Sauerkraut and Weenies (& Your Favorite Po’Folks Food!)
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When I was little, we couldn’t wait for supper each night. Mama always put together budget meals, not because she was trying to scale back on expenses, but because we barely had enough to feed us all and a “budget meal” was just a nice way of saying we could make a single pound of ground beef stretch for two meals.
This is one of my dear favorite meals as a girl and still is. It is a prime example of what I call “poor folks food”, and so very good! Oh goodness I’m getting hungry. I see this meal and I feel like a little girl with two pony tails coming in from playing outside, just barely stopping as I ran into the house and took my seat at our table. Remember how we’d fly through that front door when Mama called us for supper? Coming in all breathless and hot, and just as you hit the door you’d get a whiff of what was cooking and realize that you were starving.
Raise your hand if you had a dirt necklace every night when you were a kid! ~raises hand proudly~
Now I realize some folks are just not sauerkraut fans. Chances are, I lost ’bout half of you in the title of this post, but the funny thing is what happened to the other half! Some of y’all saw that title and your mouth started watering, you clicked on it to see the photo and your stomach started growling, and chances are pert dern good that you’ll be having this for supper tonight. Those who don’t fit into this category, feel free to think of the rest of us as weird, we won’t mind and there will be more sauerkraut for us!
This is one of those meals that is great with slices of polish sausage but I still like to cook it how Mama did growing up, just by chopping up a few weenies and cooking until the kraut and weenies brown a bit. It is divine served with a side of pintos and a big old slice of cornbread. Mmmmm, thats good eating right there.
You can add as many weenies or sausage as you like and if you’re vegetarian, just get some vegan hot dogs and keep on keeping on.
You’ll need: Sauerkraut and weenies.
You’ll also season with salt and pepper. How many weenies you use is up to you. We used to have to determine this based on how many we had, so to be able to use as many as you want is a big step up nowadays.
I have a friend from Germany ~waves to Gudrun~ who swears by the bagged sauerkraut so I started buying it and now I’m a convert, too. You can get it in the refrigerated section near the weenies usually and sometimes near the deli if they have a refrigerated section there as well. Mama likes the kind you get in a glass jar and we’ve both used the kind that comes in a can (which you get on the vegetable aisle). Overall, they are all good and there isn’t a lot of price difference so it is up to you to pick your favorite .
Slice your weenies and put them in a large skillet.
Add in about two cups of sauerkraut.
Cook this over medium to medium high heat, stirring often.
Season with salt to taste.
And pepper to taste.
You can start with 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/8 teaspoon of pepper and then adjust to make it just right for you.
You can cook this until your weenies and sauerkraut get a little browned or you can just cook it until everything is heated through.
It sure does look nice if you brown it but I can never wait that long.
Now here is a supper from the old days!
Tell me about your favorite “Poor Folks Food” growing up in the comments section below!
You are welcome to chat with each other in the comments as we all reminisce.
This is our big old dinner table and we’re all family here!
Sauerkraut and Weenies
Ingredients
- 2-4 weenies (or polish sausage)
- 2 Cups sauerkraut
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Instructions
- Slice weenies into small pieces. Place in skillet over medium to medium high heat. Add Sauerkraut. Cook, stirring often, until kraut and weenies brown slightly. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.
Google Recipe View Microformatting by ZipList Recipe Plugin
Ingredients
- 2-4 weenies (or polish sausage)
- 2 Cups sauerkraut
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Instructions
- Slice weenies into small pieces. Place in skillet over medium to medium high heat. Add Sauerkraut. Cook, stirring often, until kraut and weenies brown slightly. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.
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Suggested Accompaniments:
Pintos
Dixie Cornbread
Mama Reed’s Fruit Cocktail Cake
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Life is really simple,
but we insist on making it complicated.
~Confucius. Submit your quote or, read some more, by clicking here.
Posted by Christy Jordan
on Sep 3 2010. Filed under Main Course, Quick&Easy.
