Product FAQs

All of our products are made with ingredients that DO NOT contain gluten EXCEPT for our meatballs, fresh and smoked beer brats.

All of our products are made and packaged in nut/tree nut-free, peanut-free facilities.

We currently use monosodium glutamate in some of our Johnsonville products along with corn syrup and salt to harmonize the flavors in our sausages. The MSG we use is a natural substance derived from a natural food source, such as corn.

We currently use salt to harmonize the flavors in our sausages. Check out our products page for a full list of ingredients on any product.

We suggest following the cooking instructions that are included in each product package, also included on the product page of each product listed on our website. The instructions will share the preferred method (example, stovetop cooking vs. grilling) and alternative options for other cooking/grilling methods. Or, visit our How To Sausage tutorials for more learning!.

The bun companies established a precedent many years ago of primarily six and eight bun packages. To further complicate things, our sausage packages can contain many different counts. For example, our Party Packs have 12 links, our Fully Cooked links come in packages with six or four links and we also have Fresh Brat and Italian Sausage packages with five links. We hope some day that the sausage and bun makers, and retailers, can all unite in this ongoing dilemma!

It can be a dilemma, finding the right bun and brat to be equal in size! And sometimes the brat, due to the natural casing, may shrink more than other batches.

We are private, family-owned company based in Wisconsin and proudly make all of our products here in the USA. For our pork products, we source the pork from US and Canadian farms.

The casings will burst if the sausage link is being grilled at too hot a temperature, so we push for our fresh Italian sausage and brats to be grilled “low & slow.”

Please use our handy product locator tool to find retailers near you that might carry this product.

Our fully cooked items and breakfast links use a collagen casing derived from beef, and our fresh breakfast and dinner sausage items use a natural pork casing.

The Johnsonville Brat Hot Tub was inspired by a need to entertain and feed many guests, but you don’t want to be at the grill the entire time and miss out on the fun. The Brat Hot Tub features 4 ingredients: Johnsonville Brats (or any Johnsonville Italian sausage or flavor of brats), your favorite beer, sliced onions and a bit of butter. After grilling the sausages, simply place them in a bath of beer, onions and butter and simmer over a low temperature. This way, you get to be with your guests, and the sausages remain juicy, flavorful and ready to serve as guests come and go! Here’s the famous recipe!

This product is cured and smoked, so it really will not spoil. It’s intended to be hung in the consumer’s home on a piece of string or twine in a cool dry place, so that it can age and dry. As it ages, the sausage will sort of “sweat out” the fats and oils through the casing and the sausage will become very dry and very hard. As it dries, the fats and oils may leave a white salty coating on the outer casing. It may also shrink a little bit and the casing will wrinkle – all of which is normal.