Gumbo Sausage Question

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Rabideaux's smoked sausage is not pre-cooked.

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definitely cooked through low temp smoking.

Slice and brown the sausage. Add diced onions (Holy Trinity) into pan and sautee' the vegetables.

The package says “requires further cooking” and has a safe handling label (which is required for non Ready to Eat - RTE - meats). It leads one to believe the product is not fully cooked.

There’s a loophole in the USDA regs that allows smoked sausage to be labeled as not fully cooked with a few simple requirements on the processor.

Why would the processor do this? Well, for one simple reason… it gets them out of having to label as RTE and thus out of having to implement a listeria monocytogenes testing program, which is a burden on the processors. I actually worked on this and helped many processors convert to labeling as not fully cooked. Since smoked sausage is widely accepted as a heat before eating product, the USDA allows this. If listeria monocytogenes programs were forced on our local sausage guys, only a couple in the state could handle it and stay federally USDA inspected. FYI, you must be USDA inspected to sell outside of your store or processing place. State USDA if staying in state or federal USDA if shipping across state lines.

Interesting.

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Thank you all for the responses and I plan on browning it tomorrow before throwing it in the pot.

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Don't overdo it and lose the good juices from the sausage that you may want to flavor the gumbo. It's going to cook in the gumbo as well. You can also use that fat with whatever other fat you use to make the roux.

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SixthAndBarone

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trust what he says about sausage.

He knows a thing or two about handling sausage.

How to hold it, how to store it, the safest way to prepare it.

And most importantly, how to consume it.

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trust what he says about sausage. He knows a thing or two about handling sausage. How to hold it, how to store it, the safest way to prepare it. And most importantly, how to consume it.

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Ok….

That was unexpected.

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That was unexpected.

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Seriously? You're the resident sausage expert.

If my memory serves correctly, you interned at a sausage factory as a sausage inspector.

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Rabideaux's smoked sausage is not pre-cooked.

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You can eat it straight out of the pack and you won't get sick.

It's sausage. Cook like you would any other sausage. Besides you don't think gumbo is going to cook your sausage. Quit over thinking this stuff.

In order to be edible without cooking, the processor must meet lethality temperatures and comply with all Ready To Eat regulations.

Even though our sausage producers are reaching a lethality temperature, they are not doing the RTE regs, so they cannot label it as fully cooked….unless they want to do the regs.

When you see packs from the National companies like Johnsonville, it’s a totally different story. They actually grind and stuff the sausage, then partially cook it so it gets the smoke flavor and the color, then they pack it and finally they finish cooking it in the package. This makes the product RTE and takes away the regulations since it’s impossible to introduce bacteria to the sausage after it is cooked because it is in a package. It’s astounding technology and makes the sausage have pretty much zero risk of bacteria.