Rachel Ray's Secret To Cooking Delectable Fresh Sausages

Rachael Ray is one TV personality most at-home cooks find relatable. Additionally, many would say her meals are easy to follow due to her down-to-earth approach to cooking. In 2001, the Food Network star garnered a mass following over her hit show "30 Minute Meals," where Ray cultivated her brand on accessibility by way of convenient recipe sharing and a friendly attitude. According to The Food Network, "The Rachael Ray Show" and Ray's abundance of cookbooks continue to echo her cooking philosophy to create simple delicious meals and offer fans quick-fix answers to common kitchen problems.

Apart from offering solutions to everyday cooking debacles, Ray divulges a handy list of cooking tips on her website that are sure to contribute something extra to your next homemade meal. Whether you need a surefire method to make the best Carbonara pasta dish or enhance the flavor of store-bought tomatoes, the celebrity chef has answers. She also has plenty of tips regarding your next foray into meat preparation. If your kitchen skills haven't led you to homemade sausage making just yet, this trusted chef has your back in procuring the most tender store-bought sausages with just one pan.

Rachael Ray's cooking tips extend over a wide range of foods, and meat is one category the TV personality feels comfortable sharing her expertise. When meat prices rose after the initial rise of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, she shared a helpful guide regarding the various cuts of affordable meat to look out for, detailing how slow cookers and crock pots are necessary for producing a tender consistency.

Besides Ray's money-saving tips regarding meat, in one segment on "The Rachael Ray Show" where she details the secret to her savory French toast, she also reveals her method of cooking the best sausages. In the episode (via YouTube), Ray uncovers her trick to perfectly crisp sausage is to pierce links with a fork and place them in a pan with one-eighth of an inch of water. Once the water has evaporated, she advises viewers to drizzle the sausages with olive oil and let them cook through and eventually crisp. Ray outlines the details of her tried and true method on her website. While the cook claims this is the best way to make sausage, others contest the recommendation to pierce fresh links with a fork before cooking.

Rachael Ray's pricking method is not out of the ordinary. In fact, Martha Stewart has a similar method of preparation that results in "crisped" meat links. Yet to some chefs, especially those in the UK, high-quality sausages shouldn't need to be pricked when primarily composed of healthy meat and fat ratios (per Traymoor Ltd). In fact, the British term "bangers" came about in WWI when food shortages resulted in sausages with added fillers, causing them to explode while cooking (per Britannica).

While composition differences may still exist between American and British sausages, according to Goodfood, sausages in general, are composed of a healthy amount of fat, which has led some to believe that pricking the skin only releases the inside juices and flavor of the meat. In order to preserve the unique taste and texture of quality sausage, Goodfood advises cooking links over low heat and constantly turning them to develop those beloved crispy edges.

There may be some controversy over the right cooking method for sausage, but even Ray posted an altered recipe variation on her website back in 2012. In the dated recipe for braised sausage, she advised to cook sausages as noted above but left out the pricking recommendation. Whether you're making sausage, grilled and braised brats, or a savory french toast with sausage, use whichever cooking method works best for you.