Homemade, Healthier Sausage Patties
Long before I even became pregnant with Mr. Happy, I started making my own breakfast sausage. By that point, Mr. Charm’s food issues had started our “reading labels” adventure, and I was sort of disgusted by what I found in most breakfast sausages. It was enough to make you go vegetarian! (almost)
So I went online to teach myself how to make my own sausage, and really, it’s surprisingly easy!
Here’s what you do:
We ate so much sausage, I labeled a jar just for the spices!
Make up your spices. You can put together any spice mix you like…hot, mild, savory, sweet, Italian, whatever floats your boat! I found a recipe we rather liked online, but have since tweaked it a little bit (and probably will again!). Since I was not blogging at the time, I didn’t bookmark her link, I simply copied the recipe and stuck it in my recipe binder. However, I’d LOVE to give this lady credit for it, because the thing I liked best was her methodology: make a big ol’ batch of spice mix, store it in a jar, and it’s ready to go whenever you need it! So if this rings a bell for you, please let me know who to give credit to!
Get a pound of ground pork. A trick to this is to watch the sales; I’ve found whole pork butt or whole pork shoulder on sale for as little as $1.99 per pound. The butcher at the grocery store is usually happy to grind up however much you want and package it for you, too, so keep an eye on the sales and when you can find it – stock up! (I purposefully bought 30 pounds of ground pork once. Funny thing is – not one person in the grocery store thought that was strange!)
When we were buying pre-made sausage patties, the best sale price I ever found for a 1 lb. package of sausage meat was $2.69. Regular full price was $3.99. So making your own is incredibly cheap, too!
And easy.
Ground pork and spices in a bowl, ready for mushing! I’m doing 2 pounds here.
Take that pound of meat, add your spices, and mush it all together with your hands.
I plopped the meat down in a haphazard tube shape to start with on my saran wrap.
Get out a long piece of saran wrap and lay it on the counter. Dump your meat on top.
Using the saran wrap to begin forming the roll…
Form it into a long tube; I just use the saran wrap to form it, holding each edge and rolling the meat back and forth until it gets to be about the size of a store-bought tube of sausage patty meat. Then I fold one long side of the saran wrap over and pull on the other long side while using my fingers to press the sausage into a tight tube shape. You could use the flat edge of a cookie sheet for this step, but I find my fingers work just fine!
Twist the ends, and voila! A nice, evenly round tube of sausage!
Once you’re done that, wrap the saran wrap completely around the sausage lengthwise. At that point, grab the end of the sausage tube and start twisting the saran wrap tightly; in just a few turns, you’ll see the sausage start squishing into a nicely rounded, “professional” looking sausage roll! Repeat with the other end.
A beautiful tube of breakfast meat!
Now you have a gorgeous, nicely tubular sausage roll, all ready to go.
Now, go stick it in the freezer.
If you want to just be done with it, you can be; or, if you’re interested in making life a lot easier for yourself in the mornings, you can go a step further!
Don’t let the sausage freeze all the way – take it out after about an hour. Unroll the saran wrap and slice that sausage into individual patty sizes! Lay those out on a cookie sheet and toss back into the freezer.
Laid on parchment paper on a cookie sheet for freezing.
After they’ve frozen completely, toss them into a Ziploc bag, label and date them, and throw ’em back into the freezer. From now on, you can grab however many patties you need for however many people you’re feeding first thing in the morning, quick thaw them, and have breakfast in no time – without trying to hack through a frozen or semi-frozen log of sausage meat when you’re still foggy brained from sleep!
Nice.
I was about to say that I like to “KISS” – Keep it Simple, Sweetie! but the truth is, I often make things a little more complicated than they need to be. Usually, though, what I’m doing is making it harder right now so that it will be simple and easy when I really, really need things to be simple and easy!
Like first thing in the morning. Have I mentioned I’m not exactly a morning person?
This is a very easy way to save a ton of money on your breakfast budget, and get a far healthier, less “crappy” product into your kiddo’s bellies to boot.
Three sausage patties and some hashbrowns for breakfast…I really need to work on my photography skills! It looked a lot more appetizing than this in real life!
My next step is to learn how to make link sausages!!
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HOMEMADE BREAKFAST SAUSAGE PATTIES
– Spice Mix (see below for ours)
– 1 pound of ground pork (thawed)
- Mix your spices and your ground pork in a bowl until well blended.
- Lay out a sheet of saran wrap. Plop the sausage meat on the saran wrap in a rough roll shape.
- Using the saran wrap and your fingers (or the flat edge of a cookie sheet) form the roll.
