Brabant sausage rolls: meat in yeast dough, not a puff-pastry sausage roll
A soft white bread roll wrapped around a cylinder of seasoned minced meat. In Brabant, it belongs to slaughter day, Saturday and carnival — it is not a puff-pastry snack.
No one knows where the first worstenbroodje was rolled. Erfgoed ’s-Hertogenbosch found the earliest newspaper reference in 1856 in Breda: a baker's wife who was alleged to have held back meat intended for sausage rolls. The word appears later in Den Bosch. The roll was regarded as a way of baking meat from slaughtering inside dough. That reference tells us that the roll already existed at the time; it does not tell us who invented it.
A Brabant worstenbroodje is not a saucijzenbroodje. There is no puff pastry, but yeast dough instead. The seam goes underneath. Seasoning remains restrained: salt, pepper and nutmeg. Its intangible-heritage status confirms the practice, not a single secret recipe.
Below are twelve rolls. Minced meat is perishable; keep raw minced meat at the bottom of the refrigerator and refrigerate leftovers within two hours. Bake until the dough is golden brown and the filling is piping hot all the way through. A golden-brown crust alone says nothing about the centre. Reheat leftovers until steaming hot; keep cooled rolls in the refrigerator for no more than two days. Allergens in this dough: gluten, egg, milk. Do not taste raw minced meat.
Served lukewarm, the contrast comes through beautifully: soft bread, a thin crust and a seasoned filling. Put a platter on the table and you need little else.
Get cooking
12 rolls
- 500 g wheat flour
- 7 g dry yeast
- 10 g sugar
- 10 g salt
- 250 ml lukewarm milk
- 30 g butter
- 500 g pork mince or mixed pork-and-beef mince
- 1 egg plus 1 egg yolk for brushing
- 2 tbsp breadcrumbs
- pinch of nutmeg, pepper and salt
- Knead the flour, yeast, sugar, salt, milk and butter into a smooth dough. Leave to rise for 45 minutes.
- Mix the minced meat with the egg, breadcrumbs and seasonings. Shape into 12 rolls.
- Divide the dough, roll it around the filling and place seam-side down. Brush with egg yolk.
- Bake for about 18–22 minutes at 200 °C until the dough is golden brown and the filling is piping hot all the way through.
Recipe not kitchen-tested. Allergens: gluten, egg, milk. Check the labels of all products used.
Break open a roll: the filling is a cylinder of minced meat, not a loose sausage inside croissant dough.