Homemade Sausage: Skip the Nitrates

O.k…Here is the deal. I love sausage but I do not like all of the additives in it. I don’t have a meat grinder that works real well so I never thought about making my own sausage – at least not until the other day.I was looking through Marc’s Championship Barbecue cookbook  and saw several sausage recipes. I realized that I could use ground pork, or have a pork butt ground at the market and then just season it myself. I changed up the seasonings until I got what I wanted.

This was not too spicy but just spicy enough to wake up your homemade sausage biscuits in the morning. I added brown sugar because I like the balance of hot/sweet/salty in breakfast sausage but you can leave that out if you like.

The main problem you are going to run into if you use ground pork is the lack of fat. You can overcome this by adding a bit of chopped bacon or a bit more fat to the pan if you like. Sausage that doesn’t have en0ugh fat gets rubbery. If you are having the butcher grind it tell him that you are making sausage and ask him to help you with the fat ratio.

You want to make this the day before you plan to use it to let the flavors combine. Just mix your ingredients, pop them in a refrigerator container with a lid and let them mix overnight.

Yum!

Homemade Breakfast Sausage

This is a traditional breakfast sausage. It could have used more fat.

• 2 lbs ground pork
• 1 tbs seasoning salt
• 1 tbs sage
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1 tsp dried chipotle, finely chopped or crushed
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• 1 tsp brown sugar

Mix the ingredients all together and cover tightly. Refrigerate overnight. Next day make into sausage patties using about 2 tablespoons mixture for each patty. Pan fry in a little oil until done.

2 lbs of homemade sausage

images:marye audet