Making sausage is fun and should never be intimidating. The best way to learn how to prepare sausage is to start with a batch of fresh links or patties. Don’t overthink the process until you’ve built your first batch. It’s as easy as following the recipe.
If you’re just getting started, don’t worry about buying grinders, mixers and stuffers. If you don’t have any ground venison at home, get your butcher to grind it when you pick up pork. Having regular ground pork in sausage is important for texture and moisture.
Keep it simple by making patties instead of using a sausage press and casing. It’ll give you a chance to taste homemade sausage, and then decide if you want to get gear to make links.
Ingredients
- 6 pounds ground venison
- 4 pounds ground pork shoulder
- 4 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
- 3 tablespoon dried sage
- 1 tablespoon nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 cup ice water
Directions
- Grind meat with a 3⁄16-inch grinder plate and mix in spices and water until completely blended. Using Nitrile gloves helps deal with cold meat and water. Make sure to mix until spices are evenly blended.
- Sausage mixture can be stuffed into 28-32 mm hog casings or can be run through the grinder into burger bags. A tube of sausage meat can be cut into patties or links when partially frozen for easy cooking. If nothing else, roll in plastic wrap and freeze in logs to cut into patties later.
Cooking
A Camp Chef cast iron frying pan is the best way to get the sausages entirely browned. Place cold sausages in the frying pan and turn to medium-high heat. When the sausage starts to sizzle, turn to medium, turning every couple of minutes until the casing is browned evenly. If you used lean pork in the sausage, you might need to add a bit of cooking oil to the pan.
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