There was a time when you’d be lucky to find any sort of chorizo at your local supermarket or butcher, but these days the shelves are overflowing with all sorts of different varieties of the cured Spanish sausage. We often gravitate towards the dry-cured chorizo sarta – sweet, spicy and edible straight out of the packet – but we’re becoming increasingly knowledgeable about how to use this traditional Spanish product. There’s the wafer-thin, salami-style chorizo that sits gracefully in a sandwich; semi-cured, soft chorizo ristra that releases wonderful crimson oils when cooked; smaller chorizo achorizado that’s designed for braising and of course chorizo Iberico, made with meat and fat from acorn-fed Iberico pigs.
Look beyond the most common types, however, and you’ll find hundreds of different regional varieties of chorizo made all over Spain. Wherever you go in the country you’ll find a different style – some regions, such as León, go heavy on the spicy pimentón, whilst others err on the sweet and mild side. Here are a few of the best known and loved regional varieties of chorizo for you to look out for during your next trip to Spain.