One Of The Worst Sausage Brands We Tried Is Also One Of The Most Popular

Sausages are a great protein choice when you're in the market for a quick and flavorful dinner. You can roast them alongside vegetables or potatoes for a super simple sheet pan dinner or toss them with pasta, gnocchi, or rice for an all-in-one-skillet sensation. But the one step that will slow you down is deciding between all the raw and smoked sausage varieties on offer.

Chowhound food writer Kyle Grace Trinidad knows her way around a supermarket sweep. She's taste tested and ranked everything from vanilla ice cream to chocolate bar brands, and now she's set her authoritative sights on a more savory item: store-bought sausages. In her ranking of 14 sausage brands, Trinidad looked at locally available brands of pork, chicken, and beef sausages, particularly those that offer a range of flavors. Trinidad wasn't looking for serious nutritional heft, as all sausages have a mix of good and bad ingredients. Instead, she was searching for a tender, juicy texture and an aromatically spicy taste balanced against the meat's umami flavor.

After either roasting or pan searing each sausage option and tasting them completely plain, she unfortunately found that her least favorite sausage is super popular brand Hillshire Farm. Turns out, Hillshire Farm blew other brands out of the water in a bad way with an explosion of salt on the palate. So, if you're looking for a quick, tasty, protein-packed meal, reach instead for Trader Joe's or The Fresh Market's sausages, which ranked much higher.

Hillshire Farm has a lot going for it, so it's not as if the brand is unreasonably popular. As Kyle Grace Trinidad notes, the brand's Lit'l Smokies are consistently delicious and deserve a reserved space inside pigs in a blanket. The price is also a positive as Trinidad found a 14-ounce package for just $3.98 at Walmart.

But despite its prevalence and comfortable familiarity, the positives stop there. Hillshire Farm Kielbasa had a soft texture, rather than a deliciously chewy and tender one. Flavor-wise, there were no strong aromatic standouts like fennel, garlic, or black pepper because salt took a determined front seat. In fact, Trinidad comments that the sodium content basically blew out her palate and she decided not to take any further bites. Even a fairly neutral sausage, like those from Kiolbassa Smoked Meats, can be salvaged by various sauces and accompaniments. But since sausages are rarely eaten alone, you certainly can't have a kielbasa that completely dominates every other flavor. For more flavor, follow Trinidad's lead and try other, less well-known sausage brands on for size.