Making Homemade Italian Sausage

Making Homemade Italian Sausage

Making homemade Italian Sausage is really not that difficult. We haven't made our own homemade sausage for a long time. Sammy thought it was time to make some of our own again.

So, we set a weekend date and got to work. The best part of making your own Italian sausage is that you'll be able to season it to your personal taste.

The first thing that I did was check our local grocery stores for the best prices of pork butt. Luckily one of our local stores had it on sale for $.99 a pound.

Coarse ground pork


I ordered 20 pounds of pork butt coarse ground and asked the butcher for enough casings to stuff the sausage. If you grind the meat yourself cut it into about 1 or 2-inch pieces and coarse grind it. It is very important to keep the meat cold so work with small portions.

Making Homemade Italian Sausage: Our Spices


Italian sausage spices

We use some very simple spices for our homemade sausage. Garlic powder, coarse ground black pepper, fennel seed, crushed red pepper, Paprika, and missing for the picture salt. The amounts we use for 20 pounds will be below.

Mix Italian sausage

Next, we added our spices and mixed the pork. After thoroughly mixing we set it in the refrigerator to keep the meat cold. I recommend mixing the pork in smaller batches, maybe 5 pounds at a time. Mixing 20 pounds at a time is just the way we've always made it.

sausage taste test


After about an hour in the refrigerator and before we started stuffing our links. We fried some so we could taste-test our mixture. This is a great idea because you may want to add more spices. We found ours to be just the way we like it.

Making Homemade Italian Sausage: Stuffing the Links


making sausage links

We soaked our casings in warm water for about 30 minutes. Then we rinsed them with cold water before we used them.

We rubbed a little olive oil onto the stuffer threaded one casing over it and then tied off the end. We used our KitchenAid Stand Mixer with the grinder and stuffer attachment to stuff our casings.

We worked with 5 pounds of meat at a time and kept the rest in the refrigerator. Again it is very important to keep the meat cold while working. 

As Sammy loaded the hopper I made the links giving them a twist about every 6 or 7 inches. We find at this size four links equals one pound.

The first casing yielded 5.5 pounds. Some people like to cut the casings into a shorter length. It's up to you and is a personal preference.

Bobby making sausage

Bobby stopped over and gave me a little break. This is his first time making sausage and I have to say he is a natural. he took right over and didn't skip a beat.

  If you get any air bubbles while stuffing just prick them with a needle to let the air out.

Making Homemade Italian Sausage: The Recipe

Spices for 20 pounds of Sausage:

1/3 cup salt
1/4 cup coarse black pepper
1/4 cup Fennel Seed
1/4 cup paprika
1/2 cup crushed red pepper (optional)
1/3 cup garlic powder

Breaking this down to 5 pounds:

4 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon fennel seed
1 tablespoon paprika
2 tablespoons crushed red pepper (optional)
1 tablespoon garlic powder

I marked the red pepper as optional if you don't like hot sausage. We also made some sausage patties they're perfect for breakfast or a quick sandwich. It turned out to be a fun day making homemade sausage with my son and grandson.

As always thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy.

My KitchenAid is without a dought my best kitchen tool. For making more than 5 pounds of sausage I thought the KitchenAid was a bit slow. I'm going to invest in one of these to make the next 20 pounds.

14 comments:

  1. Yummy! This sounds easy to make. Thanks for sharing the recipe Sam.

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    1. It is really not that hard to make Thelma. Just a little time consuming but well worth it. Thanks so much for stopping by.

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  2. Sounds like a wonderful recipe! Yum!

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    1. It is a wonderful recipe Peggy. The best part is that it's seasoned to the way you like it. Thanks for stopping by.

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  3. I love Italian sausage! My dad and brothers make sausage, but I haven't yet. I guess I should invite myself next time so I can try it!

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    1. We had a lot of fun making our Homemade Italian Sausage. Go ahead and invite yourself the next time Carlee. We like making it ourselves because you can season it to your own taste. Thanks for stopping by.

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  4. I have always liked to do things in the kitchen from scratch since it not only TASTES good, but it's usually a heck of a lot cheaper too. I have never done sausages, and would need to get some equipment to do it, but I am saving this recipe. Nothing like sausages on the grill and since summer is right around the corner...this could even complement my smoker.

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    1. The best part of making it yourself Jim is that you get to season it to your own taste. It's great on the grill. I've never tried it in a smoker but I'm guessing it would be fantastic. Thanks for stopping by.

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  5. Thanks, Sam! I will try this. You are a better man than me for using the kitchen aid to stuff.

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    1. I'm not so sure about better David. I think the KitchenAid works fine for a couple of pounds but that's it. We stuffed 20 pounds why too much for the KitchendAid. I'll be using one like yours next time.

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  6. Great recipe Sam and one I will definitely be trying when I can get some casing :)

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  7. I like sausages but I am always wary about what goes into them. With this, no more worries, I will know exactly what is in them. It sounds like a good craft exercise too, making and forming your own links!

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  8. Looks as fun to make as tasty! Yeah, that option -- the red pepper. Um. Not for me. Fennel is interesting. What about anise?

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