Homemade breakfast sausage

I don’t know about you, but finding a good breakfast sausage in our everyday grocery store is near to impossible. Most have added nitrites or nitrates in the ingredients, or MSG, or a whopping dose of sugar. Here’s our take on making your own. It’s really quite simple, and well worth the effort. My suggestion is to double or triple this recipe, vacuum seal the sausage you won’t immediately use, and freeze until you need it.

1 pound (450 g) ground pork
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¾ teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, finely chopped
¼ teaspoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

  1. Take ground pork and mix with all the ingredients. Form into 2-inch-wide patties.
  2. Heat a skillet over medium heat. Place sausage patties in skillet, and cook until browned, then flip over and continue cooking until sausage is fully cooked through.

Variations — If you have a meat grinder, buy a pound (450 g) of pork butt along with ¼ pound (110 g) of fatback, dice those into chunks and combine with all the spices, and pass through the meat grinder. If you have a sausage stuffer, you can also buy your own casings and make sausage links. This recipe also works well with making turkey or chicken sausage.