Want to cook a Maxwell Street Polish sausage at home? These are the best.
Picking up a Polish sausage to make at home is simple almost everywhere in the country. But then there are places like Chicago, where the sheer number of options almost boggles the mind.
Sure, we have national brands like Ekrich and Johnsonville, but thanks to hundreds of thousands of Polish immigrants, Chicago has shops making traditional varieties of kielbasa by hand. These are the excellent sausages you’ll find at places like Kurowski’s Sausage Shop, Andy’s Deli and Joe and Frank’s Sausage Co. (Someday, I’ll eat all of these, but that’s a story for another time.)
Chicagoans also have a third option, dubbed the Maxwell Street Polish sausage. If you’ve ever eaten a Polish sausage on a bun with mustard and sauteed onions, this is undoubtedly what you ate.
Considering the name, it’s perhaps not surprising to learn that the sausage was developed around the Maxwell Street Market, which was the city’s largest outdoor market for most of the 20th century. In 1939, recent immigrant Jimmy Stefanovic bought a hot dog stand from his aunt on the northwest corner of Halsted and Maxwell streets. After renaming it Jim’s Original, Stefanovic asked Slotkowski’s Sausage Co., which opened in 1918, to create a new sausage for him. The result built on Slotkowski’s strong Polish sausage-making traditions while incorporating some characteristics of Chicago’s most famous encased meat, the hot dog.
The brash and garlicky sausage turned out to be a hit, becoming forever associated with the Maxwell Street Market. Even when the city shut down the market in 1994, restaurants selling these kinds of Polish sausages continued to put Maxwell Street in their names. For example: Maxwell Street Depot, Maxwell Street Express and The Original Maxwell Street.
If I had written about where to buy the best Maxwell Street Polish sausages 50 years ago, the list would have probably been dominated by Slotkowski’s. A Tribune article from April 30, 1972, notes that it “is hard to imagine a name that has turned more appetites on to Polish sausage than Slotkowski.”
It even quotes Leonard Slotkowski, son of founder Joseph Slotkowski, talking about the transformation. “At the beginning, Poles were the base of our business but now everybody eats our products.” When Leonard Slotkowski died in 2000, his obituary referred to him as the “Polish sausage king.”
While you can still find Slotkowski’s Polish sausages around town, the company was sold to Leon’s Sausage Co. in 1992, which was later renamed ATK Foods. I don’t know if the product changed, but I do know that Slotkowski’s has less of a hold over the city.
The Polish sausage scene is fragmented at the moment, which explains why I tried 15 sausages for this taste test. At first, I tried them all without condiments or a bun so that I could more easily identify their attributes. I then tried my favorites on buns to see how they held up.
What did I learn?
The meat matters. While traditional kielbasa recipes often use only pork, a Maxwell Street Polish sausage usually contains a mix of pork and beef. The latter turns out to be very important. I wasn’t able to find any all-pork Polish sausages that worked on a bun. Aleks Lazic, owner of Harczak’s Sausage Co., agrees. “Any time I try an all-pork Polish sausage, it feels like it’s missing an element,” Lazic said. “It’s a great sausage, but not the same as the one you’d eat on a bun.” He’s right. I was, however, able to find a couple of all-beef Polish sausages that worked.
A coarse grind is best. A Maxwell Street Polish sausage may share some characteristics with a hot dog, but when the meat mixture is too uniform it starts tasting too similar. I prefer when there is a coarser grind, leading to an extra-juicy bite.
A natural casing adds much-needed texture. When carefully cooked, the casing crisps up, adding a pleasing crunch to each bite. Skinless Polish sausages taste limp and weak.
The quality of the Polish sausages I tried was so high that there weren’t any terrible options. However, these are the three that I liked the most, and a couple of honorable mentions.
Maxwell Street Station smoked Polish sausage
My favorite Maxwell Street Polish sausage in Chicago is the Maxwell Street Station famous smoked polish sausage from Makowski’s Real Sausage Co. in Bridgeport. The coarsely ground pork and beef mixture packs so much flavor that devouring it without a bun can feel almost overwhelming.
