DIY Sausage Seasoning-Great For Homemade Sausage

Homemade sausage seasoning can turn virtually any meat into a sausage-like flavorful meal!

Biscuits and gravy. Pizza. Tossed in with spaghetti. Is there a better way to enjoy sausage? The problem for us is that most sausage is pork based. We don’t eat the regular sausage from pork for a lot of reasons.

final sausage seasoning

I am not a fan of how commercial pigs are raised for meat, nor am I of the belief that their meat is good for you at all. We also abstain from pork for religious reasons, according to Levitical food laws.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, and different beliefs for each person.  Go with what you feel is best for your family, of course.  This is just *my* personal opinion and what we believe.

Learning to live without one of our favorite foods wasn’t easy. We LOVED sausage pizza on the weekends, and a hearty breakfast of biscuits with sausage gravy made winter mornings far more bearable.

My family loved the taste of pork sausage like nobody’s business, and when I took this out of our diets, a revolt started.

Try this spicy sausage and noodles recipe

I had to make a change in how I seasoned the meat we could eat. I found that by mixing different seasonings with hamburger, turkey, or even chicken, I could achieve a sausage-like flavor without the pork.

We like to use this on pizza, with eggs in the morning, and we have even tried stuffing our own sheep casings to make our own sausage.

What is in Sausage Seasoning?

Ask any cook what’s in sausage seasoning, and you’re probably going to get a different response from each one. However, most homemade sausage blends include black pepper and salt at a bare minimum.

If you are making Italian sausage seasoning, add parsley, oregano, basil, fennel seed, paprika, red pepper flakes, onion powder, and garlic powder to this list.

If you’re making breakfast sausage, you will be using milder, sweeter ingredients like brown sugar (sometimes even cloves and marjoram, too) while a hot sausage will have spicy additives like cayenne or chili powder.

There are lots of reasons to make your own sausage seasoning. Not only does storebought sausage contain questionable ingredients like MSG and corn syrup, but it’s also much more expensive than a DIY, homemade version.

The DIY sausage seasoning recipe that has my family fooled:

sausage seasoning thumbnail

DIY Sausage Seasoning Recipe

The Homesteading Hippy

Ingredients
  

  • 3/4 cup salt
  • 3/4 cup dried sage
  • 3/4 cup dried thyme
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar or sucanat
  • 3 tsp black pepper
  • 3 tsp rosemary
  • 1 tsp chili powder more if you like yours spicy

Instructions
 

  • Mix ingredients in order in a jar.
    adding sugar and spices
  • Add an airtight lid and shake it up.
  • Let sit for at least 30 minutes before use to allow the spices to settle together.
  • Store in an airtight jar for up to 3 months.
  • To use, add 1/4 cup to each pound of meat.
  • For sausage like patties, mix the meat with the seasonings and then shape and fry.
    final sausage seasoning

A Few Tips for Making DIY Sausage Seasoning

When I made my sausage seasoning, I simply combined the ingredients in a jar. However, you may want to use a miniature food processor or spice grinder if you want more uniform, even pieces.

Mixing the spices in a jar can make some chunkier than others. I don’t mind this, but some people might!

You might also find this recipe a bit too salty for your liking. Bear in mind that you can reduce the salt portions (or even eliminate salt altogether!) if you don’t like salty foods or are trying to watch your sodium intake.

Not sure how your DIY sausage seasoning is going to taste? Here’s a quick tip – make up a small batch of sausage and try your seasoning out as you do so!

That way, you can be sure you have the flavors right (and that the mixture isn’t too salty or overpowering) before you make up a huge batch.

finished sausage patty
finished sausage patty

You can use either fresh or dried herbs for your DIY sausage seasoning. However, keep in mind that dried herbs will not only have a more uniform texture, but they’ll be stronger and more potent, too.

To use as ground sausage for pizza toppings, spaghetti, biscuits, and gravy, etc. then you will add the seasonings as the meat is finishing browning, with up to 1 /3 cup water to blend into the meat. This is great for homemade breakfast sausage seasoning, too!

