Make these super EASY 3 Ingredient Brown Sugar Kielbasa Bites for a delicious warm party appetizer. They can be made in just a few minutes time. Enjoy them on game days, holiday gatherings or any time you need a sweet and savory app.

 

Sweet and savory appetizers are the BEST. These Kielbasa Bites are both of those flavors. I make them most often during the holidays and on game days for my family. These can be made so quickly and I can quite often find polish sausage on sale.
Looking for other party pleasing appetizers? Try our Slow Cooker Party Meatballs or 3 Ingredient Sausage Balls.

Quick appetizers that do not require a ton of ingredients are popular for a reason. These Brown Sugar Kielbasa Bites are made with Sausage, Brown Sugar and Cola. Such a simple recipe that you will make over and over again.

The cola and brown sugar caramelize to make an amazing sweet glaze. I usually use Coca-Cola but any cola soda will work. So, use whichever soda that you have on hand.

When making your sauce be very careful, the sugar and soda can over caramelize quickly. Also, you will want to let the sausages sit for about 10 minutes before serving. The sauce is VERY HOT and could burn you if serving too quickly.

Brown Sugar Kielbasa Bites Ingredients

The name of our little appetizer recipe already covers most of the ingredients you’re going to need. We wanted to keep this recipe easy and simple so that anyone can get it thrown together and get to enjoying these sweet and savory bites ASAP! Here’s all you need for our 3-Ingredient Kielbasa Bites recipe:

• Kielbasa Sausage – This is also usually sold as “Polish sausage” at most stores. Make sure you double-check if you’re using Polish sausage- we specifically want this darker-colored smoked sausage.
• Brown Sugar – Make sure you use light brown sugar here. Dark brown sugar likely won’t pair well with the sausage and our next ingredient…
• Cola – We used Coca-Cola here but, naturally, you can use your favorite cola. Pepsi, RC Cola, Shasta, Big K- you can even experiment a little and try making some sort of Dr. Pepper glaze instead!

That’s all you need, but some folks also like to add in a pinch of chili powder for a bit of added spice or a dollop of Dijon mustard to balance out the sweetness and add a little tang. We wanted to keep things simple though so we skipped those additions.

See recipe card for quantities.

How to make Kielbasa Bites with Brown Sugar Cola Glaze

Making Kielbasa Bites is about as simple as our ingredients list from before- it really doesn’t take much work to throw this quick appetizer together! Everything cooks in one skillet and the only ingredient you really need to “prepare” is the Kielbasa. For convenience, here’s a quick visual recipe guide we made to help you make Brown Sugar Kielbasa Bites yourself:

• First, we need to prep our kielbasa sausage. Remove sausage from packaging and transfer to cutting board. Slice sausage into bite-sized pieces.

• Before we make the glaze, we want to cook the sausage a bit. Add sausage to a skillet– ideally non-stick– and cook over medium heat for 3-4 minutes. Remember to turn sausage occasionally so that they can evenly brown and warm through.

• Now we can make our brown sugar glaze. Add brown sugar to skillet before adding Coke and stir to coat and combine everything. Bring up to a boil before reducing heat to low or medium-low.

• Stir frequently while brown sugar cola glaze simmers. This may take a while, but we want the sauce to caramelize and thicken– don’t let it scorch! Once Coke Glaze is where you want it, transfer to a serving dish and let cool 5-10 minutes before serving- be careful, because they’re pretty hot.

Storage / Freezing

Storage: Like most other proteins, you can expect your Brown Sugar Kielbasa Bites to last around 3-5 days in the fridge. Usually we’d say 3-4 days, but that brown sugar glaze definitely has to add at least a day to the shelf-life of these things! Just a heads up though, because the sugar glaze sets pretty firm, even at room temperature- it’ll probably take a bit of work transferring this to or from any sort of airtight container you’ll use for storage in the fridge.

Freezing: You can also try freezing Kielbasa Bites for longer term storage. Transfer cooled kielbasa to a freezer bag or freezer-safe container and keep frozen for up to 3 months- maybe even longer, again, thanks to the sugar glaze. For reheating, you can probably get away with dumping it all into a skillet and reheating over low heat until warmed through and cola glaze melts.