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Not a big fan of Kraut, so not what we’d serve at our house but I reckon a slight variation has been fried cabbage and kielbasa and cornbread, it won’t break the bank and it is so good especially on a cold night!
Mom would cook a soup bone or two for an hour or two, take the meat off the bones and add vegies – whatever she had. Usually carrots, potatoes, onions, cabbage, rutabaga and when they were tender, she’d make dumplings. It’s still one of my favorite meals! When I used to freeze garden vegetables, I kept several containers in the freezer and added a bit of each vegetable to the containers until they were full. Then it was soup time!! GOOOOOOD eating!! Oh yes, and we put in some pearl barley, too – or macaroni. Most anything goes!
I just love, Love, LOVE kraut and weenies. I’m the only one in my house that would touch it tho. Oh well, more for me. Love ya.
Yum, sounds good on a cold fall day. I have a quart of sauerkraut that a neighbor cans, she adds hot peppers to her kraut. Delicious.
This post made me chuckle because my mother-in-law fed my father-in-law this same meal once a week for 30 years only to find out (after the entire 30 years) that he hated sauerkraut!
Yummm! My mama always made this too. With 4 kids back in the day they didnt have a lot of money either, so I guess we was po folks too. We always had pintos, kraut & weenies, country fried potatoes, cornbread & a big slice of onion. Sometimes we had the same meal except with fried salmon patties. Then sometimes all we had was pintos, cornbread & an onion. Thats good eatin right there! Oh and we all had the dirt necklace too. I dont know how my mama did it, but she did.
We used to have salmon patties alot,too.I didn’t think we were poor though.If we were,my parents didn’t let on.I think they just knew how to spend wisely.My parents always made sure we had a good pair of shoes.
Our budget dinner or “go to” dinner as a child was (and mind you I just made this Sat. night for dinner, and I am not on a budget, just got a craving for it) is hot dogs, baked beans and Kraft mac & cheese (yeah the kind you add butter and milk to). To say the least my son was not happy~but I was!!!!
Too funny!! This is what we were having for supper already!! Darling son absolutely LOVES sauerkraut!
Glad to see we aren’t the only one who chop up weenies in it!!
We have changed it up a bit with pork chops and great northern beans. I just dump everything in a covered dish and bake it it in the oven. A little Jalapeño kielbasa is good too!
We used to have this quite often when I was growing up. It’s been so long that I don’t remember what Mother fixed to go with it. On New Year’s Day, we had pork ribs & sauerkraut, blackeyed peas, and cornbread. I always put sauerkraut on my hotdogs – sauerkraut & mayonnaise. I married Mr. Picky who wouldn’t eat sauerkraut if it was the last food on earth. Our son, however, loves sauerkraut and will eat it straight out of the jar or can like his mama. Thanks for bringing back a fond memory.
My mouth is watering!! My Granny always had stewed potatoes with plenty of butter & black pepper, butter beans, a tomato & cornbread everytime she made kraut & weenies YUM
DON’T LAUGH but I love kraut & weenies with one of those hash brown potato patties on white bread. Mmmm that is a good sammich hahaha
Our go to meal, Momma called it slop. A box of instant Mac and cheese, some cooked hamburger or sausage, and a can of corn all mixed together. I still eat it because I just love it. Even DH has grown fond of it. I find that we can use 1/2 pound of meat with 1 box of mac and its just as good. DH asks me to add Peas to it.
Our cheap and easy meal my Mom always made was Spam and Macaroni with Peas and Applesauce. One of those recipes, like this, that everyone turns their nose up at, but will eat the heck out of it when no one is looking, lol.
Having this for dinner tonight along with pinto beans, stewed potatoes and some good ole cornbread………might even sneak some cornbread and milk in there, too! Does anyone eat cornbread and milk?
I do! Even did a post about it here once!
cornbread and buttermilk
I*seriously* thought we were the only ones that ate this. Never had I heard mention of it by anyone else, and in my younger days if I mentioned it, my friends would say “WHAT?!?” So, in teen form, i quit mentioning it. lol Our sides were mashed potatoes and peas.
