If sausage casing has turned up in a recipe or caught your eye at the store, here's what you need to use it with confidence and how to choose it, cook it, store it, what to substitute, and 38 recipes to try it in.

What is sausage casing?

Sausage casing is the thin tube that holds ground, seasoned meat in its sausage shape. It is what you stuff your filling into when you make links at home, and it is the snap you feel when you bite into a good bratwurst.

There are two kinds most home cooks meet. Natural casings are cleaned animal intestines, usually hog or sheep, loved for their tender bite and the way they curve and twist into links. Collagen casings are made from processed beef hide, sold dry and uniform.

Collagen is easier for beginners but eats a touch chewier. Either way, casings come sized by the animal and the diameter.

Hog casings around 32 to 35 mm suit bratwurst and Italian links, while narrow sheep casings near 22 mm give you breakfast-thin sausages and snappy hot dogs.

Working With Casings

Natural casings arrive packed in salt and must be soaked before use. Rinse off the salt, then soak them in cool water for at least 30 minutes, and run warm water through the inside to open them up and find any holes.

Slide the wet casing onto your stuffing tube like a sleeve, leaving a few inches hanging to tie off. Stuff firmly but not tight, since meat that is packed drum-hard will burst when the casing shrinks during cooking.

Once the whole length is filled, twist it into links every few inches, alternating the direction of each twist so they do not unravel. Most homemade sausage recipes here, from British Bangers to Kielbasa Sausage, follow exactly this rhythm.

Collagen casings skip the soak. They load straight onto the tube, which is why first-timers often start there before graduating to natural hog casings.

Common Mistakes and Pairing

The classic failure is air pockets. Trapped air leaves gray hollow spots and can blow out the casing, so prick those bubbles with a pin and stuff at a steady pace to keep the meat ahead of the air.

Overstuffing is the other one. A casing needs slack to twist into links and to take the pressure of cooking, so aim for a firm sausage you can still bend, not a rigid baton.

Casings pair with whatever filling you dream up. Pork and fennel for Italian, garlic and marjoram for Bratwurst, smoked paprika for DIY Yummy Chorizo (Mexican Sausage), or leaner blends like Sicilian Style Turkey Sausage and Caribou Sausage #1.

Rest stuffed links in the fridge uncovered overnight before cooking. The casing dries and tightens against the meat, which sets the bind and gives you a cleaner snap.

Substitutes

No casing on hand? Cook the seasoned meat loose. Shape it into patties or crumbles, the way Coriander Sausage Filling works before it ever sees a tube.

For a shaped link without animal casing, roll the filling tight in plastic wrap or foil, twist the ends like a cracker, and poach the logs gently to set them before browning. Collagen and vegetarian cellulose casings are the closest true stand-ins for natural hog or sheep.

Buying and Storing Casings

Buy casings from a butcher or sausage-supply shop, sold by the hank, which is enough natural casing to stuff roughly 100 pounds (45 kg) of sausage. That is far more than one batch, but they keep a long time.

Salted natural casings last up to a year or more in the fridge, packed in plenty of salt in a sealed tub. Rinse and re-salt any leftover length after a session and they are good for the next batch.

Collagen casings store dry at room temperature in a sealed bag, away from humidity, for a year or two. Once a casing smells off or feels slimy after soaking, toss it and reach for a fresh length.

Quick facts

In Chinese

肠衣

British (UK) term

Sausage casing

en français

Enveloppe de saucisse

en español

envoltura de embutido

Recipes using sausage casing

There are 38 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 38 recipes