20 Simple Puff Pastry Pigs in a Blanket

Puff pastry pigs in a blanket beat the crescent-roll version every time because the laminated butter layers shatter into crisp flakes instead of baking up soft and bready. You need just two ready-rolled pastry sheets, a bag of cocktail sausages and an egg, and 24 pieces come out of the oven in under an hour. They are genuinely make-ahead friendly: assemble them, freeze them solid, and bake straight from frozen whenever guests appear. The base recipe below is deliberately plain so that all 20 variations in this list build on the exact same wrapping and baking method. Once you can roll one, you can make every idea here.

This is the base recipe: cocktail sausages wrapped in 2cm-wide puff pastry strips, sealed with egg wash and showered with sesame seeds. It works because the double egg wash — a dab on the seam plus a full coat on top — glues the pastry shut and bakes into that glossy, deep-gold bakery finish. Roll each sausage so the pastry overlaps itself by about 1cm, place seam-side down, chill for 15 minutes, then bake at 200°C/400°F for 15-18 minutes. Sprinkle the sesame seeds on immediately after egg washing so they stick, and press them very lightly with a fingertip. Follow the full recipe card below for exact quantities.

Pastry, sausages and an egg are all you need, and the air fryer's fast circulating heat crisps the bottoms better than most home ovens. Wrap the sausages exactly as in the base recipe, then air fry at 180°C/360°F for 8-10 minutes in a single layer with at least 1cm between pieces. Cook in two or three batches rather than piling them up, because crowding traps steam and turns the pastry pale and doughy. There is no need to preheat for long — 2 minutes is plenty — and a perforated parchment liner stops the seams sticking to the basket. Check at the 8-minute mark; they are done when deep golden all over.

A sweet-sharp glaze turns basic piggies into something people ask about. Whisk 2 teaspoons of runny honey with 2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard, brush a thin line down each pastry strip before rolling, and bake as normal. Then brush a second light coat over the tops during the final 3 minutes of baking only — honey burns quickly at 200°C/400°F, so adding it too early gives you dark, bitter spots. The mustard's acidity cuts the richness of the butter pastry, which is why this combination shows up on every good party menu. Serve with extra honey mustard on the side for double impact.

Instead of one wide blanket, cut the pastry into narrow 1cm strips and wind each one around the sausage in a barber-pole spiral, leaving small gaps of sausage showing. More exposed edges mean more crunch, and the stripes look playful on a party board with zero extra skill required. Press the strip firmly onto the sausage at both ends and tuck the tail underneath so it cannot unravel in the oven. Egg wash, chill for 15 minutes, and bake at 200°C/400°F for 14-16 minutes — the thinner pastry colours slightly faster than the classic wrap. Kids can absolutely handle the wrapping step on this one.

The everything bagel version is the most popular upgrade online, and for good reason: the toasted garlic, onion and seed mix adds crunch and savoury depth that plain pastry lacks. Buy a jar of everything bagel seasoning, or mix your own from 1 tablespoon each of sesame seeds, poppy seeds, dried minced garlic and dried minced onion plus 1/2 tablespoon of flaky salt. Egg wash generously, then sprinkle from about 20cm above the tray so the seasoning lands evenly rather than in clumps. Go heavier than feels reasonable — a lot falls off — and press gently so it adheres. Bake exactly as the base recipe and serve with plain cream cheese thinned with a splash of milk as a bagel-style dip.

Swapping the egg wash for a baking soda wash gives puff pastry the deep mahogany colour and malty flavour of a soft pretzel — an angle almost no other roundup covers. Dissolve 1 tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda in 60ml of warm water, brush it over the assembled piggies, then scatter with coarse pretzel salt or flaky sea salt. The alkaline wash accelerates browning, so start checking at 13 minutes when baking at 200°C/400°F. The salty pretzel crust is made for dipping, so serve these with warm cheese sauce and grainy mustard. Skip any salt inside the pastry, because the topping carries plenty.

Spread a scant 1/4 teaspoon of green basil pesto down half your pastry strips and sun-dried tomato pesto down the other half before rolling, and you get a red-and-green marbled platter that looks far fancier than the 2-minute effort involved. Blot oily pesto on kitchen paper first, because excess oil soaks into the pastry and stops it puffing. Keep the layer genuinely thin — if pesto squeezes out of the seam when you roll, you have used too much. The herbs and garlic perfume the pastry as it bakes, so no dip is strictly needed, though a small bowl of garlic mayo never hurts. This one is especially good made with herby pork chipolatas instead of plain cocktail sausages.

