Breakfast sausage is definitely something that is on my list of “Never Buy Again Foods”:
Most store-bought sausage rolls contain all sorts of icky things like MSG or corn syrup. Homemade breakfast sausage is super simple to mix up at home, so there is really no reason to buy the store-bought versions with all the added junk…
We acquired a large meat grinder a couple years ago, which has definitely been worth the investment as we process our own deer, antelope, beef, and hogs.
When we cut up our hogs this winter, it was a crazy-insane day, so I didn’t have a chance to season any of the sausage as we went. Instead, we just ground up the meat scraps and fat and put them in one pound packages. I’ve been seasoning it as I need it, which has given me the chance to try a bunch of different homemade sausage recipes, and *ding ding ding* we have a winner folks!
Homemade Breakfast Sausage with Maple
(this post contains affiliate links)
Adapted from the book Home Sausage Making by Charles Reavis
You Will Need:
- 3 pounds of ground pork (or ground turkey, venison, beef, or antelope will work. Just keep in mind that sausage usually has a higher fat content, so regular burger will tend to be on the drier side.)
- 1 small onion, minced very finely
- 1 Tablespoon sea salt
- 2 teaspoons dry, ground sage
- 1 teaspoon dry, ground mustard
- 3/4 t. black pepper
- 1/4 cup real maple syrup (where to buy)
Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl. I just use my hands– it’s messy but effective.
If you like, you can stick it in the fridge for a couple hours to help the flavors develop, or, you can use it right away.
How to Use Your Homemade Breakfast Sausage:
1. Cook it up as you would ground beef and add it into soups, skillet meals, breakfast burritos, or casseroles.
2. Shape it into a log, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, and store in the fridge for up to a week (or place in freezer for later).
3. Shape your homemade breakfast sausage into individual patties to freeze or fry up.
How to Freeze Homemade Breakfast Sausage Patties:
Lay down a sheet of parchment paper or waxed paper, and pat the breakfast sausage to around 1/2 inch thick. Use biscuit cutters to cut out the patties, or just use your hands to shape them into a circle, though.
I got this nifty set of biscuit cutters off of Amazon, and I found that they work wonderfully for cutting out breakfast sausage patties as well as homemade biscuits. (Especially if you plan to slap your sausage patty between two halves of a homemade Buttermilk Biscuit. Oh yeaaah…..)
Flash freeze your patties on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Or cut squares of parchment paper and place the squares in between the sausage patties in a stack.
The patties are easy to fry up whenever you’re in the mood for breakast food, or use them to make a batch of Homemade McMuffins to stick in the freezer. The possibilities are endless!
Other Ways to Use Your Homemade Sausage
- Make sausage potato soup for a cold winter night.
- Whip up breakfast burritos using crumbled sausage, and wrap in a warm homemade tortillas
- Have pizza night with homemade pizza topped with maple sausage crumbles (and mushrooms and black olives!)
- Smother my buttermilk biscuits with homemade sausage gravy
Homemade Breakfast Sausage Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 pounds of ground pork (or ground turkey, venison, beef, or antelope will work. Just keep in mind that sausage usually has a higher fat content, so regular burger will tend to be on the drier side.)
- 1 small onion, minced very finely
- 1 Tablespoon sea salt
- 2 teaspoons dry, ground sage
- 1 teaspoon dry, ground mustard
- 3/4 t. black pepper
- 1/4 cup real maple syrup (where to buy)
Instructions
- Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl.
- If you like, you can stick it in the fridge for a couple hours to help the flavors develop, or, you can use it right away.
Lisa says
March 17, 2011 at 11:08 pmYep, we sure have made sausage at home! I’m a big fan of the flavor of Jimmy Dean’s breakfast sausage, but to avoid the nitrates, we make our own these days. Finding a recipe with the right combination of spices can be tough, but we kept at it and eventually came up with a combination that suited our taste buds. This weekend we’re making homemade kielbasa! I’ll post about it next week, so stop by and check it out! ~Lisa
Jill says
March 18, 2011 at 8:09 amYou know, last time I looked at a roll of Jimmy Dean, I saw that they had also added MSG to it too! Yuck! Homemade kielbasa sounds amazing!
