Homemade Breakfast Sausage

Who knew making your own breakfast sausage could be this easy?

Homemade Breakfast Sausage

We like having sausages for breakfast. Breakfast sausages are the perfect accompaniment to eggs and toast. Their porky, salty, peppery, sage-y goodness provides such a tasty burst of flavor in your mouth.

But the thing I don't like about most store-bought breakfast sausage links is that they're so greasy. There's just so much fat in them that I can't help but feel a little sick towards the end of the meal. Sometimes I have to force myself to finish the final bites of sausage, thick with coagulated fat.

Make it Yourself

One of the best, most-used tools in our kitchen is our KitchenAid stand mixer. It gets used at least once a week, mostly for Annie's baking projects. But we also got the Kitchenaid Food Grinder Attachment so that we could make our own sausage using the trimmings from my pork spareribs. I love it because I can control the amount of fat in the ground pork.

Keep Everything Cold

The biggest advice I can give on using the meat grinder is, keep everything cold. Room temperature meat can gum up the blade and grinding plate, slowing down the sausage-making process. I like to put all the meat chunks on a tray in the freezer for at least 15 minutes until it's firm.

I also put all the meat grinder parts on a separate tray in the freezer. With everything cold and firm, the meat grinding will go much quicker and with less mess.

Making Sausage With the KitchenAid Food Grinder Attachment

Homemade Breakfast Sausage Recipe

Ingredients:

1 lb lean ground pork
1/2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp dried sage
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/8 tsp dried marjoram
1/2 tsp paprika
a pinch of ground nutmeg or allspice

Method:

I grind my meat once using the coarse plate, then spread the ground meat out on a sheet pan and sprinkle the sausage seasonings evenly over the meat. Then the meat and grinder attachment go back in the freezer for another 15 minutes before I grind it again using the coarse plate.

(If you're just using store-bought ground pork, mix the seasonings thoroughly into the pork)

Homemade Breakfast Sausage with Spices

Form the meat into small meatballs, about the size of a racquetball. (If you like, you can roll them out into little breakfast sausage "link" logs.)

Homemade Breakfast Sausage Balls

Flatten the balls into patties. The great thing about this breakfast sausage recipe is that you don't have to cure the sausage. It can be used right away, no waiting necessary!

Freeze 'Em or Fry 'Em

At this point, you can cover the breakfast sausage patties with plastic wrap and return them to the freezer until they are frozen solid. Once they are frozen solid, you can store them in a freezer bag. That way, you can save these breakfast sausages for some later time.

When you're ready to fry up some breakfast sausages, just add a little oil to a medium-hot skillet and fry them until they're browned on both sides. Since the sausage is so lean, be careful not to over-cook them.

Homemade Breakfast Sausage

Oh man, the sage and allspice in the breakfast sausage seasoning mix are awesome. And the salt and brown sugar are well balanced. Trust me, these breakfast sausages won't last long in the freezer. You'll love them so much, they'll be gone before you know it!

Besides breakfast sausages, we also make bulk Italian sausage using an awesome recipe from Bruce Aidell. But that's for another post.

Aloha, Nate

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Hungry for more recipes using ground pork? Click below:

Wonton Soup

Steamed Egg Tofu with Ground Pork and Shrimp

Bun Rieu Cua

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