\nThe collab officially launches March 1 and is rolling out nationwide, including Walmart, Kroger, and 7-Eleven. It\u2019s available in fully cooked and uncooked versions, and yes, the internet discourse has already arrived. Some people are intrigued. Some are horrified. Which, honestly, is exactly the kind of reaction this product is built for.<\/p>\n
So naturally, I had to try it.<\/p>\n\nBefore I even cooked anything, the smell hit me as soon as I opened the package. You definitely get the usual \u201cjust-opened sausage pack\u201d funk, but there\u2019s also a faint, flat-soda sweetness in the mix. It\u2019s giving Dr Pepper that\u2019s been sitting out for a while, for better or for worse. There\u2019s the cola spice with a little vanilla, and maybe a touch of caramel-y sweetness, but it\u2019s muted and less fizzy-fresh fountain than I would\u2019ve liked.<\/p>\n
I heated the fully cooked sausages for about 6 to 8 minutes, then did some cutting action for one, left the other plain, and dressed up my third. Johnsonville sent condiments to play around with, so I went full-on little gremlin lunch and built one on a Hawaiian bun with Funyuns and a little hot honey-BBQ sauce.<\/p>\n
On its own, I didn\u2019t get a huge Dr Pepper moment. It mostly tasted like\u2026sausage. Perfectly fine sausage! But sausage. If anything, I kept thinking maybe I should\u2019ve gotten some better grill marks on there to wake it up.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
![\"pack](\"https:\/\/hips.hearstapps.com\/hmg-prod\/images\/img-3394-69a099bc2a7bd.jpeg?crop=0.896xw:0.672xh;0.0306xw,0.111xh&resize=980:*\" "\\"pack")
<\/p>\n
Sean Abrams<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
![\"pack](\"https:\/\/hips.hearstapps.com\/hmg-prod\/images\/img-3398-69a099ddbee59.jpeg?crop=0.915xw:0.686xh;0.0255xw,0.107xh&resize=980:*\" "\\"pack")
<\/p>\n
Sean Abrams<\/span><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe funny part is that once I added toppings, I actually started noticing the soda-inspired angle more. The sweetness from the bun and BBQ, plus the oniony crunch from the Funyuns, seemed to pull out whatever Dr Pepper-ish notes were hanging back in the sausage. <\/p>\n
But if I\u2019m being honest, if you\u2019re going to put Dr Pepper on the package in giant letters, I want Dr Pepper. I want to be hit over the head with it. I know the label says \u201cinspired,\u201d but my brain still showed up expecting a stronger soda-forward flavor.<\/p>\n
So where does that leave us? These are weird in a way that makes for a good group taste test or backyard cookout conversation starter, and I can absolutely see them being a hit when an array of toppings and sauces is in the mix.<\/p>\n
Will I be roaming the grocery aisles, demanding the soda sausages be thrown into my cart like it\u2019s Black Friday and there\u2019s only one pack left? No, I don\u2019t think I will. Respectfully, you can have them. <\/p>\n\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
3 min read Johnsonville and Dr Pepper teamed up on a new Dr Pepper-inspired sausage, and I had to try it for myself. The smell gives you both sausage and flat Dr Pepper energy, but the flavor on its own is more subtle than the packaging suggests. It\u2019s a fun […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cupcake.website\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Estimated](\"https:\/\/www.delish.com\/_assets\/design-tokens\/fre\/static\/icons\/clock-regular.4ddebeb.svg\")
3 min read<\/span><\/div>\n