Sauerkraut & Sausage

 

An easy church potluck favorite!  So delicious and hearty.  It literally takes 15 minutes to put together, too.  That’s definitely a plus on a busy Sunday morning.  This recipe is from my mom, Ann Shrader, who is also a preacher’s wife and a veteran in the realm of church potlucks!  Sauerkraut & sausage was always requested, and folks either loved it or hated it depending on how they like sauerkraut to begin with.  However, if a sauerkraut newbie was brave enough to try it, they always had good reports.  I made it for our church potluck a couple of weeks ago because someone told me they love German food, and the whole double batch was gobbled up.  Success!  It’s so simple.  Here’s how to do it.

Simply slice your kielbasa and onions and saute them until the desired crustiness on the sausage and the onion is softened.  (Note:  I didn’t have onions that Sunday morning!  gasp!  So I just added some onion powder at the last step.  That’s why you don’t see any onions in the picture below.)

Most importantly then, rinse the sauerkraut thoroughly.  This is what makes the dish so yummy to all palates.  If you are making this for your family and you all like the really sour kraut, then by all means skip this step.  But this is what makes the dish so popular at church potlucks, because it’s not really so sour.

Simply add your rinsed kraut to the sausage and onion and heat it through.  Add the caraway seed…lots of it!  This is also a key ingredient for this recipe.  You really need a LOT of the caraway seed because the other flavors are pretty strong, so you want to just keep adding it until you see it all throughout like the picture shows.  (Click to enlarge the picture.)

That’s it!  You can serve it immediately with nice crusty bread.  For our church potluck, I just threw it in a crockpot on “warm”, and that turned out really well because the flavors had time to meld.  My mom just brought her electric skillet to church and kept it warm that way.  Enjoy!