Sobrasada: Spreadable Sausage

The true highlight of the Balearic Islands is not their parties, but their food.

All photos by author. No reuse without permission.

When you hear the words “Spanish sausage,” what comes to mind? Uncle jokes aside.

Chorizo? Perhaps salchichón?

Familiarity with the local charcuterie may also conjure up pictures of thin, white-mold-covered fuet or perhaps black morcilla. Whatever came up first, I’m 99% sure it wasn’t sobrasada.

Sobrasada is not your regular sausage. (Leave it to the Spanish to do things their own way.)

For one, it’s spreadable. Sobrasada’s texture, lumpy and knife-tender, falls somewhere between that of chorizo and pâté — a spot on the sausage spectrum many a sausage eater doesn’t even know exists.

It may look like cream, but it’s really sausage.

It’s also packaged in a way which gives no indication of it being a sausage. Traditionally, Spaniards packed sobrasada in pig’s intestines. These days, however, it’s sold in clear round plastic containers, not unlike cream cheese or romesco sauce or a tub of guacamole.

It’s as if sobrasada was meant to be kept secret: Only the discerning gaze can recognize the…