Our step-by-step homemade pork sausage recipe is a fun project for all kinds of home cooks.
Plus, it’s easy to customize and even easier to enjoy.
Making sausage at home is one of those lost arts that really is not so difficult as it sounds.
Elise Bauer
At its core, a sausage is simply ground meat and fat, salt, and flavorings.
Elements of Good Sausage
Good sausage is all about balance.
But beyond those rules, your ingredient list is limited only by your imagination.
Elise Bauer
What liquid to use?
Anything from water to fruit juice to wine to cream.
What Meat to Use in Homemade Sausage
What sort of meat?
Elise Bauer
Usually pork, but beef and lamb are also good, as are game animals.
Do you want a fine grind or a coarse one?
I like 25 to 30 percent, but you could go as high as 50 percent.
Elise Bauer
A good start is a typicalItalian sweet sausage, and this is what Ill walk you through here.
First, you need a propermeat grinder.
I suggest the attachment for the KitchenAid stand mixer as a good start.
Elise Bauer
Stand-alone meat grinders are good, too, and you could even use one of the old hand-cranked grinders.
Are you going to stuff your sausages into casings?
Then you need asausage stuffer.
Elise Bauer
Either do this right or leave your sausages loose.
If you do stuff your sausages, you needcasings.
(Dont feed these sausages to those who cannot eat pork!
Elise Bauer
That did not go over too well.)
Some people like the synthetic collagen casings you might buy on the internet.
Why bother with this?
Elise Bauer
Another option is to ask your butcher for caul fat, which surrounds the innards of pigs.
Other alternatives are using blanched savoy cabbage leaves or something similar as casings.
you might even use fat straight from the freezer, as frozen fat cuts better.
Elise Bauer
Why the emphasis on temperature?
You really, really want to avoid smear.
This carries through to your equipment.
Elise Bauer
I cant say it enough: Cold, cold, cold.
You also need to be prepared to spend a few hours on this project.
But when I first started it took me several hours.
Elise Bauer
Dont have anything planned and leave distractions behind.
You get breaks in the middle of this process, so worry not.
Customizing Spices and Seasonings for Homemade Sausage
A good sausage recipe is a template.
Elise Bauer
Part of the fun is making it your own.
This recipe is for sweet Italian sausage, but a few substitutions makes it something totally different.
Put bowls and grinder in freezer or refrigerator for an hour before using them.
Elise Bauer
Prepare a large bowl of ice and put a medium metal bowl on top of it.
Slice your meat and fat into chunks between an inch and two inches across.
Cut your fat a little smaller than your meat.
Elise Bauer
When the meat and fat are cut, mix them quickly.
Add the salt and the sugar and mix one more time.
Now you could call back whoever might have bothered you when you started this process.
Elise Bauer
I know sherry is not traditional in Italian sausage.
After your sausage mixture has chilled, remove your grinder from the freezer and set it up.
I use the coarse die for Italian sausage, but you could use either.
Elise Bauer
Besides, an Italian sausage is supposed to be rustic.
Push the sausage mixture though the grinder, working quickly.
With a stand mixer set on level 1, let this go for 90 seconds.
Elise Bauer
It might take a little longer with the spoon or hands.
When this is done, you have sausage.
You are done if you are not making links.
Elise Bauer
To cook, take a scoop and form into a ball with your hands.
Flatten out a bit.
Put the mixture back in the freezer so it’s chilled for stuffing in the casings.
Elise Bauer
Bring out your sausage stuffer, which should have been in the freezer or refrigerator.
Run warm water through your sausage casings.
(And yes, it is exactly like what you think it is).
Elise Bauer
Take the meat from the freezer one last time and stuff it into the stuffer.
Start cranking the stuffer down.
Let the sausage come out in one long coil; you will make links later.
Elise Bauer
Remember to leave 6 to 10 inches of tail at the other end of the casing.
Sometimes one really long hog casing is all you need for a 5-pound batch.
When the sausage is all in the casings, tie off the one end in a double knot.
Elise Bauer
You could also use fine butchers twine.
With two hands, pinch off what will become two links.
Then spin the link you have between your fingers away from you several times.
Elise Bauer
Repeat this process down the coil, only on this next link, spin it towards you several times.
Continue this way, alternating, until you get to the end of the coil.
Tie off the other end.
Elise Bauer
Time to hang your sausages.
Hang them on the rack so they dont touch (too much), and find yourself a needle.
Sterilize it by putting into a gas flame or somesuch, then look for air bubbles in the links.
Elise Bauer
Prick them with the needle, and in most cases the casing will flatten itself against the link.
Package them up or eat them the next day.
They will keep for a week, but freeze those that will not be used by then.
Elise Bauer
Tell us all about your sausage journey by leaving a comment and giving us some stars below!
