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Currywurst with fries, covered in curry-flavored tomato sauce and dusted with curry powder
ServesAbout 4 servings
CuisineGerman
Europe

Currywurst: German Sausage with Curry Tomato Sauce

How to make Currywurst at home: browned sausage sliced and covered in a fruity, spicy curry tomato sauce, based on a WDR recipe for about four. Covers the sauce order, adjusting heat, skinless versus skin-on sausage, Berlin's origin story, and serving with fries or bread rolls.

Cooking flow

Cooking steps

STEP 11 / 6

Chop the onion and pickles finely

Onion and pickles finely chopped and ready for Currywurst sauce
Chop the onion and pickles small and keep them in separate piles

Chop the onion very finely. Chop the gherkins small too, with no coarse chunks left. Small, even pieces spread through the sauce, so every bite gets the same mix of sweetness, sourness and texture. Pockets of sharp pickle are avoided.

STEP 22 / 6

Sweat the onion in butter, then add the sugar

Finely chopped onion turning translucent in butter in a pan
Cook the onion until translucent before the sugar goes in

Melt the 12 g butter over medium heat and add the onion. Cook until it turns translucent. Add the 15 g sugar and keep stirring until the onion takes on a light color. Stop at a sweet smell and a light golden tint. Don't let it go dark brown.

STEP 33 / 6

Toast the curry powder briefly

Curry powder stirred into the sautéed onion, briefly and without burning
Once the powder coats the onion, add the tomatoes before it can burn

Add the 15 g curry powder and stir it into the onion. As soon as the raw, dusty smell fades, move straight on to the liquids. If curry powder cooks too long, it scorches and turns bitter.

STEP 44 / 6

Simmer the sauce and adjust it

Curry sauce with tomatoes and chopped pickles simmering gently in a saucepan
Simmer gently until the sauce runs off the spoon in a thin coat

Add the chopped tomatoes and ketchup and stir. Then add the chopped pickles, sambal oelek and salt, followed by the broth. Simmer gently over medium-low heat.

As a rough, untested guide, allow about 15–20 minutes. Let the state of the sauce decide. It is ready when the tomato no longer tastes watery and the sauce runs off a spoon in a thin coat. Stir in the 3 tbsp fruit vinegar and taste. Adjust the vinegar at this point, rather than adding extra pickles or vinegar earlier.

STEP 55 / 6

Fry the sausages

Skinless sausages being turned in a frying pan as they brown
Keep turning the sausages so they brown all over

Add a thin layer of oil to a frying pan and fry the sausages, turning them so they color evenly to a golden brown. Use only as much of the oil (up to 6 tbsp) as your pan and sausages need. Cook them according to the instructions on the sausage package.

STEP 66 / 6

Slice, sauce and dust with curry powder

Browned sausage cut into rounds, with curry sauce and a final dusting of curry powder
Slice the sausage, spoon over the sauce and finish with curry powder

Cut the sausages into bite-size rounds and spoon the sauce over them. Finish with a little curry powder and serve with fries or bread rolls. If you want to keep the browned surface crisp, serve the sauce on the side instead. The Currywurst Country Berlin handout suggests this, but it is an option, not a rule.

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Ingredients

Ingredients

1 / 3

Sausages

Ingredient Amount Role and notes
Skinless Currywurst sausages (Currywürstchen ohne Haut) 4 Specified by the recipe. See substitutions below if you can't find skinless ones
Neutral vegetable oil up to 6 tbsp Only for frying the sausages. Use less depending on your pan and the fat in the sausages
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Curry sauce

Ingredient Amount Role and notes
Butter 12 g For sweating the onion. Unsalted or salted both work. If salted, hold back on the final salt
Onion, very finely chopped 60 g Sweetness and body
Sugar 15 g Lightly colors the onion
Curry powder (Currypulver) 15 g The central aroma of the sauce
Canned chopped tomatoes (stückige Dosentomaten) 400 g Acidity and savory depth
Tomato ketchup 200 g Sweetness, acidity and body
Pickled gherkins (Essiggurken), finely chopped 60 g Sourness and a little bite
Sambal oelek 12 g Chili heat
Salt 5 g Seasons the sauce. Use less if your pickles, ketchup or broth are salty
Strong meat broth (kräftige Fleischbrühe) 50 ml Loosens the sauce and adds depth. Beef or pork stock, prepared as the label directs
Fruit vinegar (Obstessig) 3 tbsp Final adjustment of acidity
3 / 3

To finish and serve

Ingredient Amount Role and notes
Curry powder a little Sprinkled on top when serving
French fries (Pommes frites) or bread rolls (Brötchen) as you like Snack-stall style accompaniments
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Currywurst: Sliced Sausage, Red Sauce and a Dusting of Curry Powder

What this plate should keep

A sausage browned in the pan, a sauce that balances tomato, sweetness, vinegar, chili and the scent of curry powder, and a last sprinkle of curry powder on top. Exact spice levels vary from stand to stand. This recipe gives one home version.

At a Berlin Imbiss, a snack stall, a hot sausage is cut into pieces and covered in the stand's own curry sauce. It is dusted with curry powder and eaten from a paper plate with a small fork. Berlin's official city portal presents Currywurst as one of the city's well-known specialties: grilled sausage with a curry-flavored tomato sauce, with the heat level differing from stand to stand.

There is no single "authentic" formula. Sausages come with skin or without, and sauces can lean sweet, hot or fruity depending on the stand and the region. This article uses a home recipe by Fabian Timmer, published by WDR, a broadcaster in Germany, as its base. It makes about four servings with skinless sausages and a fruity, spicy sauce. No extra spices from other recipes are mixed in. Where a substitution changes the result, the text says so.

