Summer sausage substitutes

The most available swap and a good one. Both are cured, fermented, sliceable sausages that need no cooking. Salami is drier and firmer, so it has more chew and less give, and it leads with garlic, black pepper and often wine rather than the mustard-seed and smoke notes of summer sausage. It is also usually less sour, so a cheese board made with it reads richer and less bright.

Best for

charcuterie boards, sandwiches and subs, crackers and cheese, camping and no-cook meals, cubed for snacks

Slice it thinner than you would summer sausage, it is denser and a thick slice is tough going. Genoa is softer and milder, hard salami firmer and more assertive. Both are saltier than summer sausage, so go easy on any salty cheese alongside.

The closest match on flavor that exists, if you can find it. A Pennsylvania Dutch fermented and cold-smoked all-beef sausage that is genuinely tangy, sometimes more so than summer sausage, with a coarse texture and a heavy smoke. Sweet Lebanon bologna adds brown sugar and lands closer to a mild summer sausage; the regular kind is sharper.

Best for

charcuterie boards, sandwiches with sharp cheese and mustard, cubed for snacking, anywhere the tang matters

Mostly sold in the Mid-Atlantic and by mail order. It slices softer than summer sausage, so keep it cold and use a sharp knife. Its smoke is stronger, which is welcome with cheddar and slightly loud in a mild dish.

Same family, and in the American market cervelat and Thuringer are often just other names for summer sausage. Cervelat is milder and finer-textured. Thuringer usually carries more coriander and a sharper tang. Landjaeger is a small dried semi-dry snack stick, firmer and much more concentrated, closer to jerky in density than to a slicing sausage.

Best for

charcuterie boards, camping and hiking, snacking, gift baskets

If the label says semi-dry or fermented, you have the right thing and no adjustment is needed. Landjaeger is dense enough that you should slice on a steep bias or cut it into small coins rather than trying for wide rounds.

An Italian dry-cured sausage, coarser and more rustic than salami, with real fermented depth. It is drier and considerably more peppery, sometimes with chile heat, and the fat is more visible and softer. On a board it is a genuine upgrade in complexity, but nobody would mistake it for summer sausage.

Best for

charcuterie boards, antipasto platters, sandwiches, with strong cheeses

Because it is fully dried it is much more concentrated by weight, so allow perhaps two thirds as much per person. Let slices sit 10 minutes at room temperature or the fat stays waxy.

Widely available and does the sliceable, no-cook job. It is much spicier from paprika and cayenne, considerably greasier at room temperature, and has its own fermented tang, though a different one. On crackers with cheese it works. In a recipe where summer sausage was the mild savory element, pepperoni takes the dish over.

Best for

crackers and cheese, quick snack trays, cubed into pasta salads, when it is what the store has

Stick pepperoni sliced thick is much closer to summer sausage than the thin pizza-topping slices. Blot the slices, pepperoni releases a lot of orange fat as it warms up.

The honest limitation of this list: cooked smoked sausages give you the shape, the smoke and the salt, but none of the sour fermented tang, and they are soft and moist rather than firm and dry. Cold on a board, kielbasa tastes flabby where summer sausage tastes bright. Sliced into a soup, beans or a skillet, the difference matters much less.

Best for

soups and bean dishes, skillet meals, cooked casseroles, grilling

If you need it cold, add tang from outside the sausage: mustard, cornichons or a splash of vinegar in the accompanying dressing. Ring bologna is milder still. Neither is shelf stable, so both need refrigeration.