Giardiniera Is The Bright Addition To Balance The Richness Of Sausage

If you want some guidance on the best way to combine bright vegetables and meaty sausage, you can't do much better than the team of Italy and Chicago. Italian cooking is renowned the world over for its use of simple, fresh local ingredients, and few places on Earth love their encased meats like the Windy City. While the chilly Chicago may not seem like a hotspot of fresh Mediterranean food, the city's Italian immigrant population has had a profound impact on the local cuisine, and one of the biggest contributions is a tangy topping that graces deli sandwiches, sausages, and their famous Italian beef sandwiches. Called giardiniera, it's a mixture of pickled vegetables that evolved from an Italian original, and it is one of the best pairings you can find for rich meat.

If you're cooking with sausage in any form, you need something to cut the fat, and few things will do that like giardiniera. While the Italian original consists of whole pickled vegetables like cauliflower, peppers, and carrots, the American version you'll find on most store shelves is the "Chicago-style," which is more of a chopped relish. Does it matter? Not really, because either one will bring a sharp, vinegary bite and nice crunch that will even out the heavy, savory flavors of sausage. The biggest difference between the two giardinieras besides the size of the vegetables is that the Chicago-style usually has more hot peppers, which is yet another taste sensation that sausage loves to chill with.

Giardiniera can be found in most grocery stores, but as a pickled vegetable it's also easy to make and customize to your taste, or the dish you want to make. You can make a spicy Chicago-style giardiniera in 10 minutes with just a few vegetables and ingredients in your pantry. Feel free to cut out the hot pepper, or add more, depending on your personal taste; it will work either way. If you are planning on serving it as a side on a plate of sausage, keeping the chunks bigger like the Italian version is often the way to go, but if you are looking for a condiment or topping, opt for the finer chop of the Chicago version.

After that, it's all about the meats. The easiest way to spicy sausage perfection is to pile some giardiniera on any grilled sausage in a bun. Italian, brats, kielbasa, it doesn't really matter, because giardiniera will uplift them all. Or you could make a comforting plate of slow-cooker beer brats with a side of chunkier giardiniera in place of some of the sauerkraut. Take advantage of giardiniera long-term storage potential too. Pop open a jar and plate it alongside some sliced sausage or salami on a charcuterie board with your olives and pickles for an extra tangy pairing. If your meal has tubed meat in any form, make sure giardiniera is there alongside it.