sausage

 4. Dibrova Dibrova Cajun Style Chicken Sausage

 3. Open Nature
Open Nature Jalapeno Monterey Jack Chicken Sausage

 2. Aidells
Aidells Italian Style Smoked Chicken Sausage

 1. Silva
Silva Jalapeno Pepper Jack Smoked Sausage

 

 

 

 

4. Dibrova
Dibrova Cajun Style Chicken Sausage

We tried Dibrova's Cajun Style Chicken Sausage, which is evidently not Cajun enough to be an andouille but is too Cajun to be a hot link. Anyway, this sausage stood out because it was delicious — it was surprisingly meaty for a chicken sausage, not overly greasy, and not drowning in herbs like chicken sausages sometimes tend to be. It tasted great just right off the grill, but it would also be a stand-out add-in for a gumbo or a pot of red beans and rice. The other thing we really appreciated about the Dibrova sausage was that it lacked the weird, cryptic ingredient list. This might be a good time to add that if you've never before bothered to look at the ingredients in the sausages you buy, you should, because some of them are kind of alarming.

Dibrova's label was like coming up for air after swimming in a sea of nitrates, sodium phosphates, corn syrup, and soy. This sausage is made from just chicken and seasonings stuffed into a pork casing, which, let's face it, is pig guts. It still beats the heck out of a collagen casing, whatever that is.

3. Open Nature
Open Nature Jalapeno Monterey Jack Chicken Sausage

We did not expect to put a store-brand sausage so high up on the list, but here we are. Open Nature is the Albertstons (and Safeway) all-natural brand, so it has all the good stuff and much less of the bad, while also tending to be less expensive than similar brands. We went with the Jalapeño Monterey Jack Chicken Sausage and oh, my! The cheese was creamy but not overwhelming; the jalapeño had a nice little kick, but not so much of a kick that we had to gulp water to cool it down. It was slightly sweet, very flavorful, and had just the right amount of fat — enough so you know you're eating a sausage, but not so much that you're grossed out.

The label made us happy, too. The first three ingredients are chicken, Monterey Jack cheese, and jalapeño peppers, which is exactly as it should be for a product with the name "Jalapeño Monterey Jack Chicken Sausage." It also contains a little bit of cane sugar (hence the sweetness) but no corn syrup, which frankly is almost as weird a thing to put in your sausage as soy. Everything else on the list is a spice or natural flavoring of some kind, so this sausage will make your taste buds happy and should also satisfy your desire to know what the heck you're putting in your mouth.

2. Aidells
Aidells Italian Style Smoked Chicken Sausage

Aidells is famed for its chicken sausages, and the brand's Italian Style Chicken Sausage with mozzarella cheese proves why that is the case. We liked this one much better than any of the other Italian sausages on the list. To be fair though, Aidells Italian sausage isn't quite the same flavor profile as a typical Italian sausage. For starters, mozzarella cheese is the second ingredient. Mozzarella is certainly Italian, but it's not usually in an Italian sausage.

And though this sausage was definitely herby, we couldn't detect any fennel. Indeed, fennel isn't on the ingredient list at all (though it could be hidden in the generic "spices" ingredient that all sausages seem to have) but there are plenty of other herbs like parsley and basil, as well as roasted garlic. So while this did for sure have an Italian vibe, it was not super similar to a traditional Italian sausage. Still, we ranked it high because it's not too greasy, has a really nice, complex flavor, and a not-alarming list of ingredients.

1. Silva
Silva Jalapeno Pepper Jack Smoked Sausage

The winner of our taste test is Silva, but just barely. Its jalapeño pepper jack sausage was just a little bit better than the Aidells Italian sausage. It was also the second of the two jalapeño sausages we tried. Silva's sausage had a very similar flavor to what we sampled from Open Nature. But overall, we just thought it was a little more jalapeño-forward and a little more creamy. Notably, this is also a pork sausage, but we had to double-check because it lacks the unpleasant heaviness that a lot of pork sausages have.

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