Home Made Sausage

Home Made Sausage Patties

Making your own breakfast sausage is super easy to do.  It's cheaper, it taste great and you can identify all of the ingredients!  The last item is a big one with me.

To save face, I am not going to identify the makers of the products below, but I am pasting below the ingredients, per the company website, of exactly what is in their breakfast sausage.

Name Brand Turkey Sausage:

INGREDIENTS: BONELESS TURKEY, WATER, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: SODIUM LACTATE, SALT, DEXTROSE, SUGAR, SPICES, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, SODIUM DIACETATE, BHT, CITRIC ACID, CARAMEL COLOR.  

Name Brand Port Sausage:

Pork, water and less than 2% of the following; corn syrup, salt, spice, hydrolyzed corn protein, dextrose, flavorings, BHA, propyl gallate, citric acid.

One of the major name brand companies that produces breakfast sausage, didn't even list the ingredients of their product on their website.  Hmmmmm, wonder why.

Looking at the ingredients above, can you answer the following questions:

a)  What is BHT
b)  Why do you need to add color to anything you are eating
c)  What is BHA
d)  How much sodium anything does a product really need
e)  What the heck is propyl gallate

If you don't know what it is, why are you putting it into your body or your family's body????

Moving on....

Ingredients:
Ground Pork
Spices of your choice

That's it.  That simple.  That basic.  Tons of flavor.

My recipe is simple:

1 pound of ground pork
1 tsp Sage
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 thyme tsp
1/4 cumin tsp
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp nutmeg

The great thing about sausage is you can put whatever spices into it you want.  Like a little heat?, then add in some red pepper flakes.  Or add some chili powder.  Love the sage flavor, then add more than 1 tsp.  You can add a little bit of onion flakes or some garlic or whatever you want.  It's really up to you and your family's taste.  That's the beauty of it.  It's so versatile.

Now, if you want to try my recipe, then take all of the ingredients listed above and put them into a bowl and mix well.  I would suggest mixing with your hands to get all of the spices mixed in and cohabitating nicely.

When it comes to shaping, you can do it whatever way you wish.  Scoop up a little bit and make a ball then flatten out to the size you want and put them into the skillet or just put the ball in the pan and flatten with the back of a spatula.

My method is to take the plastic wrap that came with the package of ground pork and lay it out on the counter.  Then I take a handful of the sausage mixture and put it on one side of the wrap and fold the other side on top.  Then I take my rolling pin and roll it out to about 1/4".  Then I take a drinking glass, dip it in water and then cut out the pork patty.  Scoop up any excess sausage mixture, add a little more from the bowl to it and do it again.  I can get 1 dozen sausage patties doing it this way.

Just put the sausage patties in a frying pan or in an electric skillet or griddle and cook on medium low heat until the golden color you like.    You don't want to cook it to high or the brown sugar with caramelize and turn black quickly, plush it will smoke and you don't want that.  So, just take your time and enjoy the flavor and watch the family come running!

The first time I made this sausage for my husband, I didn't tell him I was making it myself.  I just fixed it and ate breakfast as normal waiting to see if he would notice.  Sure enough he did.  He asked me what brand it was and I asked him why and he said "This is really good.  Where did you get it?".  Which translate to success!!!!  Then I told him I made it.  That meant I wouldn't have to purchase breakfast sausage again and.......I don't.

Now you can get the ground pork in two ways.  Either purchase it yourself or grind it yourself.  Right now I don't have a meat grinder (next on my list of kitchen gadgets) so I purchase ground pork.  As I don't shop in the traditional way, when it goes on sale at sale from $1.69 to $1.99/pound, then I will purchase about ten packages.

Another benefit to making it yourself is that when you purchase your ground pork or make your pork, you can go ahead and make these patties and freeze them to the exact number of portions you would typically need for your family's breakfast.  I find that freezing the frozen patties are even better because the spices have had a chance to mingle together for a good while.

Now you have the basic recipe for breakfast sausage and you never have to buy the pre-made stuff again.  Cross that off your grocery list!

Hugs,