Slow-Grilled Smoked Sausage Links with Pickles and White Bread

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

The whole trick to great barbecue-joint sausage is restraint: buy the best coarse-ground smoked links you can find, then cook them low and indirect until the fat renders and the casing tightens, with one short pass over the fire at the end for a blistered, snappy bite. Sliced thick on the bias and piled onto plain white bread with dill pickles, raw onion and a sharp mustard sauce, it eats exactly like a $9 plate off a Central Texas meat counter — no smoker required.

Ingredients

• 2 lb good-quality coarse-ground smoked sausage links (kielbasa, Czech-style, or hot links), about 6–8 links
• 1 tbsp neutral oil, for the grates
• 1 chunk post oak, pecan, or hickory wood (or 1 cup wood chips), optional

• 1/3 cup yellow mustard
• 2 tbsp coarse-ground or Creole mustard
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp dill pickle brine
• 2 tsp light brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

• 8 slices soft white sandwich bread
• 1 cup dill pickle chips or spears, chilled
• 1/2 medium white onion, sliced thin
• 4 pickled jalapeño or pepperoncini, for the side (optional)
• saltine crackers, optional

Instructions

1. Whisk the mustard sauce: in a small bowl combine the yellow mustard, coarse mustard, mayonnaise, pickle brine, brown sugar, black pepper and cayenne until smooth. Cover and refrigerate at least 15 minutes so the sugar dissolves and the heat blooms. It keeps 2 weeks in the fridge.
2. Set up the grill for two-zone indirect cooking. On charcoal, bank a lit chimney of coals against one side and leave the other half empty; on gas, light only the burners on one side. Aim for a lid temperature of 275–300°F. Oil the grates with a paper towel dipped in neutral oil.
3. If you want extra smoke, add the wood chunk directly to the coals, or wrap 1 cup soaked wood chips in a foil packet, poke a few holes in it, and set it over a lit burner. Wait for thin blue-gray smoke, not billowing white.
4. Pat the links dry and arrange them on the cool side of the grill, spaced about an inch apart and running perpendicular to the grates. Close the lid, vents about halfway open.
5. Cook 25–30 minutes, turning the links every 8–10 minutes with tongs (never a fork — piercing the casing drains the fat you are trying to render). The casings will go from slack and pale to taut, glossy and deep mahogany. Pull one and check with an instant-read thermometer: you want 160–165°F at the center.
6. Move the links to the hot side for the finish: 60–90 seconds per side, lid open, rolling them as soon as you hear them hiss and see the casing blister and tighten. Do not walk away — this is where flare-ups split a casing. Pull them the moment they look shiny and lightly charred in spots.
7. Rest the links on a cutting board or warm platter for 5 minutes so the juices settle and the casing firms up. Skipping the rest means the first slice squirts all the fat onto the board.
8. Slice each link on a sharp bias into 1/2-inch-thick coins — the angle gives you more browned surface per bite. Fan the slices onto a board or butcher paper.
9. Serve immediately with the stack of white bread, chilled pickles, raw onion slices, pickled peppers and a bowl of the mustard sauce. Eat it the barbecue-joint way: a slice of bread, a few coins of sausage, pickle, onion, a swipe of mustard, folded and pinched shut.

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Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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