You may be tempted to grill or fry your sausages yet with various liquids seeping out, you could easily cause a fire. The safest and most effective way to cook sausages is in your oven.

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This is also an ideal method if you want to reduce the fat in your sausages through the cooking process.

By piercing the skin with a fork, some fat can safely drain out while the sausages are being cooked.

How To Cook Sausages In The Oven

As long as you have some baking/parchment paper, cooking sausages in the oven should be straightforward.

With little chance of any fat catching fire, you can simply leave them to cook through and get on with cooking something to accompany them.

Preparation Time: 3 minutes
Active Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 38 minutes
Difficulty: Easy

Equipment

Sausages
Metal baking tray
Baking/Parchment paper
A fork (optional)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to around 400°F (200°C) and remove the sausages from their packaging.
Place the baking/parchment paper on the baking tray and then arrange the sausages on top
If you want to drain some fat out of the sausages then prick them with the fork so that each one has around four small holes
Bake the sausages for around half an hour, flipping over midway through
Leave the sausages to rest for around 5 minutes

How To Cook Frozen Sausages In The Oven

Cooking frozen sausages can prove a little more difficult than if they are fresh.

For one, you may have to defrost them slightly so you can separate them when they are out of their packaging.

After some slight defrosting, either in the microwave or under some running water, you should be able to prick the sausages with a fork if you want to drain some fat and prevent them from splitting.

You can still follow the instructions above yet cook them for around ten minutes longer and you can judge if you need any longer midway through the cooking process.

How Long You Should Cook Sausages For

As with cooking any type of meat, especially from frozen, you need to make sure that it is cooked thoroughly.

Sausages can be made from all sorts of meat, including turkey, pork, chicken, and beef, if any of that meat is undercooked then it can make you exceedingly ill.

Cooking sausages is best done at a constant temperature and over a longer period of time than you may expect.

Sausages can quickly suffer a burned skin so make sure that the oven is not too hot as you may smell the damage before you see it.

At a temperature of 400°F (200°C), a fresh sausage should be cooked for around half an hour.

If you were to decrease the temperature to 350°F (180°C) then you would need between 35 and 40 minutes for the sausages to thoroughly cook.

Frozen sausages require even longer in the oven so add on between 5 and 10 minutes to your ideal cooking time.

The cooking time should also be extended for Italian sausages which are typically thicker and require at least half an hour in the oven.

How To Check Whether Sausages Are Safe To Eat

The best way to check that sausages are safe to eat is not by ensuring that the skin is charred but to use a meat thermometer.

This is the typical way to check the doneness of meat and you should be looking to hit a certain temperature. For a sausage, that should be over 160°F and up to 180°F.

Make sure that the meat thermometer is placed inside the sausage meat as it may show up at a higher temperature if you leave it in some hot fat.

Why You May Want To Pierce Your Sausages Before Cooking Them

Some prefer to pierce their sausages with a fork so that some fat drains out while they are cooking. That does create a leaner piece of meat yet there may be a bigger clean-up of the baking tray after.

The piercing also helps preserve the sausage’s shape as it can prevent oven-cooked sausages from splitting.

You should want to see a sausage left intact on your plate so piercing them to prevent splitting may be ideal.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Do You Serve With Baked Sausages?

For breakfast, you can expect sausages to be served with toast, baked beans, and scrambled eggs.

However, they make a great accompaniment to dishes later in the day and go really well with peppers and onions.

You can also expect to see sausages accompanied by potatoes in various forms including mashed, fried, or chipped.

One traditional use for sausages is to place them in a bun and cover them with onions and condiments or chop them up and throw them in with some pasta.

How Do You Store Sausages Once They Are Baked?

Once your sausages are baked from the oven, you do have various options to choose from to store them properly. Firstly, you need to give time to allow the sausages to cool down.

Once cooled, you place the sausages in a Ziploc bag or airtight container then put them into the fridge where they should be fine to consume within five days.

In the freezer, they can last a bit longer yet you should label them with the date so they are not forgotten as they would last for up to six months.

How To Cook Sausages In Your Oven

Prep Time: 3 minutes

Active Time: 30 minutes

Additional Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 5 minutes

Cooking your sausages in the oven is the easiest way to heat your meat. Just put your sausages on a lined baking tray, place everything into the oven and let it cook for half an hour.

Materials

Sausages

Tools

Metal baking tray
Parchment paper
Fork
Oven

Instructions

Preheat the oven: Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place the sausages on the baking tray: Remove the sausages from their packaging. Then line the baking tray with parchment paper, and put the sausages on the tray.
Prick the sausages with the fork: Make sure that you prick each sausage with a fork.
Bake the sausages: Place the baking tray with the sausages into the preheated oven and allow them to bake for at least half an hour.
Let the sausages rest: Once done, remove the sausages from the oven and allow them to rest for five minutes.

Author
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Jess Smith

Hi, my name is Jess Smith, and I love cooking in my spare time. Around three years ago, I decided to give up my day job as a teacher to pursue my passion for food. While I have enjoyed sharing tips and tricks on Social Media, I have decided to expand my horizons through this blog.

Through this blog I hope to help others learn the basics and more intricate details of cooking. I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be to cook a meal, only to realize you are missing one ingredient from your list. This is why I love to write articles chatting readers through some great substitutes that can be used in an emergency.

I hope you will find this blog useful, and that it will help you to develop your culinary skills, to help you cook up a storm!