In the world of sausage making there are several types of sausages. The most basic is considered the “fresh bulk sausage”. The fresh bulk sausage is sausage that is not put into casings and consists of meat and seasonings that have been mixed together. In this category you might find the breakfast sausage, Mexican chorizo, and of course the Italian Sausage.
The Italian sausage is a great sausage and one that we make constantly for our business. We use this sausage in a plethora of dishes because it’s flavorful, versatile, and incredibly easy to make. Today I’m going to share with you the absolute easiest way you can make this awesome sausage at home and have it turn out better than anything you can buy at the store..
For todays “Easy Italian Sausage” recipe we will using pre-ground pork. Getting this from your local butcher is preferred but store bought is ok too. If you have the option try to get a 70/30 lean to fat ratio. This will give your sausage a lot of delicious juicy flavor. When you are ready to make sausage take your ground meat (along with the water that’s called for in this recipe) and place it in the freezer for 30 minutes. This will chill your ground meat and make your water ice cold. We want our meat to be cold during the entire process.
Now that you have your meat and water in the freezer chilling let’s get the seasonings together. I personally like to weigh my seasonings out and place them in a small container (this makes it easier for later). By weighing your seasonings out you can ensure that your sausage will come out the same every time you make it. A small kitchen scale that weighs in both ounces and grams is a great tool to have in your kitchen.
Now that everything is ready let’s mix our sausage meat. Add the seasonings and ice cold water to your chilled ground pork meat and begin to mix. Mixing by hand is the more traditional way of doing this but if you happen to have a kitchen aid stand mixer, mixing it on a medium speed will allow this process to happen much faster (depending on how much you make you might have to work in batches).
You are going to mix your meat till all the seasonings are well incorporated and the meat mixture starts to get sticky/tacky. If you grab a small hand full of the mixture it will want to stick to your hand. As soon as that happens you are finished!
This sausage freezes great. We generally freeze 1 pound portions in freezer safe zip lock bags with the air removed (or vac sealed bags).
Enjoy the video and the recipe. If you have any questions feel free to ask away. If you make this at home I’d love to hear about how it came out!!
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A note about this recipe. If you want to make less/more of this sausage just adjust the weight in the “weight of your meat/fat” section.
Italian Sausage
Ingredients
- 2270 g ground pork meat 70/30
- 36 g kosher salt
- 2.25 g black pepper
- 5.75 g garlic powder
- 5.75 g onion powder
- 15 g paprika
- 8 g anise
- 29.50 g fennel seed
- 1/2 cup ice cold water
For a Hot Italian Sausage add the following
- 8 g red pepper flakes
- 4.50 g cayenne pepper
Instructions
- Place ground meat and water in the freezer for 30 minutes
- Add seasonings and ice cold water to the chilled ground meat
- Mix until the mince meat becomes very sticky and tacky
- Portion into freezer friendly zip lock bags, remove as much air as possible, and freeze for later use.
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Loving this channel since I am a new sausage maker. I have tried several recipes heer and have had good luck with them. I really like that they are written out in grams although if I had my way it would be ratios,
I tried this twice and the second time i bumped up the fennel ration by about a 1/4 . I did 2/3 ground fennel and the rest whole seeds. Seemed to have more of the taste you get from store bought. But that is the fun of this hobby, making the sausages your own way.
Anyway, keep up the good work
Hey Kevin, Thanks for the comment. Excellent to hear about the mods. I’ll have to give them a try.. If you ever have any questions be sure to reach out..
Hey Kevin… what I do to get ratios is to set the volume of the product to 1000. Then all the grams turn into percentages.
By moving the decimal place.
Just made a batch of Italian sausage and it’s amazing. I feel comfortable making large batches of your recipes for the first time. Because they are all great. I have a question for you. You mention getting the freshest pork you can find. Does that mean unfrozen or frozen. I have just begun to make dry cured sausage and read to freeze it for a month first. We raised pigs this year for the first time so I am excited to make sausage ham and bacon from our own meat. Just wanted to know your input on freezing first.
Freezing your pork for a month will kill off any Trichinella spiralis parasite (if there is any). It’s a good idea to freeze if this is a concern. Just make sure it’s properly frozen (vac sealed) so as to not get freezer burnt. After that the meat will be ready to use..
Hey Eric! I was looking at this recipe and comparing it to a few others I have in books. The fennel seed ratio seemed high as compared to the other recipes. I was just hoping to verify that is the desired ratio. Any info is appreciated,
It’s correct. You can always start with half, taste a piece, then adjust if necessary..
Eric, made 5# of this today.
Did not add the anise because I didn’t have any and not sure how I’d like it.
Mine turned out real well.
Thank you.
This is the third of your recipes that I’ve tried and all have been fantastic, so far.
Look forward to doing more
I’m glad you liked it. We just did 50 pounds this week for lasagna. Turned out amazing!!
Hi Eric, love your channel and recipes, just curious I’m going to grind my own pork butt, just what size plate do you recommend for the grind..? I have mostly all plates. Thanks, Stan
I would go 6mm
What about dry milk powder? Would you incorporate that with your season as well?
sure. Add 2% and you are good to go
Why not use fresh garlic and onion? I did and was great.
Cheers
Absolutely. Fresh is a great option.
Going to give this a try but I’ve always used red wine vinegar instead of water. Is there a reason for not using red wine vinegar?
The vinegar will denature the proteins of the meat and cause the sausage to be loose textures and crumbly
Just made my first small batch of 4 lbs. It was very good! The recipe calls for 8 g of anise, which I didn’t have so I skipped it. Would that be anise seeds or ground anise? Thanks!
I use anise seed but you can use ground if that’s what you have