Irish Sausage Rolls Recipe - The Mountain Kitchen (2024)

You know I’m not one of those foofoo girls that gets all into making stuff for holidays, but today I am sharing a recipe for delicious Irish sausage rolls, to help you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and in honor of a wee bit of Irish heritage from my great grandparents, the O’Berrys.

I never knew my great-grandparents, but I knew the place they called home very well. I grew up spending time at my grandmother’s house who was born and raised in their house and never moved away. She and my grandfather acquired the home where they raised my mother and aunt.

Many years later, I was fortunate enough to have called their house, “home” when I lived there from 1999 to 2000. The house was also home to my nephew for a few years, which means 5 generations lived in that house. It’s the house where I learned about front porch sitting.

Oh, if those walls could talk!

St. Patrick’s Day is on Sunday this year, which means there is a little more room for celebrating since it doesn’t fall in the middle of the week. I figured you would like a yummy recipe to share with your family and friends. Irish Sausage Rolls are a fun and tasty way to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day!

What are Irish Sausage Rolls:

An Irish sausage roll is made of an Irish style sausage rolled up inside buttery blanket of pastry dough. These sausage rolls are popular in Ireland. They are a great pub style food for parties, but they can also be made for a grab and go type breakfast or snack and can be purchased at just about any bakery you visit.

How To Make Irish Sausage:

Irish Sausage is what sets these rolls apart from other types of sausage rolls. Typically, Irish sausage rolls are made with ground pork, although it is not unusual to make them with ground pork and beef mixture. What makes Irish sausage so unique is that the ground pork is mixed with raw egg and breadcrumbs. The breadcrumbs add a subtle crispness to the sausage, while the egg gives the sausage a silky texture. Irish sausage also has an intoxicating aroma of herbs, including thyme, marjoram, basil, rosemary, parsley, sage. This blend of herbs lends a savory flavor with hints of sweet earthiness.

Traditional Irish sausages do not have large herb leaves nor are they visible within the sausage. To make the Irish sausage grind the herbs into a fine powder before mixing them into the sausage.

I used my trustworthy coffee grinder to grind up the spices. A coffee grinder is an inexpensive gadget that I use all the time for grinding up spices, especially peppercorns. However, a mortar and pestle would be a great alternative, if you don’t have a coffee grinder.

The Puff Pastry:

When the sausage is well mixed it is molded into cylindrical rolls and the puff pastry is cut into strips and gently folded around the sausage to form the rolls and then brushed with egg wash to seal the dough together around the sausage.

Store-bought puff pastry sheets are the best option for making sausage rolls. Once they are thawed they are ready to go, saving you time in the kitchen.

The secret to beautiful golden brown puff pastry is in the Egg Wash! Simply put, an egg wash is a mixture of beaten eggs and some sort of liquid that is brushed onto food, which makes it turn golden brown. It also acts as a glue, which helps the pastry dough hug the sausage tightly without popping open.

Freezing Irish Sausage Rolls

Irish sausage rolls freeze well, so if you aren’t feeding a small crowd of folks, you can make the sausage rolls and freeze them. Reheat the sausage rolls in the oven or toaster oven at a moment’s notice. This makes them a great unexpected guest appetizer!

When I made these rolls, there were too many to feed just the two of us, so I divided the batch in half. For the first batch, I made the rolls a little larger, which gave me 6 sausage rolls total. I wrapped the extra sausage mixture in wax paper and refrigerated it keeping a couple of days and then made more a few days later.

A word of caution: If you decide to make batches at different times, take a look at the expiration date of the ground pork and use or freeze well before the expiration date.

This was a fun recipe to make. I even pulled out my Irish necklaces and my shamrocks to embellish the serving plate for the photos.

David and I loved these Irish sausage rolls. We even tried dipping the rolls into 3 different types of mustard: regular, Dijon and spicy brown. I have to say that spicy brown mustard won out for us.

I hope you’ll try these and wash them down with a nice cold green beer.

Have a Happy St. Patrick’s Day!