Johnsonville Italian Sausage Air Fryer Recipe

Italian sausage air fryer style is fast with a great crispy texture on the outside. Pork sausage is great for breakfast or dinner. You can serve whole on rolls with mustard or sliced on a bed of mashed potatoes like bangers and mash.

Fresh or thawed is best but we also have instructions on how to air fry frozen sausage in air fryer too in case you forgot to take them out ahead of time.

Air Fryer Italian Sausage

Now if you want to make air fryer sausage AND potatoes together, follow this recipe. For that you’d need to slice into smaller pieces, cook for a few minutes and then add some seasoned red or russets. A great one pot meal I throw together often when we don’t have a lot of time for prep.

If you keep them whole you’d need to follow the cook time and temp. shared below. As opposed to kielbasa which is precooked, these are raw. Because of that you need to make sure they cook thru and reach a safe temperature inside before consuming.

Johnsonville Italian Sausage Air Fryer

This is the way you’d typically find them in the store. You’ll get about 5-6 on a tray. Most keep the casing in tact so they keep their shape nicely but you could carefully slice down the side and remove. I generally don’t bother with that step, it’s easier to slice when done if it is left on.

I have tried a variety of brands with this and air fryer sausage links. Personally I don’t think there’s a huge difference from brand name to store brand. The biggest difference is whether you choose “regular” or spicy. I don’t like a lot of heat so rarely would I ever choose those.

How to Cook Italian Sausage in Air Fryer

There isn’t a lot to this really. I mean all you need is your tray of pork links and if you want them uber crispy on the outside you could use a bit of olive oil spray. That would be right at the end of your cook time, but isn’t entirely necessary. I have a printable recipe card at the bottom, here is a quick peek of the steps here though:

• How long to cook brats in air fryer
• Step one: Start by preheating your air fryer to 350 degrees for 5 minutes. Lay your raw links inside basket without overlapping them.
• Step two: Cook for 7 minutes, flip over and cook for about another 7 minutes.
  • Then check internal temperature. It should reach 160 degrees F in the thickest part to be safe to eat.
• Step three: After flipping you could spray with olive oil and sprinkle with Italian seasoning if you’d like. Spray will make outside crispier than not using it.

Then just slice and enjoy, serve in a bun with mustard, or dice and add it into a dish like our Instant Pot sausage and rice dish. Great as a fresh dish or if you have leftovers from the night before you can dice and throw it in at that time for a second meal.

You can also follow directions on how to cook bratwurst in the oven, but that takes a lot longer of course and heats up your whole house so not so great in the hot summer months.

Ninja Foodi Italian Sausage

Other variations to this are that you could add peppers and onions inside the basket at the same time. That is a quick and easy meal all cooked together. Just put meat in a single layer, if the veggies overlap the top that is okay. When you cook sausages together with other items like this it’s great because the grease will flavor them.

Flipping meat in air fryer basket is vital to ensure both sides get nice and brown in the 15 minute mark. Do not add parchment paper on the bottom, you’ll inhibit the flow of hot air to get it done properly.

Ready to make a sausage or even air fried Venison Sausage Recipe? You can jump to recipe below. Refer to the package you chose for accurate nutritional information.

If you do have leftovers you can save them. Make sure they are completely cooled before packaging them up in a freezer bag. I would reheat in the microwave or else if you use this same method they will dry out a bit more since the outside is already crisped.

OR make a second entire meal the next day by cutting into bite size pieces and make Instant Pot Italian wedding soup with them. You can skip the saute function since the meat is already cooked.

Personally I dice up what is left and throw it into air fryer egg bites, or into our pressure cooker sausage soup recipe.

Our Ninja Foodi sausage instructions use raw bratwurst seen here. If you have this dual function machine I would follow these directions. Served on a hoagie roll with spicy mustard they make for a really inexpensive meal.