Sausage Octopus for Bento and Halloween

What does it take to make an octopus laugh?  Ten tickles. 

Ha. Funny.  But did you know that octopuses technically have no tentacles?  They have eight arms, not tentacles which are retractable and have a flattened tip that is covered in suckers.  Cuttlefish and squids have two tentacles.  Octopuses have none, just arms.

Funny and educational!  But you probably came here for neither.  So, onto the sausage octopus… 

These sausage octopuses have been around for a while in Japan.  Mainly as a cute side dish in the children’s bento boxes.  It’s an extremely easy and fun way to add a little bit of zaniness to what might otherwise be unexciting lunches. 

But with the same sausage octopus, you can also add some delicious fun for your Halloween or ocean-themed parties.

First, we’ll show you how to make these simple sausage octopuses.  Then go over what we did to make them into a great party snack. 

How to make sausage octopus

Ingredients

• Cocktail Sausages
• Vegetable or canola oil (enough to coat the bottom of the pan)

Instructions

1. Using a small knife, cut the sausage lengthwise from about the midway point down.
2. Rotate the sausage and cut the sausage again lengthwise.  Repeat two more times so that one end of the sausage is cut into 8 fringe pieces or “arms.”
3. In a frying pan, heat the oil on medium heat.  Place the sausages carefully on the hot pan.  Keep gently rolling the sausages in the pan to cook evenly.
4. Cook for about 8-10 minutes.  Arms will begin to curl.
5. Remove the sausages from the pan and while they are hot, make them all “stand up” on a plate.  They retain their shape slightly better this way.
6. They are ready to be served or to be packed in a bento box.

Halloween Party Snack Food: Baby Kraken

Once you cook the sausages, you can add faces and/or add flag toothpicks and serve them with some condiments or dipping sauces.  

How to put faces on the sausage octopuses

If you want to add faces to these baby krakens, let me tell you upfront that it’s a tedious work! You will need food tweezers or Japanese chopsticks which are typically shorter and are tapered to a fine point.  Once the sausages are cooked, they are ready to have the eyes and mouths attached.

For the eyes: I used black sesame seeds.  You’ll need a toothpick to attach the sesame seeds. 

Dip an end of the toothpick in ketchup, mustard or mayonnaise.  Put the small dollop of the condiment on the sausage where you want the eyes to be placed.  Using the tweezers/chopsticks, carefully place the sesame seeds over the condiment and gently press down into place.

For the mouth: I cut out nori (roasted seaweed) using a tool like this:

Cut out nori (seaweed) in the shape and size you want. Using the toothpick in the same way as you did with the eyes, put a small dollop of condiment where you want the mouth to be on the sausage.  Then gently place the cutout nori over the condiment using tweezers/chopsticks to make it stick and press down.

Serve sausage octopuses with condiments

You can serve these with your favorite condiments, including:

• Ketchup
• Mustard
• Sriracha

Of course, mustard always goes better with sausages.  So, I added a bit of red food coloring in mustard to create this shocking red condiment for the Halloween party:

If you are making these for kids’ ocean theme parties and do not want to make the gory scene with the red mustard, you can also add blue food coloring to the mustard to make a bluish green condiment instead.

Sausage Octopus’ Sea Creature Friends

You can create a marine life party scene by adding other sea creature friends to the plate! 

Use vegetable cutting tools like these below or cookie cutters to cut out fish, star fish (star shape), or any other sea creatures to serve with the sausage octopuses. 

Thinly slice any of the following and press the vegetable cutter down to cut out the fun shapes to serve with the sausage octopuses:

• Cheese
• Cucumbers
• Carrots
• Watermelon
• Apples
• Cantaloupe

You can serve fruit cutouts separately with some yogurt (with or without the food coloring), caramel, or chocolate dipping sauces, if you’d like!

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