James Fletcher says
February 23, 2014 at 7:11 pmHome made “kielbasa” (means sausage in polish or Russian) is a wonderful thing and very easy to make, even if you don’t have equipment to smoke it , it is great “fresh” un smoked. To every 10 lbs. fresh ground pork you will add 4 level tablespoons of canning salt, 8+ as much as you like cloves of Garlic minced, 2 teaspoons . coarse ground black pepper, 2 Teaspoons ground marjoram, and if you don’t want it to turn Grey when you cook it, 1 level teaspoon of instacure #1 and one cup of ice water. Grind the pork through a medium plate 5/16 or 1/4 keep everything as cold as possible, add spices and cure to the water stirring until the salts are dissolved and add this to the ground meat mixing thoroughly by hand about ten min. If you have a way to stuff this into casings do so. if you have a smoker let the sausage hang at room temp until the cassings are dry and hang in the smoker at 180 until an internal temp of 165 is reached. Alder or maple chips are great so is corn cob, hickory is a little much. Smoke is an individual taste and I will not tell you how much or how long to smoke. You know how you like it. As an alternative to the “Instacure” you can substitute Morton tender quick equally for the salt and cure and get a decent result
Rosann says
March 18, 2011 at 9:06 amI found a great recipe on Food Networks website. It was from Alton Brown and is his breakfast sausage recipe. I don’t know if it is still online. I have used it several time and really like it.
Found it!
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/breakfast-sausage-recipe/index.html
Jill says
March 18, 2011 at 10:09 amLooks great! Thanks for sharing this.
Kim says
March 19, 2011 at 1:04 amSo glad to read about sausage. We will be taking our pigs to butcher in a few months and I have been wondering about how to make it.
Really enjoyed reading about you, your homestead, and your mission. Will be back often. Glad I found another farm girl!
mountain mama says
March 19, 2011 at 8:37 pmlove the info you share and your blog!
i’m passing the stylish blog award to you if you’d like to accept it. if not, that’s totally okay!
keep up the great writing!!!
Jill says
March 19, 2011 at 8:50 pmAwww, thanks so much! 🙂
Mandy says
March 20, 2011 at 6:05 pmI was a vegetarian for the past 10 years who just started eating meat so I decided to go to a sausage making class my local county extension office offered. We made a few types of sausage but my fave was the Italian pork sausage. We used it as a pizza topping too and it was delicious! Definitely something I’ll be making at home again.
Jill says
March 20, 2011 at 9:01 pmWhat a great class for the extension office to offer. Wish ours did stuff like that…
James Fletcher says
February 23, 2014 at 7:23 pmItalian sausage (Hot Sausage) is easy too, to every 10 lbs. coarse ground pork you will need 4 level tablespoons canning salt, 4 tablespoons paprika,4 tablespoons Fennel seed, 2 tsp. Black pepper, 2tsp. sugar,( for mildly hot 1tsp cyan or crushed hot red pepper, medium 2-3 tsp. and hot can be insanely hot depending on how much and how hot the pepper is) 1 cup ice water, mix allspices and salt with ice water stirring until the salt is dissolved ad to ground pork and mix until thoroughly and evenly mixed. Let stand overnight covered in the refrigerator, Stuff into casings, or make patties and freeze. You will never be happy with store bought again !
jamie says
October 28, 2011 at 5:12 pmWhere could I find a recipe for making bratwurst?