Chantal, you are not alone!
Yes, my Dad used to love cornbread with milk and buttermilk.
our “poor folks meal” was weenies cooked in bbq sauce and mac and cheese. another common one was S.O.S….. SH*# ON A SHINGLE… which consisted of hamburger meat cooked through salt and pepper…then flour and water to make a gravy…served over a slice of toasted bread covered in ketchup…yumm! my mom also made saurkraut and weenies…but it was more of a snack…or lunch item…
My Dad loved it ,so I did too (but it really was good) I of course I married a man who loves it too, the kids not so much
I was a proud owner of potato rows around my neck every night………good times
This does bring back memories
Mom made this often when we were kids. Usually we didn’t have anything else with it though, other than the mandatory slice of “light bread”. If there were no biscuits or cornbread we had to use a slice of store bought, and you were expected to use it to help you scoop the food onto your fork and not use your thumb. I remember thinking that’s why we had thumbs in the first place but you know how parents are about table manners. 
The dirt necklace was ever present, though in our house it was called Granny beads, lol. If you didn’t have one you must have stayed in sick that day.
We had some meatless meals too, the beans and cornbread were a real favorite! Sometimes there wasn’t even ham to season with, and mom would just use some bacon grease for flavor.
And sometimes we had greens, collards or turnip, didn’t matter, we loved them all! And for some reason there was always hominy with that, and some cornbread. Yum!!!!
Used to make this when we first got married and small budget, but I would cube potatoes and cook with polish sausage until lightly browned and then add the saukraut. I haven’t made it in over 20 years. Thanks for reminding me of the good old days.
I think that is why I love Christy’s recipes so much, they make me feel like a little girl eating my moms food again. My mom used to make this all the time.
My mom cooked weenies, pork chops and pork ribs with sauerkraut. we always loved it. (she used a pressure cooker with the chops and ribs) We also had the “dirt necklace” you could plant potatoes in. I noticed with my two boys that they always had a “little boy” aroma, too.
I just recieved and read you cookbook from cover to cover this weekend. I loved it. I’ve studied cookbooks before, but never read one all the way through. (even the Deen’s cookbooks, Paula’s or her sons.)
Love kraut and weiners with fried taters and sliced tomatoes.
We love it here! I make soft fried potatoes with it also. If I fix this meal my husband thinks he’s being rewarded for doing something right! Hee hee, I won’t tell him any different!
My mom used to make this exact meal. We were really poor, but I didn’t like kraut, beans, or cornbread, so I would pick the weiner pieces out of my kraut and eat those. We also had white beans, cornbread, and weenies and cheese a lot. I loved weenies and cheese and made them for my own kids for the first time not too long ago, and they loved them.
I also like to use Bavarian Kraut in this becuase it is a little sweeter and you can find it right beside the regular kraut!
I just love those Weenie meals, both growing up and feeding them to my kids! Makes for some great memories and good meals (on a budget or not).
My mom and grandma used to make these with chopped and fried taters! So delicious! My grandma still makes it when I come to visit!
Well, I didn’t call it poor folks food; it was just what we ate at our house. We loved kraut and weenies–still do, with butter beans and cornbread. Also, like Heather, we had SOS and loved it; in fact, my kids love it today. Also, had salmon patties, fried potatoes and biscuits. We had our share of corned beef hash(from the can mixed with fried potatoes) and fried spam too.
We had this growing up and we have it now! I brown my weiners a bit before adding kraut. A pone of cornbread along with it and u-m-m-m-m!
Our favorite meal growing up was rice and ‘maters with smoked sausage.Mama canned tomatoes and Grandaddy’s pigs supplies the sausage so it was real cheap eatin’.I still fix this quite often.
I make this with kielbasa (normally turkey kielbasa), and let me say first that I do NOT like sauerkraut lol… so, I first rinse the kraut under cold water in a big colander, then I put it in a big pot (dutch oven) with a sliced onion, cover with water, throw in a few chicken bouillon cubes, garlic powder, about 1/3 C of brown sugar, a bay leaf or two, a little dried parsley, fresh black pepper, and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. I bring it to a boil and simmer for about 2 1/2 hrs, then add the kielbasa and simmer another 30 min. It is delicious.