Where It Comes From: Berlin's Claim and Open Questions

Currywurst is strongly linked with Berlin, but its origin is debated. The German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) states in a background article that who really invented it cannot be established. Other cities have their own claims as well.

What Berlin commemorates is set out on a memorial plaque. It honors Herta Heuwer and the date 4 September 1949 for creating her curry sauce. This is the event Berlin chose to honor. It is not a settled answer to who came first.

The DPMA article also describes two Berlin styles, with skin and without skin (mit Darm / ohne Darm). It explains the skinless type with a shortage of sausage casings in East Berlin. That account belongs to the DPMA's telling of Berlin's story. Not every Currywurst carries this history, and it does not mark a fixed divide between East and West Germany as a whole. Elsewhere, the German supermarket chain EDEKA notes that both sausage and sauce vary by region.

Across these differences, the shared core stays the same: a sausage, tomato and curry. That is where the ingredients start.

Ingredients for About 4 Servings

Ingredients for Currywurst: skinless sausages, chopped tomatoes, ketchup, curry powder, onion, pickles and more
The sauce comes together in order, so have the onion and pickles chopped before you start

These amounts follow the WDR recipe. The sauce recipe makes a generous batch, so adjust how much goes on each plate as you taste.

Equipment

  • Knife and cutting board
  • Saucepan or deep pan for the sauce
  • Frying pan for the sausages
  • Wooden spoon
  • Tongs for turning the sausages
  • Stick blender (optional, only for the smooth-sauce variation)

Choosing and Substituting: What Changes the Flavor

Sausage. The WDR recipe calls for skinless sausages. If you can't find them, a thick pork bratwurst works. It has a casing with a different snap and a different meat mix, so it makes a skin-on home version, not the Berlin skinless style itself. For any sausage, follow the cooking instructions on the package.

Curry powder. An ordinary supermarket curry powder makes a good sauce. Its blend and aroma will not necessarily match a German Currypulver.

Ketchup. Ketchups vary by brand. Don't add extra sugar or vinegar to compensate before you have tasted the finished sauce.

Pickles. Use sour gherkins. Sweet pickles push the sauce toward sweetness.

Sambal oelek. If you don't have it, use a plain red chili paste and add it a little at a time. Doubanjiang (Chinese chili bean paste) adds a fermented flavor, so the sauce will not taste the same.

Fruit vinegar. Apple cider vinegar is a fine substitute. Plain white or grain vinegar tastes sharper, so start with less and add to taste.

Salt. The 5 g comes from the recipe. Salt levels in pickles, ketchup and broth vary by product, so lowering the salt at home is your own adjustment, not a change to the recipe.

Allergens and labels

The butter in this recipe contains milk. Check the ingredient labels on the sausages, broth, curry powder, ketchup and pickles. Wheat, soy, milk and other allergens may or may not be present depending on the product. Always confirm on the individual package.

Method: Sauce First, Then the Sausages

Building the sauce

The sauce follows a set order: onion, then sugar, then curry powder, then tomato and ketchup, then pickles, sambal and salt, then broth, with vinegar at the end. The WDR recipe gives no cooking times, so judge each stage by how it looks and smells.

Troubleshooting

Problem Likely cause What to do
Sauce tastes bitter or burnt Curry powder cooked too long Next time, add it right after the onion and pour in the tomatoes as soon as the powder coats the onion
Sauce is too sour Extra vinegar or pickles added early Start from the recipe amounts and taste. Adjust acidity only with the vinegar, at the end
Sauce is too sweet or too hot Ketchup or chili paste from a different brand Taste before adjusting. To tame the heat, change the sambal a teaspoon at a time
Sauce is watery Not simmered long enough Keep simmering gently until it coats a spoon thinly
Sausages split or dry out High heat without turning Don't leave them on high heat; turn them as they brown. Skin-on substitutes can be lightly scored. Skinless sausages don't need this

Variations

  1. Milder: Start with half the sambal oelek and add more only if you want it.
  2. Hotter: Sprinkle a little extra curry powder and chili over each plate just before eating.
  3. Skin-on sausage: Use a thick pork bratwurst. It has a different texture, so treat it as a home version, not the Berlin skinless style.
  4. Smooth sauce: Blend the sauce briefly once it has finished simmering. This softens the texture of the chopped pickles from the original recipe.
  5. Snack-stall style: Serve in a paper-lined tray with fries. This is presentation only, not a format shared by every stand.

How to Eat It, and Storage

Currywurst on a table with fries and a small bread roll
Fries or a plain bread roll are common partners

EDEKA notes that fries or a bread roll are common accompaniments. Whether you choose skinless or skin-on sausages, and whether the sauce goes over the slices or beside them, is up to you.

Storage

Store the sausages and sauce separately. There is no safe storage period given here. For chilling, keeping and reheating, follow the sausage manufacturer's label and official food-safety guidance.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which sausage should I use?

It varies by region and stand. This recipe follows WDR and uses skinless sausages. If those are hard to find, a thick pork bratwurst works. Expect a casing with more snap and a different texture.

How spicy is Currywurst?

It depends on the stand. Berlin's city portal notes that spice levels differ from place to place. At home, change the amount of sambal oelek to set the heat.

Was Currywurst invented in Berlin?

Berlin has a well-known claim. A memorial plaque there honors Herta Heuwer and 4 September 1949. The DPMA states, however, that the true inventor cannot be identified.

What do you serve with it?

Fries or a bread roll, as EDEKA notes.

Sources