The question of why the Weißwurst is actually white can be answered by looking at the production process of this Bavarian speciality.
Why the white sausage is white: table salt instead of nitrite curing salt
There is a simple reason why the white sausage lives up to its name. White sausage is made slightly differently than other cooked sausages such as Bockwurst, Wiener sausages, Leberkäse, Krakauer and Lyoner – with table salt.
- Most sausages are salted during the manufacturing process – originally to preserve the meat. Normally, nitrite curing salt is used for this – that is, table salt mixed with sodium nitrite.
- The nitrite curing salt gives the meat its beautiful, rosy color. The reason for this is that the nitrite reacts with the hemoglobin in the meat. In technical jargon, this is also known as “reddening.”
- The curing salt with the E number E 250 does not appear on the ingredients list of white sausage. This is because no nitrite curing salt is used to make white sausages, but rather ordinary table salt.
- When you cook meat with salt, you may have noticed that the meat turns white. The same thing happens with white sausage – it stays white because without the nitrite, no reddening takes place.
- By the way: White sausages are traditionally made from veal, which is naturally lighter than pork, for example. This enhances the light color of the sausage.