If you are looking for a way to incorporate more organ meat into your diet and you like sausages, making your own organ meat breakfast sausage is a great way to make organ meats delicious. This sausage recipe is highly customizable and easy to make. Great for beginners. The patties can be frozen for a ready-to-go nutritious meal!
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The advantages of making your own sausage
I find it hard to find good quality sausage at affordable prices.
Store-bought sausages are most of the times made from poor quality meat, and contain a bunch of additives, as well as gluten and added sugars. They are a no-go for me for health reasons, and also because I don’t really like how they taste.
I can sometimes find pretty good quality sausages at local butcher shops or at the farmer market. These are made with grass-fed meat, and usually contain natural ingredients, even though it’s hard to find some without any gluten or added sugars. Even though the local sausages are a healthier alternative, they tend to break the bank, which make them a no-go option as well these days!
But we love having a scattered meal of sausage, or accompanying our breakfast eggs with a sausage patty (or two). I grew up with my dad always making homemade sausages, so I’m quite used to the good quality (and taste). So I finally decided to invest in an electric meat grinder and try making my own sausages at home.
Making your own sausage is the best choice because you can choose high quality, natural ingredients, and you can highly customize your sausages according to your personal preference. Plus, making your own sausage will end up making you save money, especially if you use cheaper cuts of meat (hello, organ meats!!).
Making your own sausages is also a great way to reduce your waste because you can utilize meat parts that you might otherwise discard. For example, you can use collagen-rich cuts of meat (read all about the health benefits of collagen here), and you can utilize the excess fat that you trim off some pork cuts. Also a great way to eat nose to tail (read all about it here).
How to select and source your sausage ingredients
For the best quality sausage, you need to source the best quality ingredients.
If you’ve been following along, you might know how much I recommend buying local meat in bulk. This is a great way to find the best quality meat, and usually, save some money! When buying local meat, always make sure that the animals are grass-fed and pasture-raised (for beef), and that they are free from hormones and antibiotics.
Another advantage of buying meat in bulk is that you’ll have a wide variety of cuts and parts, including the organs, the fat, and the bones (but explicitly ask your farmer or butcher for them!). This way, you can experiment with nose-to-tail animal eating, which comes with many health benefits (for example, collagen-rich cuts of meat are a great way to eat more collagen and gelatin).
If you buy local pork, you’ll usually find that the meat is much fattier than the pork you can buy at the store. Many of the local pork roasts we have in the freezer have a 1 or 2-inch layer of fat all around. I usually trim most of the fat off before cooking my roasts and store the fat in a bag in the freezer for other uses. One great way to use this pork fat is by making sausages! You can also ask your butcher to purchase fat for making sausages.
Why organ meat in this sausage?
For this particular sausage recipes, I decided to include some organ meats.
Organ meats are extremely rich in vitamins and minerals that are not commonly found in muscle meat, which make them real superfoods! Consuming organ meats as part of a healthy diet is very beneficial for everyone and especially for pregnant women, growing children, and people recovering from illness. Read all about the nutritional value and health benefits of different organ meats here.
If you’re not used to eating organ meats, preparing it properly can seem challenging. Organ meats such as liver or kidneys come with an intense flavor and a different texture that can put many people off. There are many ways to make organ meats delicious (try these mouthwatering liver and tongue recipes), but “hiding” organ meats in sausages is the perfect way to start off, and even to make your picky eaters eat organ meats!
For this sausages recipe, I chose to use chicken liver and beef heart and kidney. You can stick to this or use a different combination of organ meats that you have available.
So let’s dive in and see how you can easily make your own organ meat breakfast sausage at home!
Organ Meat Breakfast Sausage Ingredients
- 2 pounds (1 kg) beef or pork meat (roast or stew meat)
- 1/2 pound (250 grams) pork fat
- 1/2 pound (250 grams) beef heart
- 1/2 pound (250 grams) beef or chicken liver
- 1/4 pound (100 grams) beef kidney or spleen or pancreas (optional)
- 3-4 teaspoons sea salt
- 2 teaspoons dry sage
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon dry rosemary
- 2-4 cloves garlic
Equipment
- Meat grinder
- Scale
How to Make this Organ Meat Breakfast Sausage
- Before starting: when making homemade sausage, always work with clean and cold equipment to avoid contamination. Put all bowls and grinder in the freezer or fridge before starting until they are cold.
