You Can Make Your Own Breakfast Sausage
Breakfast sausage is not a special cut of meat. It is simply ground meat seasoned with the familiar combination of sage, thyme, black pepper, and other warm spices. Once you have the seasoning ready, you can turn ground pork, chicken, or turkey into homemade breakfast sausage whenever you need it.
Making your own also means you get to choose the meat. You are not limited to overly fatty pork or a package of processed sausage with a long ingredient list. You can use good-quality ground pork, make leaner sausage with chicken or turkey, or even grind the meat yourself.
The dry blend takes only a few minutes to prepare and stores easily in the pantry. When you are ready to make sausage, use one tablespoon of seasoning for every pound of meat, add a little pure maple syrup, and cook a small test patty before shaping the rest.
Why Make Breakfast Sausage at Home?
The biggest reason to make your own sausage is control. You choose the meat, the amount of fat, the seasonings, and the ingredients used to sweeten and cook it.
A package labeled breakfast sausage may contain considerably more than meat, salt, and spices. Not every brand contains the same ingredients, so it is important to read the label, but some processed breakfast sausages contain ingredients such as:
- Corn syrup and dextrose: Inexpensive sweeteners that may be used instead of real maple syrup.
- BHA and BHT: Synthetic antioxidants added to help prevent fats from becoming rancid and extend shelf life.
- Propyl gallate: Another antioxidant commonly used with BHA or BHT to preserve processed fats.
- Natural and artificial flavors: Broad terms that do not tell you exactly what was used to create the flavor.
- Sodium phosphate: Used in some processed meats to help retain moisture and improve texture.
- Sodium nitrite: A curing agent and preservative found in some fully cooked or cured sausage products. It is not present in every breakfast sausage.
- Mechanically separated poultry and soy protein concentrate: Lower-cost ingredients sometimes used in processed sausage crumbles and frozen breakfast products.
- Maltodextrin, potassium lactate, and sodium diacetate: Ingredients that may be used to alter flavor, retain moisture, or extend shelf life.
These are not hypothetical ingredients. Current breakfast-sausage labels include combinations of corn syrup, dextrose, BHA, propyl gallate, natural flavors, and other additives. For example, Johnsonville’s mild breakfast sausage patties list corn syrup, natural flavor, BHA, and propyl gallate. Its processed maple sausage products have also included ingredients such as maltodextrin, sodium phosphate, sodium diacetate, and artificial flavors.
When you make breakfast sausage at home, the ingredient list is straightforward: meat, your homemade seasoning, pure maple syrup, and butter or extra virgin olive oil.
Choosing the Meat
Ground pork provides the richest and most traditional breakfast-sausage texture because it naturally contains more fat. However, this blend also works well with ground chicken or turkey.
When using very lean poultry, add one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil per pound of meat. The added fat helps prevent the sausage from becoming dry and gives it a better texture.
Whichever meat you choose, mix it gently. Working or packing the meat too aggressively can produce firm, dense sausage rather than tender patties.
Why the Seasoning Needs to Be Ground
This is not a seasoning blend that should simply be measured into a jar and shaken together.
Rubbed sage, thyme, and crushed red pepper are much larger and lighter than salt, onion powder, garlic powder, and ground spices. If they are only stirred together, the finer ingredients settle toward the bottom while the herbs remain on top. One spoonful may contain mostly herbs, while the next contains too much salt or pepper.
A spice grinder breaks everything down into a fine, evenly textured blend so each tablespoon contains the proper balance of seasonings. A mortar and pestle can also be used, although it will require a little more work.
Grinding also explains why the finished amount looks much smaller than the combined ingredients. Before grinding, the seasonings measure approximately four tablespoons. Once the bulky herbs are broken down, the finished blend measures closer to two tablespoons.
More Than Breakfast Patties
This seasoning can be used anywhere you want the flavor of breakfast sausage. Use the seasoned meat to make sausage links or patties, or cook it loose for sausage gravy, breakfast casseroles, egg dishes, stuffing, breakfast sandwiches, or homemade sausage biscuits.
Having the blend prepared ahead of time lets you make only the amount of sausage you need without buying another processed package.
Breakfast Sausage Seasoning Blend
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp rubbed sage
- 2 tsp dried thyme
- 2 tsp ground black pepper
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- 1½ tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Add the sage, thyme, black pepper, kosher salt, onion powder, garlic powder, crushed red pepper, and nutmeg to a spice grinder.Pulse until the herbs and spices are ground into a fine, evenly textured seasoning. Stop once or twice to shake the grinder or scrape down the sides so that no large pieces of sage, thyme, or crushed red pepper remain.A mortar and pestle may be used if you do not have a spice grinder. Grind the sage, thyme, and crushed red pepper first, then add the remaining ingredients and continue grinding until evenly combined.Do not simply combine the ingredients by shaking them in a jar. The larger herbs will separate from the finer spices, making it difficult to measure a properly balanced tablespoon of seasoning.Transfer the finished seasoning to an airtight jar. Label the jar and store it in a cool, dry place away from
To Make Breakfast Sausage
- 1 pound ground meat1 tablespoon breakfast sausage seasoning1 tablespoon pure maple syrup1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, if using lean ground chicken or turkeyButter or extra virgin olive oil, for cookingPlace the ground meat in a mixing bowl. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of seasoning evenly over the meat and add the maple syrup. When using lean ground chicken or turkey, add 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil to provide moisture and richness.Mix gently with your hands until the seasoning is evenly distributed. Avoid packing or aggressively kneading the mixture, which can make the cooked sausage firm.Before shaping the entire batch, cook a small piece of the sausage in a skillet. Taste the cooked sample and add more seasoning to the remaining mixture if desired.Shape the sausage into patties. Heat a small amount of butter or extra virgin olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the patties without crowding the pan and cook for 3–4 minutes per side, or until browned and completely cooked through.
Notes
- Use 1 tablespoon as the starting amount for each pound of meat. Always cook and taste a small test portion before shaping the sausage so the seasoning can be adjusted if necessary.