Hot Italian Sausage Brands Ranked Worst To Best

Before getting into why any given hot Italian sausage brand is better than another, it's worth clarifying just what, exactly, defines an Italian sausage. First of all, the savory difference between breakfast and Italian sausages is that, while both are comprised primarily of ground meat — most commonly pork — the former is characterized by a sage and thyme-dominant blend of herbs, whereas in the latter fennel and garlic are at the forefront. Typically, Italian sausage comes in sweet and hot varieties. Despite the descriptor, sweet Italian sausage is pretty much just a baseline Italian sausage, whereas the "hot" label indicates the inclusion of some sort of spicy chili pepper.

In order to find out which brands make the very best hot Italian sausages, I picked up 11 different hot Italian sausage products from six national grocery store chains. Some were precooked, some were raw, some were in sausage casings, some were ground, some were labeled "spicy" rather than "hot," some were made with chicken, and some were made with pork. But as much as those factors helped nominally differentiate one product from another, they each balanced oily meat, sharp fennel, and varying levels of spice. After trying them all in a relatively brief span of time, here's how I ended up ranking these 11 hot Italian sausage brands from worst to best.

Packaged under the store's house brand — though there are other companies behind certain Trader Joe's items — there are both sweet and hot versions of Italian sausage available at Trader Joe's. One package contains five raw links made with pork. Contributing not insignificantly to this product's spot at the bottom of my list was the fact that the Trader Joe's sausage I prepared at home held the unfortunately unique distinction of looking kinda off-putting after it came out of the oven. Somehow my Trader Joe's sausage shrunk significantly and wrinkled quite a bit. Plus there was a strange vein of gray on one side, tarnishing an otherwise pleasant red color.

Its flavor did nothing to reverse my poor initial impression. Fennel and spice were practically absent. Theoretically, my sausage contained something intended to make it spicy, because I could see bits of red inside of it, but as far as I could tell it lacked the whole fennel seeds characteristic of hot Italian sausages. What I tasted most was processed pork, closer to a mediocre salami than the rest of the sausages I tried. The one legitimate use for the Trader Joe's hot Italian sausage might be in a hot dog, given that its relative lack of flavor could serve as a blank canvas for a bunch of mustard and onions. But as a hot Italian sausage, the Trader Joe's product fails.

One package of hot Italian sausages packaged under the Sprouts Farmers Market house brand contains four raw pork links. Its label boasts "all natural" ingredients, reflective of Sprouts' general health-oriented philosophy. I did, in fact, find that my Sprouts sausage tasted a little cleaner compared to my sausages from the less explicitly health-oriented Kroger and Trader Joe's house brands. However, even more so than my Kroger sausage, it left so little of an impression, its low spot on this list isn't because it was bad but because it was simply forgettable.

Akin to my two lower-ranked sausages, my product from Sprouts tasted more like pork than anything else. Since that pork seemed pretty unprocessed, that wasn't totally a bad thing, but its flavor was mild overall and less interesting than a hot Italian sausage dominated by spice and/or fennel. Its spice level, for what it's worth, was not negligible, but its Italian herb content definitely was. The overall result was a mild, slightly spicy pork sausage with few overt benefits other than the fact it falls somewhere on the healthier end of the still-not-altogether-healthful spectrum of premade sausages.

I bought my Kroger hot Italian sausages at a Smith's grocery store, though the corporate umbrella that includes the the historic Kroger chain also encompasses Food 4 Less, Fred Meyer, QFC, Ralphs, and more. One package contains five raw pork sausage links. Whereas my Trader Joe's product was something I would encourage actively avoiding, I found the Kroger-brand hot Italian sausage relatively inoffensive. It just didn't do all that much particularly well.

Akin to my Trader Joe's product, the foremost flavor in my Kroger hot Italian sausage wasn't fennel or spice but straight up pork. With that said, that pork flavor was totally fine, lacking an overly processed feel. And whereas Italian herbs were pretty much absent, the sausage was still decently spicy — to an extent that it wouldn't challenge all but the most sensitive eaters, but without falling into negligibility. To this product's credit, it wasn't excessively oily, which surprised me given that the Kroger store brand is typically on the lower end of the quality spectrum. It was, however, super salty as well as texturally soft, lacking the satisfying heft characteristic of some other hot Italian sausages. All in all, this is a forgettable product made irrelevant by plenty of superior alternatives.