James Fletcher says
February 23, 2014 at 7:27 pmHome made bratwurst http://www.lpoli.50webs.com/AlphabeticalList.htm#FRESH
Laila says
November 4, 2011 at 9:53 pmI cannot eat pork. What could be used as a sub for the pork fat? I like the ground turkey from Honeysuckle, but want away from the chemicals in everything now-a-days. TIA
mpbusyb says
July 12, 2013 at 9:22 amI don’t eat pork either, so I used Shelton’s organic ground turkey to make a batch of sausage. I added extra oil to keep them moist. I also cooked them all up as soon as I mixed the meat, since the Shelton’s comes to me frozen. I freeze them once they are thoroughly cooked and cooled. It makes it so easy to make a quick breakfast for my on-the-go-adult-children. The Shelton’s is pricy. Now I have some grass-fed beef in the freezer that I’m going to use for the sausage. Adding fennel really gives it an authentic flavor.
anita says
July 12, 2013 at 10:49 amwe make beef sausage – it tastes the same to us , i bet beef tallow would work with turkey like it does with deer meat… i need to try this recipe – soon!
Valerie says
June 18, 2012 at 1:36 amI am bookmarking your recipe for us to use when we hopfully get a moose this fall.
Cheryl says
October 28, 2012 at 9:48 pmMy husband has hunted venison every year for the last 35 years, but this year Nebraska lost much of our hunting ground to fire so he won’t be able to hunt this year. He usually makes sausage and smokes it and uses it as lunchmeat and gives it as gifts to family all year. His sausage is so good that many people cannot tell it from store purchased. It is a wonderful hobby for him. Finding pork fat is also difficult for him .
Jill says
October 30, 2012 at 12:57 pmYes, sadly the fires were awful here this year as well. His sausage sounds mouthwatering– yum! 🙂
Rebecca Mahon says
January 30, 2013 at 9:30 pmCan you share his recipe? Or is it a family secret!
Naomi says
May 2, 2013 at 10:43 pmWith havin so much written content do you ever run into any issues
of plagorism or copyright violation? My website has a lot of completely unique content I’ve either authored myself or outsourced but it appears a lot of it is popping it up all over the internet without my permission. Do you know any methods to help protect against content from being ripped off? I’d definitely appreciate it.
Jessica @ redeeming the home says
May 6, 2013 at 5:39 pmI was just given a ton of antelope from my brother in law’s hunting trip last year. Had some today stewed with a yummy tomato sauce. We love it! We always make deer sausage, so I’m eager to try the antelope.
Jill Winger says
May 6, 2013 at 8:28 pmYes- we love antelope at our house! It makes great sausage and jerky.
nicole says
July 12, 2013 at 6:39 amhmmm….all that sausage talk made me hungry for breakfast …
pete from KS says
July 12, 2013 at 7:01 amI have process deer, beef, and pork for several friends over the last 15 years. Just last year I processed 10 hogs, 7 deer, and 5 beefs. Year before was 6 hogs, 8 deer, and 3 beefs. I use the recipes found in Rytek Kutas’s book “Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing”. It is my go to for all sausage recipes. Everyone has a fav cookbook. This one is used so much the pages are falling out.
I usually do at least 4 hogs a year for one of my friends. He has me make 2 hogs into just breakfast sausage. (He has a large family) He has said he won’t go anywhere else for bfast sausage. The brats in this book are awesome. I would put them against any other product you could find in the store. The brat recipe calls for veal and pork. I just use all pork. We usually make the Sweet Italian, Brats, BFast, Kielbasa, Ham, Bacon, Venison Summer Sausage, Dried Beef, Jerky. You might be able to find some of these recipes online at http://www.sausagemaker.com/ourfavoriterecipes.aspx
You can’t go wrong with fresh sausage.
pete
Joyce says
July 12, 2013 at 8:32 amJust a hint…two pieces of paper between the patties make it even easier to separate the patties….and I found that freezing in a single layer on a cookie sheet and then stacking makes a huge difference in getting that frozen stack of meat apart!. Love your writings……and share them with my daughters all the time….
Brianna says
July 12, 2013 at 8:57 amThis looks so tasty! My husband would just love this made with ground turkey. I’ve never made sausage at home….I look forward to the adventure!
