The Seasoning Mistake To Avoid When Making Homemade Sausage

You might be quick to grab store-bought sausage at the supermarket, but there's a case for making homemade sausage when you have the time to put in the effort. You'll have control over what meats go into the blend, the salt and spice levels, plus what other seasonings you add to the ground meat. Amongst the many mistakes you can make with homemade sausage, however, a big issue comes in the seasoning, according to Hunter Shoults, the plant manager in charge of production of all meats at Bear Creek Smokehouse in Marshall, Texas, who also happens to be the son of celebrity chef Robbie Shoults.

"Over seasoning and under-seasoning are typical mistakes when making sausage at home," Shoults says. "It's difficult to know how well a seasoning blend will stand out with the other ingredients in the meat block, but a typical rule of thumb is to use 2%." For clarification, that percentage refers to how much of the overall mixture should be the seasoning blend. That means for every five pounds of sausage, around 1.6 ounces of that should be your go-to spices — and you can add more based on specific recipes or your spice preference.

Salt and black pepper are no-brainers, but there are different seasoning blends to use depending on the type of sausage you want to make. For a general sausage mixture, use a combination of spices like paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and red chili flakes. To make breakfast sausage, just like those patties at the grocery store, use a blend of brown sugar for a touch of sweetness, dried herbs like sage or thyme, garlic powder, and crushed red pepper flakes for heat. And to make Italian-style homemade sausages, go with Italian seasoning, paprika, fennel seeds, onion and garlic powders, then add crushed red pepper if you want a hot version of the sausage. Base your amount of spices on how much meat is going into the blend, then combine well per the recipe.

When the mixture is ready, put it into casings to make links, form patties, or keep it as ground sausage to add to an array of recipes. Whichever form you choose, we have recipe suggestions that can be upgraded with all of the effort that you put into the homemade sausage. Try ground sausage in our biscuits and herbed sausage gravy recipe for breakfast or with our deconstructed lasagna soup for a comforting lunch. And for anyone who makes links, add it to our chicken sausage and bell pepper pasta recipe no matter what type of meat is in the homemade sausage.