Italian Grilled Sausage Wraps

Most Italian sausage recipes land in a bun built for a hot dog or bratwurst, more bread than one sausage needs. Italian Grilled Sausage Wraps skip that: rolled tight in lavash instead (a tortilla works too), with a roasted tomato and asiago topping that tastes like bruschetta. It turns a backyard sausage into something that tastes like it came from an Italian deli counter, not just off the grill.

Want to save this recipe?

Enter your email below & we'll send it straight to your inbox.

By signing up, you'll join our email list and can unsubscribe at any time.

What I Learned Making This Recipe

When I retested this recipe this summer, the biggest surprise was how much the bread mattered. Tortillas work, but they're built for folding flat, not rolling tightly around a sausage that's often longer than the wrap is wide. Lavash, being longer and thinner, wraps around the curve of the sausage instead of puckering at the ends, which is a small thing until you're the one trying to keep a wrap together with three toothpicks. That settled it for me: lavash is the default now, and tortillas are the backup.

Ingredients and Substitutions

• Italian sausages. Hot or mild both work here. Choose whichever you'd eat on its own. The topping doesn't mask the sausage, it complements it.
• Lavash bread (or tortillas). I use a wrap here instead of a bun for the reasons above: it keeps the bread-to-sausage ratio right and holds the topping in place instead of letting it slide out. Rolled tight, it also picks up a nice crunch on the outside from those last few minutes on the grill while the inside stays soft.
  • Lavash is what I use now. It's a soft, thin flatbread sold in large rectangular sheets. I use Joseph's, which is easy to find at larger grocery stores. Since it's longer and thinner than a tortilla, it rolls around the curve of the sausage more easily instead of puckering at the ends, which is why it's become my default after retesting this recipe.
  • Small, taco-sized tortillas are a fine substitute if that's what you have. They fold flat around the sausage and crisp up quickly on the grill, though they don't roll around a longer sausage quite as neatly as lavash does.
• Roasted Italian tomatoes, packed in oil. These are not sun-dried tomatoes. They're quarters of roma tomatoes roasted with oil, garlic, and spices, and much softer than sun-dried. Divina and Delallo both make them, usually near the olive bar or in the deli case at a well-stocked grocery store. Buy one 10-ounce jar. Once you drain off the oil, you'll end up with about 7 ounces of tomatoes, which is what this recipe uses.
  • If you can't find them, roast your own: halve roma or plum tomatoes, drizzle with olive oil, and roast at 250°F for 2 to 2½ hours, then store them in olive oil with herbs and garlic. A well-drained fresh bruschetta mixture also works in a pinch. Skip sun-dried tomatoes, even the oil-packed kind. They're too chewy to roll into the wrap and eat comfortably.
• Sweet onion. I prefer a sweet onion here since it's milder raw. If you don't have one, dice a yellow, white, or red onion and soak it in ice water for 15 minutes, then drain, before adding it to the tomato mixture. The soak takes the sharp edge off.
• Asiago cheese. Sharp and salty, it's what keeps the topping from tasting like straight tomato. Shred it yourself if you can; pre-shredded doesn't melt into the warm topping quite the same way.
• Fresh basil and garlic. Both go in raw, straight into the tomato mixture. Basil adds the bright, herbal note the roasted tomatoes don't have on their own, while tiny bit of raw garlic brings a sharp bite that cuts through the tomatoes' sweetness.

How to make Italian Grilled Sausage Wraps

Mix the Tomato Topping

Add topping ingredients to a bowl and stir to combine.

Grill and wrap

Grill the sausages until cooked through. Place each sausage on lavash and top with the tomato mixture. Secure with toothpicks.

Grill again

Grill the wraps until the bread crisps.

More Grill Recipes