Marketside is a store brand proprietary to Walmart's grocery department, somewhat similar to Bettergoods, a private food brand Walmart launched in April 2024. While the label is seemingly meant to indicate quality relative to more explicitly baseline Walmart brands like Great Value and Freshness Guaranteed, my package of Marketside hot Italian sausage was still the least expensive purchase of my sausage gathering trip. Although my Walmart stocked sweet Italian sausage links, Marketside hot Italian sausage was only available in ground form, so I opted for that. Before cooking it, I formed a small handful into a rough sausage shape so it might approximate its competitors.

I anticipated that a product from Walmart would perform poorly, so I was surprised to find out that my Marketside hot Italian sausage was pretty okay. Its best quality was an appetizing appearance, looking solidly browned on its exterior. That appearance reflected its texture, which came out satisfyingly firm. Meanwhile, its biggest detractor was a conspicuous lack of spice. Counterbalancing that shortcoming was a pretty perceptible taste of fennel. While there are better options out there, the fact that Marketside hot Italian sausage is texturally interesting and somewhat flavorful at such a low price point makes for a product — unlike the three ranked beneath it — worth buying under the right circumstances.

I found my package of Bilinski's spicy Italian sausage at my local Whole Foods. It stands out among the other products I selected for its use of chicken over pork, organic ingredients, and the inclusion of text reading "with red pepper" on its label. The worst thing about Bilinski's spicy Italian sausage is that the red pepper element is entirely negligible — I found the product neither spicy nor red pepper-flavored in any other meaningful way.

That said, there were things I liked about my Bilinski's sausage. First and foremost, this was one of the cleanest-tasting products I tried. While it's hard to quantify just what makes a product taste clean, my best guess is a prevalence of flavor without relying on excessive salt or fat. I could, however, taste that the sausage was made with chicken, and it just wasn't quite as indulgent as most of my pork sausages. Its texture was a mixed bag, crisping up nicely on the outside but lacking the firmness of a good pork sausage. Altogether, even if the Bilinski's spicy Italian sausage doesn't taste all that exciting, it's of a high enough quality that I had a better time eating it than similarly boring but more overtly unhealthful sausage products.

Hands down the funniest brand name of the 11 sausages I selected was Make It Italian, from my local Whole Foods. While I implicitly trusted a brand called Make It Italian to, well, make a good Italian sausage, it fell short of the excellence I expected into just slightly above-average territory.

One package of Make It Italian hot Italian sausages contains four pre-cooked pork links. For what it's worth, I prepared my raw and pre-cooked sausages in exactly the same manner and found no quantifiable differences between the two styles. The overall vibe of my Make It Italian sausage was a beefed-up version of Bilinski's — sort of unremarkable but with a clean taste reflecting high-quality ingredients. That said, I could taste both spice and fennel in this one, just not in high enough quantities to completely satisfy. One strange, fun characteristic of my Make It Italian sausage was a subtle, menthol-like numbing effect coming from a combination of its herbal and spicy ingredients. That I liked, in addition to a noteworthy juiciness. While I wouldn't go out of my way to buy this sausage, I had a decent time eating it, even if it failed to live up to the promise of its excellent brand name.

I purchased a 16-ounce package of Cantella's ground hot Italian pork sausage from my nearest Albertsons store. The Cantella's brand is based just outside of Los Angeles, and is perhaps most notable for producing Dodger Dogs for Dodger Stadium — a noteworthy gig in the city that consumes more hot dogs than any other. While Cantella's does make hot Italian sausage links, my Albertsons had just the ground version in stock.

Prior to my tasting experiment, I thought each of the ground sausages I bought might have a disadvantage, lacking the satisfying heft of premade links. It turned out the three ground sausages I chose all performed better than I expected, with Cantella's hot Italian sausage landing on the upper half of my list. Similar to Walmart's Marketside sausage, I found my Cantella's product pretty much absent spice. But it was abundant in fennel, and quite a bit more so than it's Walmart counterpart. That fennel supplemented a prominent artificial pork character, akin to the processed meat flavor of, say, a cheap pepperoni. Because it tasted a little processed and lacked spice, I thought it had some room for improvement. But on the whole, a generous portion of fennel helped the flavor of my Cantella's hot Italian sausage stand out from the pack.

As far as I can tell, Johnsonville is the sausage brand with the widest availability — I believe this was the only brand I encountered in multiple stores on my six-store shopping trip. The hot Italian sausage product I purchased includes five raw pork links. Ahead of time, my expectations were low, because, among sausage brands made with the highest and lowest quality ingredients, Johnsonville stands out for its poor quality.

