Homemade Sausage (4 Star)

Homemade sausage is so good! It is also fairly easy to make. (I go the easy route and make loose sausage. Stuffing it into casings is way too intensive for me and the taste is no different.) I like to make my own because if I buy the meat on sale, it is quite inexpensive. I also like to be able to control what is in the sausage--most store-bought sausage contains MSG and cancer causing preservatives. Additionally, even though I have not specifically made an effort to purchase low fat meat, the meat that I have bought has always been low fat enough that no fat gathers in the pan when I fry the sausage. So many benefits!

A couple of weeks ago ground chicken was on sale for a great price so I bought about 45 pounds. I have also used ground pork with great results and both have been very low fat, as I mentioned before, but not low fat enough to have to add fat. (Sausage does need some fat to prevent dryness.) However, I prefer the chicken because there is a slight flavor to pork that bothers me a bit. Texture-wise, I think that the chicken and pork are comparable.

I make the sausage in five pound increments. First, I measure all of the spices onto a cookie sheet.



Then I add the meat and mix by hand. Mixing by hand is necessary because otherwise it is very difficult to incorporate the spices uniformly. I wear examination gloves on my hands because the spices and meat irritate my hands after a while and I also don't like meat under my fingernails.



I then spread a sheet of plastic wrap on top of a food scale and measure out one pound of the sausage and wrap it up.



Then I put the wrapped sausage into gallon freezer bags and keep them in our deep freeze until I'm ready to use them. I fry sausage for breakfast about once a week and use the other sausage in dinner recipes.



The finished product can either be shaped into patties to fry or, if you are as lazy as I am, just fried up scrambled fashion.





Here are my favorite recipes:


Breakfast Sausage

5 pounds ground chicken or pork
5 teaspoons sea salt
1/3 cup brown sugar or real maple syrup
1 Tablespoon sage
1 Tablespoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes


Chorizo

5 pounds ground chicken or pork
5 teaspoons sea salt
3 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons chipotle powder
1 Tablespoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cumin
4 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons sugar
5 teaspoons liquid smoke
1 teaspoon allspice
1 Tablespoon parsley
1/4 cup dried onions


Sweet and Spicy Sausage (Adapted from Prudence Pennywise's Spice Rubbed Chicken.)

5 pounds ground pork or chicken
5 teaspoons sea salt
4 Tablespoons brown sugar
3 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon chipotle powder
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons coriander


Fried Rice Sausage (I created this for use in a fried rice recipe that I love.)

5 pounds ground pork or chicken
5 teaspoons sea salt
3 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
5 teaspoons hot red pepper paste (Korean)


Bratwurst

5 pounds ground pork or chicken
5 teaspoons sea salt
4 teaspoons sugar
1 Tablespoon ground coriander
1 Tablespoon ground sage
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 Tablespoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Some of these recipes were adapted from recipes found here.