Homemade Sausages
Sadly, one of our household was recently diagnosed as diabetic. One of the dietary changes we have to make is to not eat processed meat. Having looked into this further we discovered that it is the high salt content that is the basic problem. Since we do like a sausage we decided to try and find a recipe that would allow us to make our own sausages and thus control the salt levels. OK, you do need a meat grinder and, if you want to make actual sausages, a sausage maker, but it is worth it and it isn’t a huge amount of effort. Once made you can eat them fresh or freeze them. We keep a little aside to make our Spicy Sausage Fusilli Bake and then form the rest into sausages. They really do taste excellent and we are in complete control of the salt content. We found the original recipe on the internet and then adjusted it slightly to our own taste. Why not make real bangers and try our Spicy Sausage and Bean One-Pot or our Toad in the Hole with the best Onion Gravy or a Mediterranean Sausage Casserole.
Homemade Sausages
Equipment
- Meat grinder and a sausage maker
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg Pork Shoulder skin on
- 2 tsp White Pepper
- 1 tsp Nutmeg
- 2 tsp Dried Sage
- 1 tsp Onion Powder
- ΒΌ tsp Dried Thyme
- 1 tsp Ground Ginger
- 150 g Breadcrumbs
- 1 tsp Salt natural sea salt
- Sausage Casings
Instructions
- First prepare the pork. Take the skin and as much fat as you can off the pork shoulder. Take care, you need a very sharp knife and to always cut away from yourself. Put the pork aside and then very carefully take the fat off the skin. This takes a bit of practice but is an important step. You want to end up with about 100g of pork fat
- Cut the pork into pieces that are big enough to pass through your meat grinder and then grind the meat and fat. Don't try to grind all the fat at once, it will clog the meat grinder, mix it with the meat as you grind it
- Put the breadcrumbs, white pepper, nutmeg, sage, onion powder, thyme, ginger and salt into a bowl large enough to also take the pork mince. Mix all the ingredients together creating a mix that will ultimately get mixed throughout the pork mince. Next add the pork mince and start your workout! Mix with clean hands until all of the seasoning ingredients and the breadcrumbs can no longer be seen. This may take up to 15 minutes but is a critical stage. Put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes
- Soak the sausage casings in water for at least 30 minutes. When you are ready to make the sausages, thread the sausage casings onto the sausage machine nozzle carefully. When you have threaded as much casing as you can onto the nozzle, tie a knot in the end and then prick a small hole near the end to prevent any air build up as you begin to fill the casings. Carefully, wind the handle (assuming you are using a manual sausage maker, if you have a machine use the slowest setting) and start to fill the sausage casings
- When you have made enough sausage for your requirements, twist off the end and tie a knot in it. Now go back over your long sausage and twist to make 'links' that form sausages that are the right length for your taste. At this point you can either freeze them, put them in the fridge for a couple of days, or cook them straight away. If you have extra sausage mix left over this can be frozen (once) and then thoroughly defrosted in a fridge before making more sausages
- When you come to cook the sausges, they can be fried gently in a frying pan for around 25 minutes, turning regularly, or you can cook them on barbecue slowly and again turning regularly. Or try them in one of the recipes mentioned above