- Twist the ends of the saran wrap until the meat has turned into a nice, thick, neat roll of sausage heaven.
- Freeze for later use.
- OR you can freeze for an hour, remove from the saran wrap and slice into individual patties.
- Lay those on a cookie sheet and freeze completely. Once frozen, toss into a Ziploc bag for future use.
- Enjoy healthy(-er), cheaper breakfast sausage that tastes fantastic!
CRADLE ROCKING MAMA’S SAUSAGE SPICE MIX
– 8 or 9 tsp. dried sage
– 7 or 8 tsp. salt
– 4 tsp. black pepper
– 4 T. brown sugar*
– 1/2 to 1 tsp. ground cloves
– dash of some pepper: paprika, chili powder, cayenne
- Measure out your spices.
- Dump them in a bowl.
- Whisk them together.
- Store in a labeled container.
- Use 4 tsp. of the mix per pound of meat.
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Do you make your own sausage? What seasoning blends do you use?
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This post shared with Allergy Free Wednesdays, Whole Food Wednesdays, and Real Food Wednesdays.
Yum!!!
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I make my own sausage because I don’t like the high amount of spices and other ingredients that I don’t like. I make it using fresh ground pork, a small finely chopped apple with peel (or chopped/ground dried cherries or cranberries are good too — about 1/2 cup/lb), one tsp of cinnamon, 2 tsp chopped parsley, salt to taste, a tsp of original Mrs. Dash, and a tsp of ground/rubbed sage
Wow, Linda – that sounds delicious! Thanks for sharing your spice mix for sausage. Yummy!
I’ll be butchering and making sausage next weekend, but want to mix up your seasonings ahead of time. Does the brown sugar mix/blend well in the jar with the other spices so that it’s evenly mixed?
Hi Chris! Yes, it does mix together quite well. I use a whisk to make sure it gets broken up and mixed well. If your brown sugar is soft and not clumpy, you can always just shake the jar really well to mix. Good luck with your sausage making!
Can I skip the brown sugar altogether?
Sure, but you’ll probably want to add some other kind of sweetener in its place. Maple syrup, honey, dextrose, or plain sugar in small doses will make the sausages taste a lot better.
Yes, I would put it in mix I took out or not at all
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Hi Carrie, my family has been making sausage for generations. The sausage my kids tolerate best is the one we make with coriander and light colored mustard seeds. There are two types of coriander – one is made with lemon and the other with cilantro. We use the ground coriander made from cilantro called mexican coriander. We also add marjoram, mustard powder, rubbed sage, coarse ground black pepper, brown sugar, some onion powder, small amount of paprika, some garlic. We mix all the spices in water to get them mixed together well, then pour into the meat and mix. We add more water at the end if the meat looks dry. We usually stuff ours into beef casing, but make a pan fry version out of this recipe also. We do 2/3 ground pork to 1/3 ground beef. We also use pork shoulder. BTW, mexican coriander made from cilantro, sage, marjoram and mustard seeds all have anti-inflammatory properties to them – added bonus!!! My dd has reflux and she has never had a problem with this recipe. paprika is basically chili peppers ground up which are a reflux trigger for many and high in histamines, along with black pepper I believe – but with the other herbs in the mixture, she doesn’t react. Just a hint for future reference.
Once again, you’re a source of great knowledge and fabulous advice! I like mixing the meats; that would probably make a better sausage. My lamb guy even said mixing lamb with ground beef makes the best burger ever, so, it’s a good idea to try! And I didn’t know that about coriander; I thought it was all cilantro based. Very interesting. My next adventure is going to be stuffing casings for link sausages, but I have no idea when I’ll tackle that one. I’m glad to hear someone else is doing it – makes me more brave. 😉
Molasses works well too!
I really liked the descriptions and pictures, what a help! I make my sausage with most of your spices, but I include fennel seed (either ground or whole), then cook the patties in my George Foreman. Add them to the freezer, along with homemade waffles for a quick breakfast (my hubby has no patience for breakfast during the week), therefore no nasty chemicals and it works out to one sausage patty to one waffle each breakfast. I’m going to follow you, am anxious to see more of your recipes! Thank you.
Thank you, Jeanne! I recently added fennel back to our diets and can’t wait to try it out in the sausage patties. I’m like your husband and have no patience for breakfast during the week. Unfortunately, I haven’t found great solutions to the problem like you have (other than the sausage patties!). Welcome!!
Interesting on the fennel. Fennel tea is what people with IBS use to help with bloating and GI upset. It is supposed to settle the tummy. I think I will try adding some of this to our breakfast sausage next. Where do you buy fennel seed?
