Homegrown Pork Sausage Recipes

We butchered a couple of our “accidental mix” pigs recently, and, in typical fashion, did the processing ourselves instead of taking it to a meat processor. There are a lot of different ways a pig or hog can be done but because of the mixed breed these particular ones where, instead of traditional scalding, we kept it simple and just skinned them like you would do a wild boar. Since the pigs we did were half American Guinea Hog and half Pot Belly Pig, the areas where you normally find the fancy cuts were not very meaty so we did all pork tips and sausage. There are definite drawbacks to having that mix and most people shun a pig that is part pot belly, but because we did the processing ourselves, we got enough meat for the effort to be worthwhile. If we had paid a processor to do it though, the price point probably wouldn’t have made sense. The meat is still very tasty and since we didn’t raise them to maximum slaughter size, it’s easy enough to process a couple of pigs at a time without being overwhelmed.

When it comes time for our full American Guinea Hogs to be butchered, we’ll have more of the regular typical “butcher shop” type cuts because they are true meat pigs. The book The Ultimate Guide to Home Butchering by Monte Burch is an outstanding source for where to find what cuts of meat on the animal. He covers everything from Cows and Pigs to Deer and Game Birds. There is a lot of skinning and dressing instruction in it, but the pictures of where to find butcher shop cuts was terrific. We have another really handy book, Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages by Stanley Marianski with loads of information on how to turn the butchered animal into table and freezer ready meats. He covers sausage producing methods, pork to fat ratios, and recipes for all types of sausage as well as smoked meats, bacon, ham and jerky. I learned SO much from it that I didn’t even know I didn’t know!

For the sausage we made that is in this post, we decided on two different, slightly tweaked, recipes from an old Searchlight Recipes cookbook of my mother’s that would fit what we use most of our sausage for. There were three versions we came up with, the first one we vetoed, the second, spicy one we decided was meant for breakfast or in eggs and the third was the Italian type sweet sausage perfect for meatballs for sauce. I’ve only included 2 and 3 at the bottom of this post, and would’ve just called them 1 and 2 had I not labeled my packages “Recipe #3” in the picture and made it all confusing!

Our meat grinder isn’t a fancy one, it’s a low end Weston 575 Watt Meat Grinder and Sausage Stuffer. We have never used the stuffer part because we just don’t use cased sausages. Ours is usually scrambled or made into meatballs so we put ours in bags like these 1 Lb. Pork Sausage Bags that can go straight into the freezer.

Once you have the sausage ground, it’s as easy as mixing the spices together, sprinkling them over the meat and kneading them in.

I have a great fennel seed grinder, but it’s a custom model that talks A LOT… 😉

Some of our finished bags ready to go to the freezer.

Spicy Italian Sausage – aka Recipe #2

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INGREDIENTS

2 Lbs Pork
1 Tbsp Salt
1/2 tsp Sugar
2 tsp Ground Black Pepper
2 tsp Cracked Fennel Seeds
1 Tbsp Dried Parsley
1 Tbsp Garlic Powder
1 Tbsp Onion Powder
1 tsp Dried Oregano
1/8 tsp Dried Thyme
1 tsp Crushed Red Pepper
1 Tbsp Dried Basil
2 tsp Paprika

NOTES

Note: Garlic and Onion Powders do not hold up well once mixed into the meat and frozen. Look for about a 6 month life for them before their flavor starts fading.

Sweet Italian Sausage – aka Recipe #3

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INGREDIENTS