Tako (octopus) Sausage is a sausage cut to look like an octopus and is often seen in children’s Bento lunches. This fun and cute dish is a favorite for kids, but tastes good enough for adults too.
A couple of decades ago, the sausages we’re used to from when we were kids in Japan were in red colored casings. The meat inside the bright red sausage was heavily processed and pasty, and it was not necessarily exactly delicious. However, perhaps getting a hint from octopus turning red when boiled, somebody started preparing the red sausages to look like an octopus when cooked, and it became a staple dish for children. After making cuts on the end of a sausage, when the sausage is fried the cut parts open and curl up, forming the legs of the octopus. You can cut any number of legs, depending on the size of the sausages, it doesn’t matter, though 4 or 8 are probably the easiest choices. The red sausages are hard to find outside Japan (which is not a huge loss), and you can substitute with small brown sausages at local markets in the US.
Tako Sausage is a great dish to make Bento fun, and it will encourage kids to eat the whole lunch. If you have kids who are picky eaters, try this one in Bento, and they may even accidentally eat their vegetables too!
Tako Sausage
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Ingredients
- 8 mini sausages
- 1/2 teaspoon oil
- Ketchup or sauce of choice optional
Instructions
- Lay sausage flat on the cutting board and cut one end of the sausage lengthwise up to the middle. Rotate 90 degrees and cut again. This will make 4 legs. You can stop here or cut each leg into half to make 8 legs.
- Heat a small frying pan and add oil. Saute sausages for 5 minutes.
- Add ketchup or sauce of choice (optional) before turning off heat.
Video
