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Little Piggies

(Pigs in a Blanket)

Two ingredients. That's it. Cocktail sausages and a can of biscuit dough. This is not a complex recipe. This is not a showcase of culinary technique. This is the snack equivalent of showing up to a party with a case of beer—low effort, universally appreciated, and somehow you're the hero anyway.

I don't understand why these are so popular, but they are. You put a tray of these out at any gathering—birthday party, Super Bowl, casual Tuesday—and they vanish before you can set the tray down. People will eat seven of them while saying "oh I really shouldn't." They will ask for the recipe and then look disappointed when you tell them it's literally two things from the refrigerated section. They wanted a secret. There is no secret. It's sausages in dough. That's the whole thing.

The only skill involved is patience, and even that's minimal. If you can wrap a present, you can make pigs in a blanket. Actually, if you CAN'T wrap a present, you can still make pigs in a blanket. The bar is that low.

Prep: 20 min Cook: 15-17 min Makes: 32-40 piggies Difficulty: If you can roll, you can do this
A tray of golden-brown pigs in a blanket fresh from the oven
Thirty-something tiny sausages, each wrapped in a biscuit blanket. They will be gone in four minutes. Set a timer if you want to witness it.

Ingredients

That's the list. Pillsbury and Oscar Mayer have to be in cahoots on this somehow because one can of biscuits uses up almost exactly one package of sausages. There are always a few sausages left at the end. Coincidence? Corporate conspiracy? Who knows. Not my problem.

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven. Check the biscuit can for the exact temperature—it's usually around 375°F. While the oven heats, line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray it with cooking spray. Unless you want to spend twenty minutes scrubbing burnt biscuit residue off your pan. You don't want that.
  2. Open the biscuit can. This is going to make a sudden, aggressive popping sound when it opens. Use this to your advantage. Scare your spouse. Scare your kids. Scare the dog. It's the small joys in life. Peel off the wrapper and separate all the biscuits.
  3. Quarter the biscuits. Take each biscuit and pull it apart into four roughly equal pieces. You should end up with 32-40 little dough blobs depending on how many biscuits were in the can.
  4. Shape each piece into a blanket. This is the only part that requires any technique, and I use that word generously. Take one quarter-biscuit and flatten it slightly between your fingers. Now here's the key: stretch it horizontally, not vertically. You're pulling the left and right sides outward while keeping the top-to-bottom dimension the same. What you're going for is a shape roughly like an adhesive bandage—a short, wide rectangle, about 2-3 inches across and maybe an inch tall. Wide enough to wrap around the sausage with a little overlap, but not so tall that you have a bunch of excess dough flopping around. If the dough tears, just smoosh it back together at a different angle and try again. It's very forgiving.
  5. Wrap the piggie. Lay a sausage across the center of your dough strip and roll it up, making sure the dough overlaps itself by at least a little—maybe an eighth of the way around the sausage. Place it seam-side down on the baking sheet. This keeps the blanket from unrolling during baking.
  6. Repeat until you run out of biscuits. You'll probably have a few naked sausages left over. Throw them on the pan anyway—there's always someone at the party doing low-carb or gluten-free, and they'll appreciate the gesture. Plus, more for you if nobody claims them.
  7. Bake on the top rack. This gets the tops golden brown. Check them at around 15 minutes. You're looking for the biscuit dough to be golden brown but not burnt. Depending on your oven, it might need another minute or two. Every oven is a unique snowflake of inconsistency. Use your eyes.
  8. Remove and serve immediately. These are best hot. Put out some mustard for dipping—yellow mustard, honey mustard, spicy brown, whatever you have. Some heathens use ketchup. I'm not here to judge. Okay, I'm judging a little. But the point is: serve them, watch them disappear, accept the praise.

Notes

  • On the flaky biscuit thing: I cannot stress this enough. The flaky/layers biscuits are designed to separate into delicate sheets. That's great for eating a biscuit with butter. It's terrible for stretching into a wrapper. You'll pull and the whole thing will delaminate into useless strips. Original or Butter Tastin'. Commit this to memory.
  • Make-ahead option: You can assemble these ahead of time and refrigerate them on the baking sheet (covered with plastic wrap) for a few hours before baking. Don't freeze them though—the dough gets weird.
  • Fancier versions: Some people brush the tops with melted butter before baking. Some sprinkle everything bagel seasoning on top. Some wrap them with a strip of bacon too because apparently regular pigs in a blanket weren't indulgent enough. Do what makes you happy.
  • The leftover sausages: They're a feature, not a bug. Cook them alongside the wrapped ones. Someone will eat them.

Stuff You'll Need

A baking sheet. Aluminum foil. Cooking spray. Your hands. The ability to wrap small objects in dough. A party to bring these to, or just a regular evening where you want to eat thirty tiny sausages by yourself. I'm not here to judge your life.