Classic Pigs in a Blanket
Little smokies wrapped in crescent roll dough - the nostalgic crowd-pleaser
- 2 cansrefrigerated crescent roll dough(8 oz each)
- 1 lbcocktail sausages(lit'l smokies)
- 4 tbspbutter(melted)
- 1 tspgarlic powder
- 1 tbspfresh parsley(minced)
- 0.25 cupyellow mustard(for dipping)
- 0.25 cupketchup(for dipping)
Can be assembled and refrigerated up to 4 hours before baking. Can also be frozen unbaked for up to 1 month - add 3-4 minutes to baking time.
- 1Preheat oven to 375°F and line baking sheet with parchment paper
- 2Unroll crescent dough and separate into triangles
- 3Cut each triangle lengthwise into 3 smaller triangles
- 4Place one cocktail sausage at wide end of each triangle
- 5Roll up toward the point, wrapping dough around sausage
- 6Place seam-side down on prepared baking sheet
- 7Mix melted butter with garlic powder and brush over each
- 8Bake 12-15 minutes until golden brown
- 9Brush with more garlic butter and sprinkle with parsley
- 10Serve warm with mustard and ketchup for dipping
Don't unroll and re-roll the dough - just separate at perforations for flakiest results. The garlic butter brushed on after baking is what makes these special. For fancier events, use all-butter puff pastry instead of crescent rolls. These disappear fast - make more than you think you need.
Pigs in a blanket belongs to a global family of wrapped sausage preparations that exists across multiple cuisines simultaneously. In the United Kingdom, small sausages wrapped in bacon are a traditional part of the Christmas dinner; in Germany, Würstchen im Schlafrock (sausages in a dressing gown) wraps small frankfurters in pastry; in Israel, páshtida describes similar preparations. The American version using cocktail sausages or cocktail frankfurters wrapped in refrigerated crescent roll dough became standardized in the 1950s and 1960s following two key commercial developments: the introduction of Hillshire Farm cocktail smoked sausages in 1934 and, critically, the launch of Pillsbury's refrigerated crescent roll dough in 1965, which provided a consistent, accessible pastry wrapper for home cooks. Community cookbooks from the 1950s through the 1980s document numerous variations, but the Pillsbury crescent roll version became the dominant American format. The name "pigs in a blanket" in the American sense was in use by the 1950s, though the same name refers to different dishes in different English-speaking countries — in the UK it often means a different preparation entirely. The format's appeal is the same regardless of culture: a warm, savory, portable two-bite protein wrapped in something bready.