Sorry so late! I have found fennel at any of my natural food grocery stores. You can also get it online. 🙂
I will need to try this. I have always used Jimmy Dean Origional and sometimes Sage. Your sausage seasoning mix looks very interesting, so I look forward to trying it. I love mixing my own seasoning blends. Also fennel can be found in the spice section in the grocery store.
I hope you like it! And, thanks for the tip!
Hi what a great idea. I’ve just made my version in the food processor. Can’t wait to try them. I’m always really fed up that I can no longer have my favourite fast food sausage patties x
Yay! I hope you like them!
Hi Carrie just found your site looking for dehydrating cauliflower and kept looking at your site, was wondering if I could use all beef for the sausage patties for I don’t eat pork. Thanks
Sure! You could probably use any meats – chicken, venison, beef, etc. should all be acceptable, if ‘different’ in flavor!
Love your recipe for sausage! My 12 year old granddaughter was recently diagnosed with Fructose Malabsorption, so like you we have been reading a lot of food labels. We are so grateful to see her finally getting some relief from daily stomach pain and bloating. With all your dietary experience, any helpful information, guidelines, web pages, etc, would be greatly appreciated!
Oh, dear! I’m sorry for the delay in responding. Hopefully you’ve learned all this by now, but just in case someone else sees this, for Fructose Malabsorption I recommend the Monash University FODMAP Diet App for smartphones, and the Baliza Intolerances App for smartphones. The information online can be so confusing with this particular food challenge! One diet says “never this food”, a different one says the same food is “always safe”, while another one says “sometimes”. Maddening!
These apps really helped me begin to make heads or tails of matters, and helped me realize that for my family, we react more to fructans and oligos than any other part of fructose. So our fructose malabsorbative diet is going to look very different from other people with the condition, because we can eat foods they could never go near in a million years just because those foods might be high in fructose, but low in fructans and oligos so WE can have them with no reactions.
I’d recommend using those apps quite strongly to anyone new to Fructose Malabsorption. Good luck!
This recipe is for meat parties nothing like a sausage, sausages are meat encased in the entrails of the animal
You are technically quite correct, and thank you for pointing that out! 🙂 My whole life, though, growing up in the South, this particular food item was always called “breakfast sausage” or “sausage patty”, so I just used the terminology common to my region. Whatever it is called, I hope you liked it!
I just visited my brother and he told me that he makes his own sausage. He puts the mixture on a cookie sheet pan and scores it into squares then freezes it and the breaks it apart.
That sounds good! Instant sausage crumbles! Yum. Thanks for the tip. 🙂
Thx for the tip Marty Schwartz. That sounds like a great idea. I am going to try this very soon. This would sure be easier than forming them into hamburger sized patties or logs and then cutting them.
Can it be use in beef instead?
Hi Stacy! Are you asking if the seasoning mix could be used in beef? Hmm. I’m sure it could, but I’m not sure if it will taste the same. Pork has a different flavor than beef so you may want to adjust the seasoning a bit. I really don’t know what you might do differently, though. If anyone has any suggestions, please chime in!
If you are trying to avoid pork, you could try chicken or lamb meat instead. I’d do a smaller batch though to see how it tastes first. We tend to do 2/3 pork to 1/3 beef for our breakfast ring sausage.
That sounds good! I’ll try that next time.
I never put sugar in my sausage. I’m going to try it!
If you like your sausage without sugar, don’t add it on my account! LOL Less sugar is always a good thing! As a matter of fact, I’m going to start making it without sugar. 😉
I found you on Pinterest. I can remember in the 70s, finding sausage seasoning in the grocery stores. I mixed mine with ground beef at that time. Now, pork is more available. Our grocery store just had a buy one get one for a penny sale on pork loin. I bought 4, and have used 2 already. I have a. Eat grinder attachment on my Kitchen Aid mixer, so . . . I’ll be making sausage soon. Thank you so much for this recipe.
Oh yay! Hope it turned out well! And that grinder attachment on the Kitchen Aid is wonderful, isn’t it?! 😉
I make patties by filling and flattening the sausage mix in a baking tray. Then I use a salmon or a tuna tin, with both ends cut out, to make the patties. Make your own breakfast tortillas with sausage crumble, cheese and scrambled egg. Make egg muffins with sausage pattie, cheese, an egg fried using those tins. Can be made ahead and microwaved briefly. Fast breakfast as you go out the door!
I love this idea! So much easier than rolling it into a log! Thank you for sharing. 🙂