Sausage Sizzle
A grilled sausage on a single slice of white bread with fried onions and sauce. The fundraiser classic behind every community barbecue in the country.
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total
- 20 min
- serves
- 4
- level
- easy
A sausage sizzle is less a recipe than a national institution: a grilled sausage, a single folded slice of white bread, fried onions and a squeeze of sauce, sold outside hardware stores and polling booths to raise money for a local cause.
Bread versus bun is a real, long-running argument in Australia, and bread is the traditional answer, folded loosely around the sausage rather than wrapped into anything neat.
Part of our 20 best Australian recipes list.
method
Heat the barbecue or a large pan to medium heat.
Cook the sliced onion in the oil for 10 to 12 minutes, until soft and golden, pushing it to one side once done to keep it warm.
Grill the sausages for 10 to 12 minutes, turning occasionally, until browned all over and cooked through.
Lay a sausage along the center of a single slice of bread, off to one side rather than in the middle, and fold the bread over it.
Top with a spoonful of the fried onion and a squeeze of tomato sauce or barbecue sauce.
Serve immediately, ideally while standing at a trestle table.
chef's tips
- Bread, not a bun, is the traditional base, a single slice folded around the sausage. Whether it should be bread or a bun is a genuinely ongoing, mostly good-natured argument across the country.
- This is the dish behind nearly every community fundraiser barbecue in Australia, run outside hardware stores and polling places alike, usually to raise money for a local cause.
- Fold the bread around the sausage rather than trying to wrap it fully closed. It is meant to be a loose, one-handed fold, not a tidy parcel.
- Cooking the onions first and keeping them warm to the side means they are ready the moment the first sausage comes off the grill.