I just love reading your website. I’m California born and raised, but my family on my mom’s side is southern so we have all these foods. Love sauerkraut but couldn’t get my husband or son to even try it. (Northerners!) I love reading through the comments and rememering all the foods I had growing up. Does anyone say “How much do you lack?” for How much do you have left? My grandmother always says that and i figured it must be a Southern thing.
Yes!!! My mom and dad both used that term for “how much more do you have to do?” — “How much do you lack on that homework?”. I never even thought about it being just a Southern thing until you posted that.
First – we had “train tracks” around our necks :>) Played long and hard – when we weren’t in the garden during the summer mornings. I’m the only one that would go the kraut…but there have been plenty of hot dogs cut up in a can of pork-n-beans then heated. Growing up, my Dad’s favorite “expensive dish” was either what we called baked tomatoes (home canned tomatoes and stale bread with a dash of sugar, salt and pepper – then baked)….or that expensive potato soup-no cream or anything fancy- just taters, onion, water and a small amout of milk added to make it white. OH – such good food!
We love Kraut and Wienies at my house! My daughter never could saw kraut when she was little- it was always Crap and Wienies- she loves it, just couldn’t say it….it was so cute so it’s still Crap and Wienies around here. Love it with pinto beans, cornbread and fried taters!
My Mom would broil some pork chops, take them out of the pan add some sauerkraut and heat it up….love the taste of the kraut with the pork drippings, it was so so so good. Doesn’t seem to taste the same when I do it though. I guess she might have added something that she never told me about. lol…..
we also do kraut w/weiners and baked beans on the side. Sometimes if we don’t have any sauerkraut we just cut up the dogs and put em in the beans…yummy both ways.
Kraut was always one of the first things that we canned each year. That crock of fermenting cabbage was not something that you wanted to get near. But come the winter time you loved what came out of those jars. At the school lunch room especially they always served mashed potatoes with the kraut and hot dogs with applesauce and either a cookie or a peanut butter brownie for dessert. I would mix the kraut into the mashed potatoes. Don’t know why but it just seemed that much better, and also probably because all around me I could hear the eeewwwww!!!
Everyone in my family still loves souerkraut & weenies. I add a tad of bacon grease just because….. LOL, my oldest daughter, now age 50, always called it sourcrap and weenies, and still does, (but she eats it!)
This Northener loves Kraut! Must be the PA Dutch in me. :} I also like to sub in kielbasa or chops. My favorite is pork chops or boneless pork ribs, kraut, sliced granny apple and onion in a crockpot ….yum.
My hubbys favorite cheap meal is stewed tomatoes and shell macaroni. His dad used to make it for him when he was a kid.
Looks great but where’s the fried taters? We always had fried potatoes with this. My mill’s cheap meal was bean dish. 2-3 cans of pork n beans(depending on how far she had to stretch it) half a pound of cooked hamburger meat and sugar and ketchup to taste. My mom’s was salmon patties, English peas and Mac and cheese
MMMM! My daughter & I are real sauerkraut people, my husband, son-in-law and granddaughters, not so much! Here is how I cook it with pork.
Pork & Sauerkraut
1 Boston Butt pork roast
1-2 bags of sauerkraut
Place roast in an black enamel roaster. Pour sauerkraut (with the juice) around the roast, pressing it down so the kraut is in the liquid. Place on lide and roast in a 300º oven for about 3-4 hours, or until the roast is tender. Slice roast and serve with the sauerkraut along with mashed potatoes and a veggie. Real Pennsylvania Dutch eating.
No salt, pepper, onion or other seasoning needed.
Linda
I remember this meal well, LOVED it! Unfortunately my DH and kids don’t have the same tastes I do so I seldom get a meal like this any more. My mom also use to brown chopped weiners and wild green onions then scramble eggs in with ‘em… mmm now my mouth really is waterin’!
