Review: Johnsonville Brat Burgers

It may not be summer anymore-but fall can still be prime grilling time! Tailgating is as American as apple pie-and with several friends who have sons playing various levels of football this year-we are sure to be lighting up the grill on a regular basis!

Over a month ago (when it was still legitimately summer) Walmart offered me the chance to sample the new Johnsonville Brat Burgers. Now Yankee Bill and I love Bratwurst-it’s a leftover thing from our days in Germany. Of course those were a white mild sausage, very different from the ones in the states. . . but we also love the standard Johnsonville grilling brats. Of course I love Italian sausage of all types-mmm.

The kids are another story. Neither of them have ever really seemed to like sausage. They don’t like hot dogs either. Yeah, that’s right, I’ve got kids who don’t like hot dogs. (or American cheese. But that’s another story) Go figure. I was interested to see what they thought of the burgers.

The Johnsonville Bratwurst Burgers (and the Italian Burgers) are sold frozen-so look in your freezer case, not over by the link sausage. They retail at Walmart (who currently has an exclusive) for $6.98 for a package of 6.

The burgers are HUGE. I mean it. Much bigger than your standard burger patty. And although they shrunk during grilling (all meat does) they were still large enough to hang over the edges of my hamburger buns on two sides when we were done cooking them.

They are thicker than a standard hamburger as well-so don’t slam them on your hottest grill setting. I’d go a bit lower so that they have time to cook through without getting too brown on the outside.

Of course having some really nice grilling tools like the kind folks from Johnsonville sent me to help with the cooking process doesn’t hurt either. (ohh. Pretty. Shiny.)

The final consensus on the burgers? Very tasty. I ate the brats with some dijon mustard and the Italian plain. Yankee Bill is a standard yellow mustard guy and the kids had mustard and ketchup.

Oh, and talking about the kids, my kids who usually won’t touch a regular sausage? They LOVED them. I started out by giving each of them one half on a bun (which filled up the bun pretty much-I told you they are big) and they each wanted seconds!

Maybe the difference is that these don’t have “skin” on them like a sausage does? I don’t know. I think that the lack of skin also allows a small portion of the fat to drip off (I did have some grill flare up!) That makes the burger a bit drier than a standard link as well–although not actually dry.

All in all, I think they are very tasty and worth trying out.

Be sure to head on over to the official Johnsonville site where you can find lots of great ideas from customers like you on how to dress up your Johnsonville Brat Burgers!