Keto Sausage Rolls (with Fathead Dough)

Golden sausage rolls stacked on a navy-rimmed white plate, one broken open to show the pork filling, scattered with chopped parsley Save to Pinterest
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Introduction

A sausage roll is about as simple as party food gets: seasoned sausage wrapped in pastry and baked until golden. For these keto sausage rolls, we’re using fathead dough—a mix of mozzarella, cream cheese, almond flour and egg—to wrap around the pork sausage, sautéed onion and garlic.

If you’re used to sausage rolls made with puff pastry, these will be a little different. The dough bakes up soft and bready, so you won’t get those flaky layers, but you still get a warm, savory roll with plenty of filling. A batch makes eight, ready to serve on a party platter or put out for game day.

What Goes In

Ingredients in glass bowls on a white counter: raw ground sausage, shredded mozzarella, almond flour, two eggs, chopped onion, olive oil, cream cheese and four small dishes of powders

For the filling

  • Pork sausage: Use raw bulk pork sausage, sold loose or in a tube. Check the label for added sugar or fillers if you’re counting carbs.
  • Onion and garlic: Cook these in olive oil, then let them cool before mixing them with the sausage and egg.

For the pastry

  • Almond flour, baking powder and xanthan gum: These go into the melted cheese with the egg to make a dough you can roll.
  • Onion powder and garlic powder: These season the dough as well as the filling.

You’ll need two eggs: one for the filling and one for the dough.

Working With the Pastry

Mix the dough while the melted cheese is still warm; it gets harder to work with as it cools. Once everything is combined, chill the dough for 30 minutes so it’s easier to roll.

A sheet of pale fathead dough rolled out thin on parchment paper, with a wooden rolling pin lying above it

Roll the dough between two sheets of parchment so it doesn’t stick to the rolling pin. Aim for about a quarter inch thick, as we do with a similar dough in our keto hot pockets. If you’re having trouble with sticking or cracking, our fathead dough guide can help.

Filling and Rolling

Lay a strip of filling down the middle of each piece of dough, roll it up and press the seam closed. Set the rolls seam side down on your lined baking sheet. You can leave the ends open so the filling shows.

Some cheese may melt out as they bake, so don’t skip the parchment.

Keto Sausage Rolls

Prep Time
15 minutes
Cook Time
25 minutes
Additional Time
30 minutes
Total Time
1 hour 10 minutes
Yield
8 sausage rolls
Course
Appetizer, Snack
Cuisine
British
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Ingredients

For the filling

For the pastry

Nutrition Facts

8 servings per recipe
Trans Fat 0g 0% 0g 0%
Sugar Alcohols 0g 0% 0g 0%
Allulose 0g 0% 0g 0%

About these numbers: We are home cooks, not certified nutritionists. Nutrition is shared as a courtesy. We pick a representative product for each ingredient, and our recipe system works out the totals from the amounts in this recipe, so please treat them as a helpful estimate rather than a guarantee. The brands you buy, any swaps you make, and how generously you portion the recipe will all move these numbers.

Directions

  1. Soften the onion.

    Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, add the chopped onion and sauté until it is soft.

  2. Add the garlic, then let it cool.

    Add the minced garlic and sauté for 30 seconds more. Take the pan off the heat and let the onion and garlic cool while you make the pastry.

  3. Melt the cheeses.

    Put the mozzarella and cream cheese in a microwave-safe bowl and heat them in 30-second bursts, stirring in between, until completely melted and smooth. Go straight on to the next step while the cheese is hot.

  5. Make the pastry dough and chill it.

    Put the melted cheese in a mixing bowl with the almond flour, egg, baking powder, xanthan gum, onion powder and garlic powder, and mix until it comes together as a dough. Chill the dough for 30 minutes.

    Mix while the cheese is still warm. Once it cools and sets, the almond flour is much harder to work in evenly.

  6. Mix the filling.

    In a bowl, mix the cooled onion and garlic with the sausage, the egg, and salt and pepper to taste. Set it aside.

  7. Roll out and cut the pastry.

    Preheat the oven to 400°F. Roll the chilled dough out between two sheets of parchment paper to about ¼ inch thick, then cut it into 8 even squares or rectangles.

  8. Fill and roll.

    Lay a strip of the sausage filling down the middle of each piece of pastry, then roll the pastry closed around it and press the seam to seal it.

  10. Arrange them on a baking sheet.

    Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set the rolls on it seam side down, with a little space between them.

  11. Bake until browned and cooked through.

    Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the pastry is browned and the sausage is cooked through.

    Check the filling as well as the pastry. Push an instant-read thermometer into the middle of the filling of a roll from the center of the tray; ground pork is done at 160°F. If it isn't there yet, keep baking and check again.

Notes

Which sausage to buy

Use raw bulk pork sausage, the kind sold loose or in a tube rather than in links. The filling goes into the pastry raw and cooks in the oven, so precooked sausage is not a swap here.

Some sausages add sugar or fillers, so check the label if you are counting carbs. The Nutrition Facts panel is calculated with a plain pork sausage that lists no carbohydrate.

Tools

  • Two sheets of parchment paper to roll the dough between, plus one to line the baking sheet.
  • A rolling pin, and a pizza wheel or sharp knife to cut the pastry.
  • An instant-read thermometer, to check the filling.

Allergens

These contain milk (mozzarella and cream cheese), egg, and almonds, which are a tree nut.

How to Tell They’re Done

A golden crust doesn’t tell you whether the sausage inside is cooked. Check the center of the filling with an instant-read thermometer—it needs to reach 160°F. If it hasn’t, give the rolls a few more minutes and check again.

Serving Them

Serve them warm, whole or cut in half, with a little mustard for dipping. Some mustards are sweetened, so check the label. If you’re putting together a party spread, add our keto pumpkin cheese ball alongside them.

For another sausage appetizer, try our keto sausage balls, where the sausage, cheese and almond flour are mixed together instead of wrapped in pastry.

Storing Leftovers

Get leftovers into the refrigerator within two hours of baking. Kept covered, they’ll be good for three to four days, which is the USDA window for cooked leftovers. Reheat them in the oven until they’re hot all the way through, to 165°F. A microwave heats them faster, but it softens the pastry.

For freezing baked rolls, follow the same method we use for our keto hot pockets: freeze the cooled rolls in a single layer on a baking sheet until solid, then move them to a freezer bag. Reheat them from frozen in the oven, again to 165°F in the middle.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my dough sticky or cracking when I roll it?

Warm dough can be sticky, while cold dough can be harder to roll. Rolling it between two sheets of parchment paper keeps it off the rolling pin, and the 30-minute chill makes it firmer to handle.

If it still fights you, our fathead dough guide goes through the fixes our other recipes use for sticky, lumpy and cracking dough.

Can I make keto sausage rolls ahead or freeze them?

You can make the dough a day early, following the make-ahead method from our garlic breadsticks: wrap it tightly and keep it in the refrigerator. It will be firm when it comes out, so let it soften, or give it ten seconds in the microwave, before you roll it. Shape and fill the rolls on the day you bake them.

Baked rolls can be frozen in a single layer until solid, then bagged, and reheated from frozen in the oven to 165°F in the middle. The storage section above has the details.

Can I use coconut flour instead of almond flour?

Not cup for cup. Our coconut-flour fathead recipe, the garlic breadsticks, uses very different amounts of flour, egg and cheese from our almond-flour ones. The fathead dough guide compares them side by side.

We haven’t made these sausage rolls with coconut flour, so we don’t have a ratio to give you. If you want to try it, start from a fathead dough written for coconut flour rather than swapping it into this one.

Made a batch? Let us know how they turned out in the comments!