My Mama would fry white meat until it was crispy and then cook cabbage in the grease left from the white meat. She’d make potato salad and those big, dry lima beans. A “pone” of cornbread and some green onions and we were all set! Oh my mouth is watering now!!
I like it this way and also with Kielbasa and sauteed onions with it!
I never grew up with this type of food and have only been exposed to the sauerkraut and sausage in the last 12 years or so. I love it with mashed potatoes. My mom really likes it too but, as my father could not tolerate the smell in the house, it was not on the menu. Couldn’t even make it when he wasn’t around because the odour lingered and he did not react favourably.
I love sauerkraut and potatoes but, to be quite truthful, I am not that fond of the sausage or weenies with it. So, I just pick around them and leave them in the pot. I also like fried cabbage (sliced cabbage, sauteed with water in a fry pan and once it is soft, let it brown a bit and carmelize)
We did however enjoy the weenies and beans. This is my sisters favourite meal to this day. Beans, salad and buns or bread……. need I say more.
Delta Joy (Sept 2010) said don’t ever apologize for the food you make and eat.
I agree completely. I make what we like and what we can afford. I also save the left overs, even if it is only a bit… that is why they make storage containers in many sizes isn’t it ! Then one night a week I make a small casserole or just “buffet” type supper. My friend thinks it is disgusting that I eat all of the “garbage” out of the fridge. I think that if I ate it the first time, it is okay even combined with other stuff to form a different menu. As I wasn’t home a lot of times to sit and eat with the family, I would have a tin plate filled with little bits of what had been served for supper and it would be in the oven waiting for me when I did get home. I was the last to eat so got what was left over. We weren’t poor, and never were hungry. Some meals may have seemed to be weird combinations but Mom often fed 3 or 4 other kids in the neighbourhood too and never got any complaints (unless there was no raw onion – one boy ate raw onion on EVERYTHING) We ate well. The rule was if you don’t like it then don’t eat it – will just be more for the next guy – but what is on the table is all that is being served.
The foods listed by all those posting here are a lot of my favourites. People think I am nuts for eating beans, weenies and mac and cheese together. I could just cook up a big pot of veggies and greens and eat that with potatoes
Christy I love receiving your emails and seeing what other folks are enjoying on a daily basis. I have no Southern Roots at all. But I have eaten all, or many, of these dishes and do have a lot of recipes in my collection that are word for word, or very similar. I am over 60 years old and have been cooking for over 50 years.
PS – Salmon patties and salad was the lunch menu every Saturday for years. I spent weekends with my grandparents and Saturday lunch was for entertaining ladies in the valley – home made biscuits, jam, wild honey and home churned butter were also on the menu.
My favorite po’ folks food is neck bones and taters. My mom grew up eating it and she loved it so much she made it for me (only child). I still love it to this day. The meat was cooked with the taters and it made for a wonderful flavor and one-dish meal.
My mom used to make this with fried potatoes and “light” bread (white bread) on the side. Also grew up eating cornbread and milk. My grandmother used to serve cornbread and milk in big goblets decorated with a white frosty glaze on them. Every time I see one of those beautiful old glasses my mouth waters. Thanks for the memories!
Our evening meals were almost always frozen vegetables that we put up each summer. My parents had fried egg sandwiches every day for lunch, so they wanted something filling for supper.Usually put up at least 700-1000 ears of corn, bushels of peas, butterbeans & green beans.
My grandmother was famous for her poor man’s soup. Just potatoes, tomatoes and onion. Served with cornbread.
We still eat kraut and weenies once in a while.My husband is of German descent so he likes pork and kraut. As for the dirt necklace we called it Grandmas beads.
We had kraut n weenies every week when I was growing up. Time to cook up a mess now after seeing this. Another favorite meal my dad made was big plate of crumbled up cornbread topped with onions, tomatos, bacon, and pour some Bacon grease over top….heart attack on a plate but o so good with ‘ice milk’
An invitation to eat at your table would beat an invite to a kings palace!!