Every party needs a no-seeds, no-mustard, nothing-green batch, and stripped back to pastry, sausage and egg wash these are still excellent. The trick is to compensate with finish: brush the baked piggies with 20g of melted butter the moment they leave the oven so they gleam and taste rich. Mark this tray with a different fold of parchment or arrange them at one end of the platter so children can identify the safe zone instantly. Bake exactly as the base recipe, 15-18 minutes at 200°C/400°F. Ketchup in a separate bowl, not drizzled on top, keeps the picky-eater peace.

Arrange 21 assembled piggies directly on a parchment-lined tray in rows of 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 so they just touch, forming a triangle, with one extra piece centred below as the trunk. They fuse together as the pastry puffs, creating a pull-apart centrepiece that always gets photographed before it gets eaten. Because the pieces touch, add 3-4 minutes to the bake — about 20-22 minutes at 200°C/400°F — and check that the pastry in the middle joins is fully golden, not pale. After baking, tuck small rosemary sprigs between the rows for branches and set a star-shaped piece of cheese or a bowl of cranberry sauce at the top. Slide the whole parchment sheet onto a board to serve without breaking the tree.

Cut the pastry into ragged 5mm-wide strips and wrap each sausage messily, criss-crossing the strands and leaving a 1cm gap of bare sausage near one end for the face. The uneven wrapping is the whole point — tidy mummies look wrong — but do chill them for a full 15 minutes so the thin strips cannot slide off in the oven. Bake at 200°C/400°F for 13-15 minutes, watching closely because skinny strips brown fast. Once cooled slightly, dot two eyes onto each face gap using mustard or mayo applied with a cocktail stick. A shallow bowl of ketchup for dipping leans into the theme without any extra work.

Swap the cocktail sausages for mini chorizo and you get smoky paprika oil basting the pastry from the inside as it bakes. If your chorizo is the raw cooking type, pan-fry the pieces for 2 minutes first to render some fat, then cool completely before wrapping — wrapping them hot melts the pastry butter and ruins the puff. Ready-to-eat mini chorizo can be wrapped straight from the packet. Bake as the base recipe, then drizzle with hot honey (or 2 tablespoons of honey warmed with a pinch of chilli flakes) in the last minute before serving. The sweet-heat-smoke combination makes these the first tray emptied at any adult gathering.

Going meat-free is the easy part: just swap in veggie cocktail sausages or plant-based hot dogs cut into thirds and wrap them in the same butter puff pastry. Meat-free sausages release less fat and moisture, which actually makes the pastry bottoms crispier than the pork version. Pat them dry all the same and wrap, seal and chill exactly as the base recipe. To keep the whole batch vegan, check the pastry label and choose an all-vegetable-fat sheet (some brands are butter-based, so read carefully), and brush with plant milk mixed with 1 teaspoon of maple syrup instead of egg wash; it browns nearly as well. Bake at 200°C/400°F for 15-18 minutes and label the tray so they do not get mixed up with the meat batch.

This is the retro buffet version your grandparents would recognise: a whisper of Colman's hot English mustard painted inside the blanket before rolling. English mustard is far stronger than Dijon, so use a very light hand — about 1/4 teaspoon spread across every three or four strips is enough to give a warm background heat without blowing anyone's head off. The sharpness works because puff pastry is essentially layered butter, and mustard has cut through rich pastry on British party tables for decades. Bake as the base recipe and serve with a mild ketchup or plain mayo dip so guests can cool things down. These pair beautifully with a pint, if the occasion allows.

Marmite and mature cheddar is a classic British pastry pairing, and it transfers perfectly to pigs in a blanket. Warm a teaspoon in hot water so the Marmite spreads easily, then paint the thinnest possible layer — no more than 1/4 teaspoon per strip — and press a pinch of finely grated mature cheddar on top before adding the sausage and rolling. The yeasty saltiness deepens the meaty flavour the way Worcestershire sauce does in a stew, and the cheese edges go crisp and lacy where they touch the tray. Skip any added salt on top, because Marmite brings plenty. Even declared Marmite haters tend to finish these without realising what the savoury depth is.

Place an empty ovenproof ramekin (about 10cm wide) in the middle of a parchment-lined tray and arrange the assembled piggies in a snug ring around it, angled slightly like spokes. Bake the whole ring at 200°C/400°F for 18-20 minutes; the ramekin holds the circle shape as the pastry puffs and fuses. Once baked, fill the hot ramekin with warm cheese sauce, cranberry sauce or honey mustard so every guest tears a piggy and dips in one motion. Tuck rosemary sprigs and a few pomegranate seeds or dried cranberries between the pieces and it reads as a proper holiday wreath. Slide the parchment onto a round board to serve it intact.