DIY sausage seasoning is terrific on beef, chicken, and turkey. We use it on pizza and in homemade breakfast sausage. Give it a try! BE SURE TO PIN THIS TO YOUR FAVORITE BOARD FOR LATER.

sausage seasoning pin

22 thoughts on “DIY Sausage Seasoning-Great For Homemade Sausage”

  1. Katie@SimpleFoody

    HA! So crazy that you posted this today!! I was just heading to the kitchen to work on a sausage recipe to use up all that ground pork in my freezer. Love it.

      1. Thank goodness I found this recipe! I don’t eat pork and I love bacon and sausage. I’ve found a beef bacon I just needed the sausage. I’m trying this immediately. Thanks!

  2. raisingcropsandbabies

    Oh, I’m so excited to try this! We only buy pork from local farmers who pasture their hogs. We were hoping to raise 5 of our own this year, but a deal fell through and they are crazy expensive. Now that baling season is upon us, we just decided to buy a whole pig again and get it processed. We will get the sausage plain so we can add our own seasonings. Perfect timing for this recipe. 🙂

  3. What a great photo of the sausage patties! I’m pinning this to try. I already have used a recipe to make my ground turkey more sausage-like, but I will have to try this one too. I also avoid pork, but mine is because sometimes it upsets my husband’s stomach.

  4. I am really excited to try this recipe! I love the flavors of sausage, but it would be good in ground beef or chicken as well.

  5. Thanks for the recipe, however, do you really believe the other animals you eat are being raised any differently? If you don’t grow it yourself, then you truly don’t know where it’s coming from.

    1. thanks for your comment…if you read my blog at all, you’ll discover that we DO raise our own animals for food.

  6. Thanks for sharing this! I recently became aware of how bad factory farming is and I simply will not participate. We have the land for some animals, maybe some chickens. For now I am excited to try this for a vegetarian style inspired sausage. I really just want the flavor of sausage. 🙂

  7. I can’t wait to try this, my family loves the turkey breakfast sausage. But I much prefer making it myself. Although I haven’t found the right flavoring yet. We do not eat pork either, for religious reasons. When I married my spouse my mother thought I was joining a cult, LOL!

    1. LOL…I had the same issue with my family 🙂 if you tell someone you don’t eat pork for health reasons, they are okay with it. Religious reasons-not so much! 😉

  8. I am headed to the kitchen to try this with a pound of deer meat. I have heard people make excellent sausage out of it. Your recipe came out just in time. I think I will have to add some bacon because of how lean the meat is though. I believe it has to have some sort of fat added to it. Thank you for the recipe. First of your jar recipes i am trying out. 🙂

      1. Notes from culinary school I thought might be helpful. I can’t wait to hear how it turns out.

        Game meat is very usually very lean. Pork can be almost all fat (trimmings), or lean with fat (pork butts or shoulders).

        Remember that you want to end up with a total lean to fat ratio of 75-80% lean and 20-25% fat It is not the ratio of game meat to domestic meat that is important but the ratio of lean to fat

        Here are some guidelines for Venison or Elk:
        1. Using a ratio of 50% game meat to 50% pork butts or pork shoulders will give you a high quality sausage with a pork influence.
        2. Using a ratio of 75% game meat to 25% pork trimmings will give the game meat some pork flavor and bind it when cooking, without removing the venison taste. There is a difference in Pork Trimmings. They can vary from 90% fat – 10% lean to 50% fat – 50% lean. Consider this when mixing with your game meat. Our choice is to use 75% game to 25% pork trimmings that are 90% fat – 10% lean.
        3. You can use wild hog for the pork if you have it or use your wild hog to make 100% pork sausage. Sausage made from all wild hog will not have the fat content nor will it taste the same as sausage made with domestic pork.

    1. Heather Harris

      to be honest, I’ve only had it last 3 months in my home. Most spices start to lose their deep flavor after that time as well.

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