Can you cook Italian sausage in the air fryer?

In this article, we’ll address the query; “Can you cook Italian sausage in an air fryer?” We’ll also review what Italian sausages are, how they are made, how they can be cooked, and discuss how Italian sausages can be cooked in an air fryer, and what are the benefits of using an air fryer. 

Can you cook Italian sausages in an air fryer? 

Yes, it is possible to cook Italian sausages in an air-fryer. For sausages to be considered properly cooked, they need to have an interior temperature of at least 160°F (roughly, 74-75 degrees Celsius). 

Italian sausages, like other styles of this meat product, can be cooked in air fryers. 

Air fryers, for their part, are designed to dry out food products, via circulating hot air within a chamber built into the appliance. Despite their name, these appliances don’t actually fry food, rather they dry products to a crisp, and are lauded as a healthy alternative to deep-fried foods whose appeal is that they have the same crunchy texture. 

Therefore, using an air fryer to achieve this is not only feasible but there are many authors who agree that using an air fryer to cook sausages provides delectable, as well as healthier results.   

How can I cook Italian sausages in an air fryer?

Generalizing, the process for cooking Italian style sausages in an air fryer (regardless of brand) is the following:

The air fryer should be preheated to 360°F (~ 180-185°C)

The sausages ready for cooking should be evenly spread over the air fryer’s basin and mustn’t overlap. 

Additionally, depending on the user’s preference, sausages can be sliced in longitudinal halves before they are air-fried, and this will drain more fat from each sausage. Alternatively, if the user wishes to concentrate the flavor of the sausages, they should avoid piercing the sausage casings, as this will cause fat and other juices to leak. 

Maintenance is key to assuring the long lifespan of appliances, so after the air fryer has been preheated and the sausage placed into the air fryer basin, users can place absorbent paper beneath the air frying tray to blot away the fat that’ll leak from cooking. 

The sausages can be turned over every four minutes or so until they achieve the desired browning and reach the ideal cooking temperature of 160°F on the inside. 

After about ten minutes, the sausages will be adequately cooked, and by extension, ready to be served. 

What are Italian sausages

Italian sausages, more accurately known as Italian-style sausages, are a meat product made with pork, pepper paste, pepper flakes, and spiced with anise or fennel. 

Strictly speaking, they’re called Italian because of the process and ingredients they’re made with, rather than actually being an Italian export. 

How are Italian sausages made? 

Italian sausages can be made commercially or from scratch, and have four main ingredients;

  • Pork -ideally a from a piece that has a meat to fat ratio of 80:20
  • Pepper paste
  • Seasoning – a mixture of salt and fennel spicing. Though sometimes this may include anis
  • Ground cloves of roasted garlic

The meat is minced and put through a grinder to give it a completely malleable texture. Once ground, the meat is then mixed with the seasoning and paste at a high speed, until it clumps together and has a tacky taste. hold-together consistency.   

The mixture is then packed into a sausage casing and made into links. 

Freshly cased sausages are then left overnight in a fridge to dry and then packaged for sale. 

How can Italian sausages be cooked? 

As they are sausages, there are a few generalities that apply to them as well as all other types of sausages; namely: they can be grilled, steamed, fried, baked, and as is the case for some recipes, even poached. 

There is no one way to cook sausages, and this is true for Italian-style sausages. 

What are the benefits of using an air fryer? 

The main benefits of opting to cook with an air fryer are that the resulting food will have much less fat than if cooked with methods such as frying or deep-frying and trimming overall consumption of fat lowers the risk of inflammation and heart disease. 

Overall, cooking with an air fryer is healthier than (a few) other methods, the appliances are safer to handle than stovetop pots, pans and skillets, the food prepared in them may boast a crispy, crunchy texture, and because of the intensity with which hot air is driven through the chamber, it provides faster cooking than conventional ovens.  

Additionally, some journalists and bloggers laud the taste and consistency of food cooked in air fryers, though we’ll consider that a subjective point.

Other FAQs about Sausages that you may be interested in.

Can you eat kielbasa without cooking it?

Can you eat bologna while pregnant?

Can you eat genoa salami when pregnant?

Can you boil smoked sausage?

 

Conclusion

In this brief guide, we reviewed information to address the query: “Can you cook Italian sausage in an air fryer?” We’ve also briefly reviewed what Italian sausages are, how they are made, how they can be cooked, and discussed how they can be cooked in an air fryer, and what are the benefits of using an air fryer. 

References

https://www.recipetips.com/glossary-term/t–34292/italian-sausage.asp

https://www.johnsonville.com/events-and-promos/grilling-101-the-perfect-sausage

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/air-fryer#what-is-it