Lay a thin 1cm x 5cm baton of mature cheddar, or a folded strip of burger cheese, on the pastry before adding the sausage, then roll so the cheese is trapped between meat and blanket. Cheese is the number-one requested upgrade for a reason: it melts into the sausage and glues everything together. Seal the seam and pinch both open ends firmly, then freeze the assembled piggies for 10 minutes instead of the usual fridge chill — colder pastry means less cheese escapes. Some leakage is inevitable and welcome, since escaped cheddar fries into crisp frico edges on the tray. Bake at 200°C/400°F for 15-18 minutes and let them sit 5 minutes so nobody burns their mouth on molten cheese.

This is the idea that turns pigs in a blanket from party-day stress into a five-minute job. Assemble the piggies fully but do not egg wash them, then open-freeze on a parchment-lined tray for 1-2 hours until solid and transfer to a freezer bag for up to 1 month. When needed, arrange the frozen piggies on a lined tray, brush with egg wash, season and bake from frozen at 200°C/400°F for 18-22 minutes — no thawing, which would make the pastry sticky and limp. Baking from frozen actually improves the puff, because the colder the butter layers, the taller the rise. Keep a bag in the freezer through December and you will never be caught out by surprise guests.

Bake the piggies exactly as the base recipe, then brush them the moment they leave the oven with garlic butter — 30g of melted butter mixed with 1 finely grated garlic clove and a teaspoon of chopped parsley — and dust with finely grated Parmesan. The finishing-butter approach matters: raw garlic brushed on before baking burns and turns acrid at 200°C/400°F, while butter added after soaks into the hot flaky layers like garlic bread. The Parmesan clings to the wet butter and forms a savoury crust as it cools slightly. These taste like the lovechild of garlic knots and sausage rolls, and they perfume the whole room. Serve with warm marinara for dipping to complete the pizzeria effect.

Smear 1/2 teaspoon of full-fat cream cheese down the pastry strip, top with a single jarred jalapeño ring patted very dry, then add the sausage and roll. You get the creamy-spicy hit of a jalapeño popper wrapped around a hot dog, and the cream cheese keeps the inside lush even if the piggies sit out for an hour. Drying the jalapeño is non-negotiable — brine is the fastest route to a soggy, burst seam. Pinch the ends shut, chill 15 minutes and bake at 200°C/400°F for 15-18 minutes. Cool ranch dressing or soured cream on the side balances the heat perfectly.

Wrap two full-size jumbo hot dogs or a horseshoe of smoked sausage in a whole puff pastry sheet, seal the seam underneath, egg wash, and score the top diagonally every 2cm with a sharp knife. Bake at 200°C/400°F for 25-30 minutes — the larger parcel needs the extra time for the pastry base to cook through, so check that the underside is golden, not blond. Slice it into rounds at the table along the score marks, like a sausage Wellington, and watch it become the centrepiece of the spread. The scoring is functional as well as pretty: it vents steam so the pastry stays crisp. One giant piggy cuts into 10-12 party slices.

Keep the pastry cold at every stage: work with one sheet while the other waits in the fridge, and always chill the assembled piggies for 15 minutes before baking, because warm butter leaks instead of puffing. Pat the sausages completely dry with kitchen paper — trapped surface moisture is the single biggest cause of soggy, gappy pastry. Seal the seam with a dab of egg wash, overlap the pastry by 1cm and always bake seam-side down so the rolls cannot spring open. Space the pieces at least 3cm apart; crowded trays steam instead of crisping. Finally, bake to a deep golden brown, not pale blond — underbaked puff pastry tastes raw and greasy, so if in doubt give it 2 more minutes and rotate the tray halfway through.

Serve these warm, ideally within 30 minutes of baking; if timings slip, hold them in a 90°C/200°F oven for up to half an hour without losing crispness. Offer at least three dips in small bowls — honey mustard, ketchup and warm cheese sauce cover every taste, while sriracha mayo suits adult crowds and cranberry sauce is the move at Christmas. Pile them on a wooden board in a loose heap rather than neat rows; they look more generous and stay warmer in the middle. A batch of 24 feeds about 8 people as one of several party bites, or 4-5 people if it is the main snack. For game day, pair them with wings and a big bowl of crisps; for a festive spread, sit them next to cheese straws and mince pies.

Cool leftovers completely, then refrigerate in an airtight container lined with kitchen paper for up to 3 days. Re-crisp them in a 180°C/350°F oven for 8-10 minutes or an air fryer at 180°C/360°F for 3-5 minutes; the microwave technically works but turns the pastry soft and chewy, so treat it as a last resort. Baked piggies also freeze well for up to 2 months — reheat from frozen at 180°C/350°F for 12-15 minutes until piping hot in the centre. For the best texture of all, freeze them unbaked as described in idea 17 and bake fresh from frozen, adding 3-5 minutes to the usual time. However you reheat, let them stand 2-3 minutes before serving so the sausage heat evens out.