- Cut all meat and fat into 1- or 2-inch chunks. You can use partially frozen meat and almost completely frozen fat. Place all meat and fat in the refrigerated bowl and add salt and spices and mix quickly. If your meat and fat were completely thawn out, place the meat, fat and seasoning mixture in the freezer for at least 30 minutes, up to 1 hour.
- Remove the grinder from the refrigerator and set it up following specific instructions. Use the coarse die.
- Grind the meat mixture pushing it through the grinder. Work quickly and keep the meat cold.
- Once all the meat is grinded, place it back in the freezer for a few minutes while you clean your equipment and working area thoroughly with hot soapy water.
- Remove the sausage mix from the freezer and mix it well using your clean hands or a stand mixer. Mix for a couple of minutes, until all ingredients are well incorporated and the sausage mix gets a little sticky. When mixing with your hands, knead the sausage like if it was bread dough.
- Form the breakfast sausage patties by taking a scoop of mix and forming a ball with your hands. Flatten it out a bit. You can make the patties as small or big as you wish.
- To cook the sausage: preheat a cast iron skillet or stainless steel pan over medium heat. Cook for about 5 minutes each side until the sausage is browned and cooked through.
- To freeze the sausage: place the uncooked patties between sheets of parchment paper and place in the freezer on a tray until frozen solid. Place patties in a zip lock bag and store in the freezer for up to 2 months.
Notes
I personally really like the combination of meats and flavours of these sausage, and the organ meat is there, but you can’t really taste it! You can also slightly adjust the sausage ingredients according to your taste: increase or decrease the amount of organ meat, and use the combination of herbs and spices that you prefer.
If you wish, you can make sausage links by stuffing the sausage mixture into sausage casings. You can also use the sausage meat in other recipes such as meat sauce, meatballs, skillets, soups.
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Ollygrin Electric Meat Grinder
Related posts
Why you Should Eat from Nose to Tail and How to Get Started
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Slow-Cooked Nourishing Beef Heart Stew in the Instant Pot
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Organ Meat Breakfast Sausage
Equipment
- 1 Scale
- 1 Meat grinder
Ingredients
- 2 pounds (1 kg) beef or pork meat roast or stew meat
- 1/2 pound (250 grams) pork fat
- 1/2 pound (250 grams) beef heart
- 1/2 pound (250 grams) beef or chicken liver
- 1/4 pound (100 grams) beef kidney or spleen or pancreas optional
- 3-4 teaspoons sea salt
- 2 teaspoons dry sage
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon dry rosemary
- 2-4 cloves garlic
Instructions
- Before starting: when making homemade sausage, always work with clean and cold equipment to avoid contamination. Put all bowls and grinder in the freezer or fridge before starting until they are cold.
- Cut all meat and fat into 1- or 2-inch chunks. You can use partially frozen meat and almost completely frozen fat. Place all meat and fat in the refrigerated bowl and add salt and spices and mix quickly. If your meat and fat were completely thawn out, place the meat, fat and seasoning mixture in the freezer for at least 30 minutes, up to 1 hour.
- Remove the grinder from the refrigerator and set it up following specific instructions. Use the coarse die.
- Grind the meat mixture pushing it through the grinder. Work quickly and keep the meat cold.
- Once all the meat is grinded, place it back in the freezer for a few minutes while you clean your equipment and working area thoroughly with hot soapy water.
- Remove the sausage mix from the freezer and mix it well using your clean hands or a stand mixer. Mix for a couple of minutes, until all ingredients are well incorporated and the sausage mix gets a little sticky. When mixing with your hands, knead the sausage like if it was bread dough.
- Form the breakfast sausage patties by taking a scoop of mix and forming a ball with your hands. Flatten it out a bit. You can make the patties as small or big as you wish.
To cook the sausage patties
- Preheat a cast iron skillet or stainless steel pan over medium heat. Cook for about 5 minutes each side until the sausage is browned and cooked through.
To freeze the sausage patties
- Place the uncooked patties between sheets of parchment paper and place in the freezer on a tray until frozen solid. Place patties in a zip lock bag and store in the freezer for up to 2 months.
