Recipe: Queen City Sausage Wicked Hot Stir Fry

Photo courtesy of Queen City Sausage

One of my first interactions with them was meeting with
their marketing director on a tour of Queen City Sausage a few years back. This
was literally life-changing for me! It was the start of my partnership with
Ohio Pork! But also – it’s when I met my Elmer.

You see, 70 years ago, Cincinnati was known as Porkopolis
and in the Queen City area there were 50 or so businesses all surrounding the
pork industry – there were slaughterhouses, sausage makers and more. Elmer was
just a kid and he wanted to work in a slaughterhouse. He didn’t like school
much – so he quit in the 8^th grade and started working in one and
eventually bought QCS and took it over.

Speed up 70 years to today and Queen City Sausage is the
only one of those businesses still standing. Elmer has so many stories to tell
– of cows/pigs being brought up Spring Grove back in the day, of how he created
his own American dream and of how his brother came on part time “for a few
days” some 20+ years ago. At 88, Elmer still comes to work every day and is on
his factory floor watching over his baby. He’s pretty amazing.

Because of this meeting, I fell in love with Elmer and Queen
City Sausage. Then I got to have lunch with them – and that just made the love
deeper and my belly a little fuller. Every day, Mark makes lunch for the crew
down there – he’s quite the chef! And he does it all with a couple of electric
skillets and a rice cooker.

I knew I wanted to share my love of QCS with more folks so
Ohio Pork and I partnered up with some of my other blogger friends to do a tour
and lunch with the Queen City team and a hog farmer from the area.

Photo courtesy of Foodtastic Mom

Here are some of the links to my friends’ posts where you
can learn a little more about their thoughts on the tour and find their
recipes:

Keto in Pearls – Breakfast Hash

Foodtastic Mom – Wicked Soup

We went on a factory tour and got to see all the inner
workings of how the sausage is made. And Nedra pointed out – it’s ironic –
there’s some saying about not wanting to see how the sausage is made – but we
did and it’s pretty cool! First of all, it’s so clean you could literally eat
off the floor in any room of the factory. Elmer has expanded I think 13x – so
they have lots of room and lots of space for everything they do. Secondly, it’s
just a well-run machine with great employees that love their job!

We even got to see Elmer’s brother Art – who at 86 years old
– hangs out in his toasty warm and ever-so-fragrant spice room where he mixes
the spices for every product made at Queen City Sausage. He’s quite the ladies
man and made sure each and every one of us got a hug. 😉

We also learned about natural casing vs. skinless – I never
realized that people had a preference or that one was “better” than the other?!
So the skinless are more popular but the natural casing have more flavor! We
got to see how they’re made and the skinless are actually made with a casing on
them – it’s just peeled off by this crazy cool machine before they are
packaged. The natural casing have that “pop” when you bite or cut into them.
Because they are cooked with that casing on them – the juices are held in – so
when you prepare them at home – they have more flavor in them! I had no idea!!!
I’m going to be buying natural casing from now on for sure!

Photo courtesy of Queen City Sausage

Queen City Sausage is always innovating and creating new
products. They are the official sausage of the Reds and the official andouille
that’s featured at Skyline Chili. Their newest line is their Wicked Hot Line
and it’s selling LIKE CRAZY!!!! They have Jalapeno, Chipotle and Ghost Pepper
and are coming out with a couple more flavors soon. 

Mark made us a couple of dishes with their new Ghost Pepper
sausage and I wanted to share my favorite with you. The nice thing is – since
it’s a stir fry recipe – you can add/remove the veggies as you like! If you
don’t like mushrooms, add green peppers or whatever fits your family’s taste!

So the next time you’re grocery shopping – be sure to look
for Queen City Sausage. They have a wide array of products from lunch meat to
hot dogs to sausages to goetta. Here are some of my absolute favorites: goetta
slices, Leona lunch meat, cheddar brats & Wicked Chipotle.

And hey – maybe sometime I can talk Elmer into a reader
lunch at Queen City and invite some of you to come down! Let me know if you’d
be interested!