Ground meat is so much easier than you might think, and homemade sausage is one of those things that is totally worth the labor and time. In this recipe, I’m making pork sausage, but you can replace it with other kinds of meat. I would highly recommend the Hank Shaw sausage section where he talks about how to make different game meats sausages.
We have butchered our pigs for a few years now, but we haven’t ventured into the world of sausage making until recently. I think it was just one of those things that seemed like another intimidating thing to tackle, along with the huge learning curve of how to home butcher. Now I wish I had done it sooner, and now that I know how easy it is, I wish I knew sooner so I could even make my own sausage from store-bought meat on sale. (It’s so much easier than curing bacon!)
My disclaimer:
I’ve only done this a few times, and was inspired to write a post about it only to share that it’s so easy everyone should do it, and no one should be intimidated. However, there are some real experts out there that have many more valuable things to say on making the perfect sausage. Hank Shaw is probably my favorite, and he has an incredibly in-depth and helpful article you can read here.
The difference between my method and his is that I am not exactly trying to make the greatest, stick-together, perfectly encased sausage. I want something that is easy to cook and tastes amazing. And so far, my sausage has far exceeded my expectations every time. With that in mind, if you really want to become a sausage expert, read Hank Shaw. Or just read Hank Shaw regardless. His recipes are always winners in my book.
How to make sausage:
- Cut up meat in cubes.
- Cut up fat into cubes.
- Put in freezer to harden the fat, but don’t let it freeze all the way.
- Mix the fat and meat into the right ratio and run through a grinder, or even cut into small chunks with a knife like you would garlic. (that would take forever though)
- Season to taste and divide into packages to store in the freezer.
And that’s it! Click on the recipe in the table of contents for more info:
Why we started making sausage
We raise and butcher American Guinea Hogs. We love them, but there are certain qualities about them that make us prefer a certain method in the butchering process. For instance, they are smaller than the commercial pig, and were traditionally prized for their lard and tameness. They have very small pork bellies, which depending on how they were fed, have more fat than meat. This makes them less ideal for bacon. Each cut is much smaller than a standard pig in general, so some cuts are not big enough to feed our family.
This is where sausage becomes ideal. American Guinea Hogs have so much fat on them that there is plenty for me to render into lard and also make into really juicy, flavorful sausage.
What is sausage?
Sausage is a combination of ground meat and fat that is heavily seasoned and is traditionally encased.
Sausage is either eaten fresh or dry-cured in the casings. We haven’t tried using casings. There are a few reasons for this:
- It’s just easier to skip this step.
- The sausage is more versatile for recipes if it isn’t encased.
- It cooks faster if it’s not encased.
- If we were to try dry-curing, we would be more interested in trying it, but as it is right now, freezing sausage in small one- or two-pound batches has worked out great for us.
How to cook sausage:
We just fry it up in a pan. We don’t even make patties, it’s so good. Our favorite way is to cook it so that the outer layer is a little crispier than the rest.
I often don’t even defrost it, I’ll take it straight from the freezer and cook it on medium in a covered pan, scraping the cooked meat to let the frozen meat in the center defrost as it all cooks.
The great thing about sausage is that you can use it in such variety of dishes, but we end up eating it too fast to get very creative.
What cuts are best for sausage?
I’ve read that the picnic roast or a shoulder are the best cuts for pork sausage. But I use whatever meat I get from the pig that I don’t care about (usually the belly, or any fatty parts that are too meaty to use for cracklings.)
How do you make sure you get the right proportion of fat to meat?
We just eyeball it and it’s delicious every time. I like to save as much fat as possible for making lard, so the less I need for sausage the better. That being said, it is best to use about a 4:1 ratio of meat to fat.
What if you don’t have a meat grinder?
You could use your food processor! Or even a high-quality blender. As it happens, we were given a KitchenAid attachment grinder, and it works great. If you use a blender, it is much more likely that the fat and meat will get too warm and mix together, making crumbly sausage. But I don’t mind crumbly sausage so this would not bother me.
How to get the seasonings right:
My best method for success in all cooking ventures is to be constantly taste-testing. No matter what I’m making, I’m always eating as I cook. How else do you know if it tastes good?
We do a lot of taste testing, but we’ve found that we like the seasonings in whatever proportion. It all tastes great. The more gamey meats are better when they are disguised with more seasoning, so bear that in mind if you are making sausage with something like venison.
What other meats besides pork are best for making sausage?
I think the best kinds of meat to make into are the ones that don’t taste that great on their own. Maybe some game meat that you are trying to disguise, or some cuts that are generally tough.
What to do if you don’t have enough fat:
If you aren’t grinding a super fatty kind of meat into sausage, this could be a real problem. I’ve seen people trim fat off of all fatty cuts of meat and save it all in a freezer bag for making sausage or for rendering. I always keep extra pork fat in my freezer to render into lard or make pork cracklings. So, I would always have some in a pinch. In fact, I used my extra pork fat to grind with venison recently when Ben shot a deer.
Recipe:
Ingredients:
- Roughly four pounds meat
- Roughly one pound fat
- Lots of thyme, sage, paprika, garlic powder, and salt. I would do about a quarter cup of each to start, but make sure you have plenty more to season to taste.
Tools:
- A grinder or food processor
- A pan on the stove for taste testing
- A few large bowls
- A kitchen scale
- Freezer bags
- Several cookie sheets and enough freezer space to put them in.
How to make sausage step one:
Cut four pounds of meat into roughly one-inch cubes. I used a very sharp butchering knife to cut the meat into strips, then I used a pair of sharp kitchen scissors to cut the cubes.
How to make sausage step two:
Cut one pound of fat into roughly one-inch cubes. I followed the same method as I did for the meat. If you first chill the fat in the fridge or even the freezer, it is much easier to work with.
How to make sausage step three:
Spread the meat on a cookie sheet in one layer. Then make sure to spread the fat with the meat in the proper proportion. We spread out the fat on the cookie sheets evenly disbursed among the meat chunks. That way we can see that they are evenly distributed. Chill for 20 minutes to an hour. The goal is to get the fat cold enough to be solid when going through the grinder, but not frozen.
how to make sausage step four:
Grind the meat and fat together.
how to make sausage step five:
Season the sausage and mix really well. Knead it together with your hands. Hank Shaw says this creates a protein bind similar to gluten. We start with less seasoning and fry up a batch, add more seasoning and taste again until we like it. We love thyme, sage, paprika, garlic powder, and salt, but there are many different spice combinations. The reason this combo is our go-to is because it can work in many different kinds of dishes without clashing with the seasoning.
How to make sausage step six:
Weigh and freeze the sausage. I split it up into one- or two-pound packages and use the vacuum sealer or ziplock bags.
And there you have it! Delicious and easy sausage. Let me know if you have tried this or have any thoughts on sausage cuisine!