So it’s not surprising that its sausages are popping up all over the city, from Fixin’ Franks in Home Depot to Portillo’s. “Last year, we got the leadership award from Portillo’s,” owner Nicole Makowski said. “We also do Costco seasonal for our Maxwell Street Polish sausage. The first year, we started with 20 stores in the Midwest; but now it’s 87.”
While the company has been growing in popularity for 10 years, it’s been around for over 100 years. According to Makowski, the family business started in 1915 when her great-grandfather, Louis Makowski, emigrated from Poland. “We originated as a small butcher shop in Lublin, Wisconsin,” Makowski said. “Then my great-grandfather had an opportunity to move to Chicago.” He opened Victory Sausage in 1920 before taking over another sausage company, Real Sausage Co., in 1938.
While the Costco seasonal special is over for 2023, it’s still reasonably easy to track down the sausage. You can visit Makowski’s factory in Bridgeport or find the sausages at Peoria Packing, Pete’s Fresh Market, Food and Paper, and Park Packing Co.
Makowski’s Real Sausage Co., 2710 S. Poplar Ave.; 312-842-5330; realsausage.com
Smoked Polish sausage at Harczak’s Sausage Co.
John Harczak’s family had already been in the Chicago sausage business for 30 years when he decided to open his own shop in the early 1950s. His family successfully ran a Norwood Park outlet for more than 30 years until it was bought by another person with a serious sausage history, Vidan Lazic.
Lazic was born in Serbia, where he got a degree in sausage-making. “He even got a diploma,” said his son and current Harczak’s owner, Aleks Lazic. “It was like a three-year technical degree.” After moving to Chicago, Vidan Lazic eventually got a job at Vienna Beef, where he worked for decades. But wanting to own his own business, he purchased Harczak Sausage Co. in 1988.
To make sure the new owners kept things the same, John Harczak’s grandson, Michael Harczak, worked with Lazic for the first 30 days. “He went over every recipe and technique,” Aleks Lazic said. “My dad learned what vendors he used. The pork provider is the same one we used when we bought the company 35 years ago.”
Aleks Lazic continues the sausage-making tradition today, mixing, grinding and smoking all of the Polish sausages in-house. He even opened up a small deli, named Lazic Deli, where you can order one of its Polish sausages.
Lazic loves to deep-fry the sausages briefly to crisp up the casing. Containing a mixture of beef and pork, it has a coarse grind, so each bite tastes extra meaty and juicy. Each sausage is also packed with garlic before it’s smoked. The result is a Polish sausage that’s less like a hot dog and closer to a traditional kielbasa zwyczajna, albeit with all the brashness you’d expect from a Maxwell Street Polish.
Harczak’s Sausage Co., 7035 W. Higgins Ave.; 773-631-8400; lazicdeli.com
Natural casing Polish sausage from Vienna Beef
While an all-pork Polish sausage doesn’t quite work on a bun, an all-beef Polish sure does. Just make sure it has a natural casing. Vienna Beef’s skinless Polish sausages may be available in most Chicago grocery stores, but you’ll want to drive to the company’s factory store in Bridgeport. There, you can pick up its excellent natural casing Polish sausage by the pound.
Carefully griddle or grill this sausage, and its casing becomes audibly crunchy. Some enterprising restaurants score the skin with a knife to increase the crisp factor. Each bite is alternatively beefy and garlicky, with a touch of sweetness and a faint hint of spices in the background.
Vienna Beef Factory Store, 3847 S. Morgan St.; 773-435-2298; viennabeef.com
Honorable mentions:
Romanian Kosher Sausage Co.
This kosher operation in Rogers Park serves what it calls garlic hot dogs Polish style, an all-beef sausage that’s on the smaller side of Maxwell Street Polish sausages. Fortunately, each bite is unbelievably beefy and savory. If it had a natural casing, it might have made the final cut.
Romanian Kosher Sausage Co., 7200 N. Clark St.; 773-761-4141
Ashland Sausage
I tried an enormous Polish sausage from this Carol Stream company. Ordering it is hard for regular customers because the factory doesn’t have a retail location, but I managed to snag a link at Valli International Meat Market.
Ashland Sausage Co., 280 Westgate Drive, Carol Stream; 630-690-2600; ashlandsausage.com
