Sausage Review - we review sausages

Heck - Sausage Rashers

Saw these recently when I was on the web searching for Lorne Sausage. You know the flat "slice" of sausage you can fry/grill for a sandwich. Our local Tesco didn't have any but popping in to our local co-op, I will add, with no mind to buy these as I was actually getting some veg (and Hawkstone Lager btw as you can't get that in our Tesco) but ofcourse checked out with veg, beer AND a pack of Heck Sausage Rashers anyway...

Yes I know these are not our usual sausage to sample, but I thought we'd give these a go. We're partial to a breakfast sandwich and these looked OK as a substitute to the lorne I was initially looking for.

97% British pork sounds very good, with some seasoning, and without skins, so you will be pleased that you won't hear us going on, and on for a change about those unatural collagen things in this review.

Gluten free, with "no added nitrites" which from a little research sort of indicates that the product does not contain synthetic nitrites as a curing agent. Not 100% on this to be honest so a bit more investigation will be made as our understanding is fresh sausage wouldn't perhaps have nitrites added (natural or synthetic) anyway as the fresh sausage isn't being cured liked bacon would be? Or is it, this sausage has no added nitrites like bacon would have? Hmm?

Anyway, cooked up, and we are talking medium heat, pan fried, just dot of oil, and just 5 mins approx flipped over halway through. Very quick, but be careful as we think you could very easily over cook these and they'll go tough as tough!

We cooked exactly as the packaging recommends, and this produced a firm-ish texture rasher which in our case using some nice wholemeal seeds & grain bread made quite a nice breakfast sandwich to be fair. I'm not a sauce, brown or red person but no doubt just a dob of sauce or in fact one of Heck's suggested serving suggestions may suit.

Now the packaging did say "smoky pork" however we're not sure about this fact either. The packaging doesn't give much info in the ingredients, so we would say, given that fact that we didn't get much smoky-ness at all, the "smoke" is probably "liquid smoke" additive which should have been listed in the ingredients. Perhaps it's in the "seasoning" statement? Come on Heck you can clearer on this I'm sure.

As we just said, take care, over cooking these risks the rashers becoming very firm and dense. Our sample was succulent enough and the bite/chew was OK but the rashers were unfortunately just a tad rubbery.

Seasoning-wise yes these were OK, infact not bad at all, but if you are going to slather them with sauce or other stuff, what does it matter?

Now bear in mind, a regular breakfast sausage comes in around say 60g. These rashers are around 45g each . So value wise you'd be better off buying regular sausages, squeezing the meat out of the skins and making some breakfast patties. Cook them the same as these. I'm not convinced these are a) the best value, and b) a real alternative to bacon at all, but each to the own...

Would we buy again for a breakfast sandwich, to be honest probably not as bacon is definitely our preference, but if you do try these yourself, we'd be pleased if you could let us know what you think of them...

Heck - Sausage Rashers (Jul 2025)

Here's the sample details:
46g before cooking, 39g after.
That's a weight loss of approx 15%.
6 sausage rashers in a 300g pack £3.00 (£10.00/kg) from Central Co-Op

 


 
 

 

www.heckfood.co.uk