Homemade Sausage

I came across this recipe by Lucinda Scala Quinn to make your own sausage in the October issue of Martha Stewart Living. Unless you have a KitchenAid mixer and a meat grinder accessory, making your own sausage always sounded too hard and not worth the effort. But this one seemed doable since you only need a food processor and a little room in your freezer. I tried it out, still skeptical, but it worked great and the spice mixture for the sausage is soooo good.  You could also just add this spice mix to already ground chicken or turkey and not even need the food processor!

You start with a 4 lb. Boneless Pork Shoulder Roast (per LSQ, this has the best ratio of meat to fat for sausage):

I found mine on sale for only $3 
per pound- much cheaper than
 a $5 package of Jimmy Dean!

The next step is to cut up the roast into 1/2 inch cubes, which can be a little time consuming, but also a little cathartic if like working at your cutting board like I do. Place the cubed meat on a parchment lined baking sheet and freeze for about 20 minutes.

I froze the meat in batches, 2 pounds at a
 time so that I could keep it in a single layer.

While the meat is hardening up in the freezer, put together the spice mixture. Lucinda's recipe calls for fresh herbs, but I cut costs (fresh herbs are $4 a piece at my grocery store!) by using a 1:2 ratio of dried to fresh herbs, i.e. one T. of dried thyme instead of 2 T. fresh. I did use fresh sage because I really like the taste of it fresh. I was also surprised that this has so much nutmeg in it! 

Lucinda Scala Quinn's Sausage spice mix: 

2 T. Fresh Sage

2 T. Fresh Thyme (I used 1 T. dried thyme)

1 T. plus 1 1/2 t. course salt

7-8 cloves of garlic, minced

1 T. nutmeg

1 T. cayenne pepper

Take the meat from the freezer, and working in four batches, add 1/4 of the spice mix (a little less than 2 T.) to 1 lb. of the frozen, cubed pork in a food processor. Pulse on high until only small pieces of fat remain, about 1 minute. Transfer to a piece of parchment paper and shape/roll into a log. Use fresh or store in the freezer for later. 

The sticky, almost whipped texture of the sausage 
doesn't stick to the parchment paper,
 even after you defrost it.

This tastes delicious in a pasta sauce, in an Italian lentil stew, or sliced into patties when the log is slightly defrosted. I like having this on hand in my freezer because you don't need much of it to add a lot of flavor to a meal!