I still remember the first sausage I ever tried. It was about the size of half a hot dog, which my big brother shared with me from his school lunch box one day. Our mother had not packed him that lunch. He had put it in his lunch box during a garden party or some such event at school because he didn’t feel like eating it at that time. I had never tasted anything like it.

My brother went to the Karachi American School. Sausages and hot dogs — also known as frankfurters (from Frankfurt, Germany) in some instance — are nothing new to Americans. They are a rather cheap roadside snack.

However, when I asked to have it again around that time, my mother could not find it at any snack bar or restaurant in Karachi. She offered me seekh kebabs (skewered minced meat) instead, telling me that they were pretty much the same thing. Of course they were not. But my objections fell on deaf ears. Then my father put an end to my cravings by telling me that sausage casings were made of animal intestines. End of discussion.

Well, not really. Several years later, I did get to enjoy hot dogs to my heart’s content at the Halal Guys carts in Manhattan. By that time, I was also more knowledgeable about how sausages are made. Not all sausages are wrapped in intestinal skin. Some are skinless.

Forget the frozen-food aisle: these homemade sausages come in chicken and vegan versions and can be made with everyday ingredients

By then, halal beef and chicken sausages had also become available in Pakistan. The frozen-food section of almost every supermarket stocked them. I even sold hot dogs from my stall at the Karachi Eat Food Festival in 2015 and 2016. But the sausages in my hot dogs were store-bought. Of late, though, I have learned how to make them on my own — not just meat sausages, but vegetarian and vegan ones as well.

Here are a couple of recipes you can try at home.

Chicken sausages

Take one kilogramme of minced chicken in a bowl. Add to it one medium-sized boiled and grated beetroot, half a grated carrot, three grated garlic cloves, one grated chicken stock cube, one teaspoon red chilli powder, one teaspoon onion powder, half a teaspoon black pepper powder, salt to taste, two teaspoons tomato paste and three slices of ground bread.

Mix well, before transferring the mixture to a food processor and blend until it becomes a smooth, fine paste. Transfer the paste to a piping bag and pipe it on to sheets of butter paper, forming sausage-shaped portions. Roll the butter paper around each portion and twist both ends to seal, like a candy wrapper. Alternatively, use cling wrap or aluminum foil. Refrigerate the wrapped sausages for four to five hours.

Boil water in a pan. Take the sausages out of the refrigerator and remove the butter paper (or cling wrap or aluminum foil) from as many sausages as you want to eat, while freezing the uncooked sausages for later. Boil the sausages for four to five minutes.

Now, heat one or two tablespoons of oil in a pan. Sauté the sausages in the pan until they turn golden. Serve in long hot dog buns, topped with tomato ketchup and mustard sauce.

Vegan Sausages

Take one cup of white lobia or beans and soak them overnight. Boil them in a saucepan with four cups of water until the water evaporates. Set the beans aside to cool before transferring them into a blender. Chop a small onion and four to five garlic cloves, and add them to the blender. Grind one cup of rolled oats into a powder. Add the powder to the blender along with one teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of garlic powder, a quarter teaspoon of chilli flakes and a quarter teaspoon of ground pepper.

Also, add half a teaspoon of fennel seeds and a quarter teaspoon of cumin seeds, half a cup of peeled walnuts and one tablespoon each of tomato paste and soy sauce. Finally, soak three tablespoons of chia seeds in a quarter cup of water until they absorb all the water and add to the rest of the ingredients in the blender. Blend until well combined. Add a quarter cup of water until the mixture is soft and smooth.

Rub some olive oil on your palms and shape the mixture into sausages, then roll and wrap each one in aluminium foil to seal at both ends like a candy wrapper.

Steam the sausages for 20 minutes and then take out and unwrap. Serve as many vegan sausages as you like, while freezing the rest for later.

Originally published in Dawn, EOS, September 27th, 2026