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I realized this post needed to be written when I told someone that I make my own breakfast sausage and their response was, YOU CAN DO THAT??
The huge bonus to making your own, is well, you can make it your own. You can tweak and adjust seasonings and make it exactly how you like it. AND there is no added junk to it. Preservatives should not be in your food. Just saying.
What meat do you have a lot of? Or what do you want your breakfast sausage made from? You can literally use anything and you can make it as lean as you want or add in pork fat which you can get from a meat processor. Maybe you’ll be lucky and have grassfed pork farmers near by!
You can use turkey, rabbit, deer, elk, wild pork, pork, whatever is on hand is always my go to. If I have large animals processed, I don’t ever ask for breakfast sausage, but just for the ground meat. That way I have control over the meat for what I need or want. Use to I never had beef, but just deer and wild pork and I used whatever ground meat instead of beef and also used it for sausage. I feel like someone, somewhere, determined what must be used for things, but if you are flexible, open minded, you will never do without and you will eat well.
*if you are grinding the meat yourself, make sure it’s mostly frozen and it will go through your home grinder a million times better.
Ingredients and Instructions to make a BULK amount of seasoning for approximately 10-12 pounds of meat:
1/2 cup plus 2 TBS sea salt
1/4 cup (4 TBS) black pepper (adjust this if you aren’t a pepper fan)
1/4 cup (4 TBS) fresh sage or 2 TBS dried sage
1/4 cup (4 TBS) ground fennel
1/3 cup rosemary
1/4 cup (4 TBS) fresh thyme or 2 TBS dried thyme
1 tsp cayenne
If you prefer all your seasonings to be well ground, use a mortar and pestle (molcajete) to grind them up, just takes a minute.
Combine all into a large bowl and mix well, then add to a jar with a lid to store. Be sure and label it so you know what it is later and how much to use! I may or may not have some stories about this topic.
Use about 1-1.5 TBS per pound. You’ll just have to try 1 TBS to see if it’s right for you.
Form a small patty and cook it up and give it a try. Then you can easily add more seasonings if you need to.
Make up patties or shape into a log. If you want to freeze it, which is always my preference, use some parchment paper to separate patties before putting in freezer bags. Wrap the log of sausage well if you think it will be in the freezer for awhile.
My trial patty turned into lunch!