John says
July 12, 2013 at 12:46 pmInstead using maple syrup try maple sugar..it takes less and its an explosion of flavor… http://www.vermontpuremaple.com/buy_maple_sugar.htm?gclid=COrBvbHOqrgCFUrNOgodi28AyQ
Jill Winger says
July 12, 2013 at 12:58 pmGood idea John! Thanks for the tip.
Chloe Chase says
July 21, 2013 at 10:07 amI use basil and garlic for Italian style hamburgers. I’m going to try that with this recipe. Thanks.
Francie Epperson says
July 22, 2013 at 7:24 amCan you recommend a good meat grinder that isn’t too terribly expensive?
Thanks!
James Fletcher says
February 23, 2014 at 7:43 pmOster made an electric one out of Nylon that I used for years, it has the same grinder head as used on their kitchen center. Both can be found on Ebay relatively cheep
. For a manual hand crank, NOTHING is better than a # 8 or #10, or #12 enterprise. the #22 is way to difficult to crank by hand, you can find these used for under $10
Charles says
August 4, 2013 at 5:38 amRE: Savory Maple Breakfast Sausage
I have been baking and cooking for over 15 years and am always on the lookout for new recipes to try. This one sounded good from a taste standpoint; the lack of MSG, nitrates, etc. had no bearing on my trying it out. Very disappointed! Aside from the hint of maple flavor (I used pure maple syrup) it was extremely bland. Perhaps I’ve been ruined by years of Jimmy Dean but I won’t be making this recipe again.
Jill Winger says
August 4, 2013 at 2:32 pmSorry you didn’t like it Charles- my family adores it. But, everyone has different taste preferences.
Bonnie says
August 13, 2013 at 10:31 amI tried this with ground turkey and it was wonderful! My hubby liked it and he doesn’t like turkey sausage. Thanks for sharing.
Dawn says
August 30, 2013 at 8:51 pmI’ve been making homemade sausage for nearly two years, trying different recipes as I find them. Just made this recipe tonight (followed it exactly) and we are super pleased. I’ve never used maple syrup in sausage and it was a nice change of pace. Thank you for bringing us along on your sausage-making journey!
Jill Winger says
August 30, 2013 at 10:03 pmI hadn’t used maple syrup before either– but I’m with you– I think it’s refreshingly different. 🙂
CAROL CATTELAN says
November 6, 2013 at 9:40 amWHAT GREAT RECIPES YO UHAVE. THANK YOU JILL FOR SHARING.
Jessica Kelly says
February 3, 2014 at 9:07 amOk, now I need a spicy version!
Randy says
March 16, 2017 at 10:33 amFantastic recipe! I take my patty process one step further: Since they are just freshly made, I cook them immediately, lay them out on a pizza pan, place them in the freezer. The next day I release them into a big plastic bag. I thaw them out in the microwave as needed for super fast breakfast item. They last for a long time in the freezer!
★★★★★
D.M. says
May 3, 2018 at 10:46 amThanks Randy! I was searching to see if anyone had tried this step with success. Thanks for posting as it is exactly what I was trying to find out!
★★★★★
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Sam Sheehan says
December 3, 2017 at 8:08 ammy tip would be that if you have a graduated set of biscuit cutters, cut the sausage out a size or two larger than your biscuit dough. Sausage shrinks as it cooks, biscuits expand a little. I don’t have proper biscuit cutters (stocking stuffer honey? lol) but I use the rim of two different drinking glasses, smaller diameter for the biscuit, and they come out a perfect size match.
Jane Doe says
February 20, 2019 at 7:37 amI live in a hurricane prone area so, we don’t freeze much due to power outages. I’m not sure if it’s FDA approved or not but when we process our pigs, I can most of it. The sausage I can just like ground beef. Cook the crumbles thoroughly and pack into pint jars and fill with chicken or beef broth. PC as instructed for meat. Makes great, quick meals. The only difference is I use less sage when canning sausage vs making normally as sage changes the flavor in the canning process.
★★★★★