The Johnsonville hot Italian sausage I prepared was, indeed, of a perceptibly low quality. However, like plenty of fast food, it was trashy but bursting with flavor. First off, its spice level wasn't overwhelming or anything, but absolutely present. Also contributing to its flavor were salty, oily meat and a solid helping of Italian herbs. With each of the major flavors necessary for a good hot Italian sausage, there wasn't any one quality that was overly dominant in my Johnsonville product, other than maybe saltiness. For its excess it doesn't rank higher, but because of how much I outright enjoyed my balanced and indulgent Johnsonville hot Italian sausage, it earned a spot in this list's upper rankings.

Carando is an explicitly Italian meats brand, producing meatballs and deli meats in addition to its sausages. I procured a package of Carando's ground hot Sicilian pork sausage from my local Albertsons.

Not only was my Carando hot Italian sausage the best ground sausage I tried, but I would consider there to be a tier gap of sorts between this and the Johnsonville sausage in the spot below — each of my top three picks are sausages I would recommend with zero caveats. The flavor of Carando's hot Sicilian sausage balances a standard, not-too-processed pork flavor with a considerable but not overwhelming helping of fennel. What makes this sausage stand out, more than any other quality, is its spice. Immediately after trying it, I wrote down that its spice level was about a 6.5 out of 10. So, it wasn't a challenge or anything, but I did find it spicier than every other hot Italian sausage I tasted. Between its lack of weaknesses, its unrivaled spice, and even its availability at an everyday grocery store chain, Carando hot Sicilian sausage is an exemplary product that can go toe-to-toe with the very best.

A couple of key qualities make the Whole Foods store brand hot Italian sausages I purchased different from what I would consider the baseline — namely, they're made with chicken rather than pork, and pre-cooked rather than raw. One package contains four links.

First of all, whereas I found the chicken in my Bilinski's to the detriment of its flavor, I thought my Whole Foods chicken sausage tasted just as indulgently meaty and oily as most of the pork sausages I tried. Once again, the fact it was pre-cooked turned out to be a non-factor. Upon first bite, I found its prevailing character to be a combination of meat and fennel, the latter making a particularly strong impression. But whereas its spice level was mild at first, it turned out to be the kind of spice that sneaks up on you, only becoming prominent a good seven-or-so seconds later. The way its flavor transitioned from fennel-y to hot was an experience unique to my Whole Foods hot Italian sausage. The fact the sausages are organic is also a plus in my book. More than anything else, what I enjoyed so much about this Whole Foods product was a strong flavor that revealed itself in a uniquely enjoyable way.

My Fra'Mani spicy Italian sausages also came from my local Whole Foods. It's worth noting that Fra'Mani is typically priced like a luxury brand, though mine were on sale, pricing them cheaper, even, than the flagship offerings from Sprouts and Trader Joe's. The Fra'Mani product lineup also includes some serious Italian meats like soppressata and mortadella. One package of spicy Italian sausages contains four pre-cooked and smoked pork links.

On first bite, I thought that my Fra'Mani sausage was so clearly produced with meat of a higher quality than every single other sausage in this experiment. That said, I found its spice and Italian herb components somewhat mild. That wasn't to this sausage's detriment, however, given just how good the pork tasted. So, rather than those two key flavors' mildness feeling like a let-down, they ultimately supplemented what was already a sausage of excellent quality. And, for what it's worth, the quality of the fennel and hot pepper too seemed higher than the ingredients in really any other sausage I tried. The smoked aspect, meanwhile, was nice but didn't significantly affect the sausage's flavor in one direction or another. Simply put, I would pick Fra'Mani spicy Italian sausage over any other hot Italian sausage brand because its high quality ingredients were expertly balanced and straight up tasted better to me than the ingredients in competing products.

Gathering the 11 sausage brands I ranked meant driving around the suburbs of Las Vegas, Nevada and shopping at six stores: Trader Joe's, Sprouts, Whole Foods, Albertsons, Walmart, and Smith's. I landed on my particular selection of brands based pretty much entirely on covering every unique hot Italian sausage brand that grocery stores local to me had in stock.

After I brought them home, I prepared five sausages that same day, and six sausages the following day. I cooked them all in the oven and ate one full sausage — or in the case of my ground sausage meat, some grounds that I shaped into about the equivalent of a standard sausage link — from each package. My rankings are based on notes I took about all of the sausages after trying them. Flavor, and just what contributed to that flavor, was of primary importance in each of my assessments. I also factored in things like texture and appearance when they were significant enough to swing my opinion in one direction or another. My impressions are based solely on this experiment and no past experience with any of these hot Italian sausage brands.