German Currywurst Recipe with homemade currywurst ketchup sauce prepared in one pan.
Make this German cult snack at home with my quick instructional video further below.
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📕 What is Currywurst?
Currywurst is a German fast-food snack meal.
Pork Bratwurst sausages are served covered by a special spiced and tangy curry ketchup sauce.
There are variations made with other sausages, such as the Bavarian white sausage (Weißwurst).
The currywurst sausage is usually always a bratwurst, small or large.
The sauce is basically what makes this dish, and it's most definitely not a simple boring sausage sauce.
The German name, currywurst, means translated Curry Sausage.
🇩🇪 Origin
The Currywurst sauce with bratwurst most probably came to be right after the second world war in Berlin, the German capital.
Berliners popularized the snack, and over the years the peculiar saucy bratwurst dish turned into a purely German Fastfood dish.
Today, the famous berlin currywurst can be bought in most fast food joints and so-called "Imbissbuden" in Germany.
The curry sausage is sold in Germany next to Turkish Döner, Vienna hotdogs, Italian Pizza and Belgian French Fries.
Currywurst is something you will most probably only encounter in Germany as it's not that well known in neighboring countries such as Austria and France.
🧂 Flavor components
The ingredients for the bratwurst sausage and german curry ketchup recipe are balanced out.
Tart sour flavors are combined with sweet, salty and mildly spiced flavors.
Of course, the complex spices in a curry powder make each bite into the juicy Bratwurst all the sexier.
Sauce
Sour, Tart, Tangy taste is achieved by adding Tomato Ketchup, chopped onion and savory Balsamic Vinegar.
Complex spiced aroma, and perhaps some heat, is added with the help of the yellow curry powder mixture including black pepper and paprika or cayenne pepper.
Sweetness, to roundup the thick curry wurst sauce, is added with honey.
Sausage
The sausage should be a juicy pork bratwurst or similar.
A halal version can be prepared with beef sausage and you can make vegan currywurst too with vegan "sausage".
The Currywurst sausage can be cooked on the grill or in a pan or plancha with some olive oil to bring out all the wonderful flavors of the sausage for the curry sauce.
🔪 How to make it?
To prepare currywurst at home you will simply need a skillet and about 10 minutes of your time.
I have broked down the instructions into 3 major steps so that it can be easily recreated at home.
For the full recipe with detailed ingredients and instructions, see full recipe card to print at the bottom of this post.
The how to video is located at the top of the post or in the recipe card
Step 1
Heat up a skillet with the oil and add the bratwurst sausages.
Cook your sausages on all sides.
When done, take out the sausages from the skillet and keep aside in a dish.
Step 2
The sauce is prepared in the same pan by cooking the chopped onions first soft.
Then add one by one all the other ingredients including the ketchup, curry powder, black pepper, salt, cayenne or paprika powder, honey, balsamic vinegar and some water.
Step 3
Combine all the sauce ingredient over the heat in the pan to create a sauce.
Once the sauce has thickened, you can take it off the heat and serve it over the bratwurst sausages in a plate.
Some curry powder can be sprinkled over the currywurst to garnish.
🥣 Serving
Currywurst is a street food snack and that means it is usually enjoyed with french fries or with black or brown bread.
The dish is served in a paper plate with a small fork, and the sausage is cut into pieces.
The still warm curried ketchup sauce is poured over the sausage so that the spiced sauce gets to mingle with the sausage flavors.
Now you can do the same thing and prepare curry wurst as a snack at home or you can make it as a main course meal and serve it up with french fries or something else.
You can get creative to get the most out of your homemade curry sausage dish!
Dear Reader, did you try the curried sausage recipe?
📖 Recipe
German Currywurst Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
- 8 piece Bratwurst small or use 4 large
For the sauce
- 1 medium Onion
- 1 cup Ketchup
- 3 Tablespoon Curry Powder
- ¼ Teaspoon Black Pepper Ground
- ½ Teaspoon Salt
- 1 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper Ground or Paprika powder
- 1 Tablespoon Honey
- 2 Tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar
- ¼ cup Water
To garnish
Instructions
- Heat up a large skillet with the olive oil and place your bratwurst sausages into the hot pan.
- Cook your sausages over medium heat through, until they get golden brown on the outside.
- Take out the sausages from the pan and keep aside.
- In the same pan prepare the sauce by sauteeing the chopped onion pieces soft over medium heat.
- Turn down the heat to low and add in the ketchup, curry powder, salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper (or paprika).
- Briefly mix together the ingredients and turn up the heat a bit.
- Continue to add the honey and the balsamic vinegar and combine everything again.
- Then pour in the water while continuously mixing everything over a medium heat setting until the sauce thickens enough.
- Take the sauce from the heat.
- In a plate arrange the bratwurst, pour the sauce over the sausage and garnish with some curry powder.
- Serve hot with french fries or black bread.
