Alternative to low calorie spray for frying sausages?
My wife has recently decreed that we are to use low-calorie sprays instead of oil. For the most part, these seem fine.
However, I have been through several different types and not found one that is suitable for frying sausages in. No matter which type or how little spray I use, I end up with little black burned bits in the pan and on the sausages. It's not the sausages burning, the black bits can be scraped off to reveal a nicely cooked sausage. This happens no matter what type of sausage I use.
I could always grill the sausages instead, but I prefer to fry them as I can keep an eye on them while I'm doing other things.
Is there anything low in calories that I can properly fry sausages in without it burning?
Edit: The question is not about low-fat ways of cooking sausages, it's about avoiding having two lots of oil. My wife has decided to use these low-calorie sprays instead of proper oil. It is not her that is eating the sausages, it's me and the kids. Of course, I could just buy some regular oil and use that for the sausages, but I thought I'd ask and see if there was another way
Best Answer
This is going to sound strange, but the 'low calorie oil' that you're looking for is water.
What you do is you start the sausages cooking in a little bit of water (about 1 cm; 3/8"). The water will prevent the sauages from getting too hot too quickly, and the fat in them will start to render and leak out into the water. Once the water evaporates, you're then cooking the sausages in their own fat, avoiding the need to add any additional.
The water acts as a conduit for the heat, while also moderating it, so you cook sufficiently up the side of the sausages, rather than it just being really hot where it touches the pan and burns in those spots.
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What can you use to cook sausages instead of oil?
You can use any type of vegetable oil for cooking sausages. The recommended options are olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, but any other will do. You can even use butter if you prefer the taste. Other options include lard, ghee, or even beef tallow.Can you fry sausages with no oil?
Sausages can be cooked in numerous ways. In general, boiling and baking are the healthiest methods, as they don't require much oil. However, pan- and stir-frying are good options as long as you choose a healthy oil. Conversely, deep frying is the least healthy way because of the fat and calories it adds.What is the healthiest cooking spray?
Best Everyday Use: Simply Balanced Canola Oil Spray A healthier alternative to butter, canola oil is a kitchen staple for cooking and baking. This organic spray ($4) lets you easily mist it over your dishes to stop food from getting soggy, and its neutral flavor makes it ideal for a variety of meals.How do you make sausages not stick?
Add a little oil. Sausages are fairly fatty, so you don't need to add a lot of extra fat to the pan. However, this fat will be trapped inside the casing at first, meaning there is a window of several minutes where the sausages can stick to the pan and burn.Is Non-Stick Cooking Spray REALLY ZERO CALORIES??
More answers regarding alternative to low calorie spray for frying sausages?
Answer 2
Oils are fats and there's no such thing as "diet fat". The only way you can get less calories from fat is to eat less of it. The oils used in cooking sprays are the same as those in your bottles, sprays use pressure and chemical additives to create a mist that evenly deposits on a pan, coating it in a thin layer. A thin layer means you eat less, so lower calories.
Sausages are generally high in fat to begin with, so saying you want to fry them in a lower calorie fat is like saying you won't put sprinkles on your four-scoop ice cream sundae to reduce your sugar intake. It's a drop in the bucket.
If reducing fat in your diet is a goal then definitely grill (ie broil) them as it will allow some of the fat to drain out, however the question to ask is whether you should be eating sausages at all.
Answer 3
An alternative to Joe's method is to use no frying medium at all, just start the sausages by themselves over lower heat. Once enough of their fat has rendered out into the pan, your can turn it up a bit. This will take longer but also give you a bit more fond to work with once the sausages are cooked, if for example you're making tomato sauce in the pan afterwards.
Answer 4
Sausages have enough fat in them to cook without any additional fat. Drain the excess fat that comes from the sausages and then you will have healthier sausages, if that's possible.
Answer 5
Sausages taste really good if you slow down their cooking. Cooking on med-low, turning occasionally, may help with the burning. Grilling might make a decent alternative, too.
That said, sausages are 25% lard. Using a low-calorie oil is difficult to justify in this case.
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