat to cook them through. They are already cooked, so high prolonged heat just splits the skins and dries the inside into rubbery, shrunken links.

Drain and pat them before glazing. They are packed wet, and that surface liquid keeps a glaze from sticking, so it pools at the bottom of the dish instead of coating the sausage.

Substitutes

Any small smoked sausage works: cut a kielbasa or a few smoked beef or pork sausages into one-inch coins and treat them the same way. Cocktail-size smoked andouille or chorizo brings more spice.

For a lighter or pork-free table, mini chicken or turkey sausages and even cocktail-size meatless links take a glaze just as well, though they brown a touch differently. Vienna sausages from a can are softer and milder but stand in at a pinch.

What does not substitute cleanly is a raw breakfast or Italian sausage. Those need to be cooked from raw first, so you cannot just heat and glaze the way this whole dish depends on.

Buying and Storing

Look for them near the hot dogs and lunch meat, sold chilled in a tub of brine or a sealed pack, sometimes labeled lil smokies or party links. Check that the pack is cold and the use-by date is comfortably out.

Unopened, they keep in the fridge to the printed date, usually a couple of weeks. Once you open the pack, use them within three to five days and keep them cold until they go into the pot.

They freeze well for one to two months in a sealed bag; thaw overnight in the fridge before heating. Glazed leftovers keep three to four days refrigerated and reheat gently, though the skins soften the second time around.

Quick facts

Where to find cocktail sausages, mini-party, ready to serve: Cocktail sausages, mini-party, ready to serve is usually found in the asian section or aisle of the grocery store or supermarket.

In Chinese

香肠，小方，准备发球

British (UK) term

Cocktail sausages, mini-party, ready to serve

en français

saucisses, mini-parti, prêts à servir

en español

salchichas, mini-partido, listos para servir

Recipes using cocktail sausages, mini-party, ready to serve

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