Craft sausage making has been all the rage for the last couple years in the Windsor-Essex, Ontario region. However, this year it’s a particular style of sausage that is turning out to be a pretty big dill.
Dill pickle sausages have been the hottest link to get your hands on this summer, with multiple sausage makers crafting their own unique version of the sausage.
It started back in 2018, when The Butcher of Kingsville had a monthly vote for their customers to choose between two outlandish sausage ideas. The winning idea would then be the lucky recipe that would be created. When the dill pickle sausage was put to the vote, it won by a landslide.
“Word spread fast,” says Ethen De Santi of The Butcher of Kingsville. “There is very few places worldwide where you’ll find it.”
Today, The Butcher of Kingsville pumps out approximately 200lbs of dill pickle sausages each month. It’s made with local Lakeside pickles and their juice, as well as Canadian grown dill pickle potato chips.
“I think the sausage’s popularity has a lot to do with how die-hard pickle fans are,” Ethen says. “I also think that people want to explore new flavours and ideas, and flavours that are definitive like a dill pickle sausage, they know what they’re going to get, or at the very least an idea of it.
He believes the average person just getting into expanding their palate will go for that rather than a region or style of food.
Earlier this summer, Robbie Bornais of Robbie’s Gourmet Sausage Company tried his hand at dill pickle sausages. His idea came from a friend who inspired this creation. It’s a bit different than that of The Butcher of Kingsville.
The No Big Dill sausage at Robbie’s is infused with lots of fresh dill, dill pickles, dill juice, dill weed, dill seed powder and cheddar. He’s also thrown in some secret herbs and spices. A fun thing about the sausage Robbie’s Gourmet Sausage Company offers is that the entire link actually turns green when cooked. This was purposely done to mimic the look of a dill pickle.
Robbie feels that familiarity has helped the sausage become one of his best sellers. He has been selling out his batches of 75 to 100lbs each week for 8 weeks straight now.
“As people begin to embrace the sausage as a blank canvas the possibilities for different flavours become endless,” he says. “With the No Big Dill sausages, it was a perfect match to create something new yet something familiar and memorable.”
What do you think of the idea of a dill pickle sausage? Let us know in the comments.
