We much prefer homemade breakfast sausage to the storebought sausage. It’s so easy to make. I usually make it up in 4 pound batches and then freeze it in 1/2 pound packages. I mix it in the Kitchen Aid and 4 pounds of ground pork is about all it can handle without making a mess.
The quality of the ground pork you get will make all the difference in the sausage. If you have a butcher you like, ask him for ground pork for sausage and ask him what percentage fat he thinks it is. Get a pound or two and then when you make your sausage, if you want more fat or less fat, next time you get the pork, ask him for more or less fat than you got last time. It’s really easy to get it just right by trial and error. Even if the first few batches you make aren’t perfect, my guess is you’ll like it better than any storebought sausage you’ve had.
I use the breakfast sausage mix from Penzey’s. They recommend 1 tablespoon per pound of meat but I use about 1-1/4 tablespoon per pound.
For 4 pounds of ground pork, I had 5 tablespoons seasoning, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 1 teaspoon red pepper and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper.
Then I mix it all up, either by hand or using the mixer. It can then be frozen in whatever size packages work for your family. When I have room in the freezer, I like to make the patties, flash freeze them on a cookie sheet, then pop them off and stick them in a freezer bag. That makes it so easy to grab whatever number of patties we need and cook them.
You can see the sausage here along with the Overnight Peach French Toast we had on Thanksgiving morning.
One pound of sausage was cooked in this pot and you can see there’s almost no grease at all.
Jane says
My hubby loves sausage for breakfast, but the turkey kind. I’m wondering what size mixer you have? The ones I’ve been seeing on sale are 5qt, but I read somewhere that if you are making bread you really need the larger 6qt. one. Me, I’ve only ever had a hand held, but I keep eyeing the stand mixers.
Patti Tappel says
We make our own sauage too. We buy pork shoulders when they are on sale. They are vacuum pack and almost always boneless (sometimes one little should bone). We grind the entire shoulder with our hand grinder. For seasoning, our local Mennonite grocery store sells bulk spices and they have several sausage spices to choose from. We like the Dixie one.
Patti
Tracy says
We butcher our own hogs and of course grind the sausage ourselves. We make some little links but most of it is loose. We use an old family recipe. They trim the meat so it’s very lean. Sausage gravy is the best! I don’t think any of us could eat store bought sausage anymore.