Penzey's Breakfast Sausage Seasoning- a recommendation!


 
Mike Willis

Mike Willis

TVWBB All-Star
I bought a small bag of this to try with some ground pork. All of the commercial sausage I've tried has been very disappointing to me - lots of gristle, too much sage, no flavor, too hot, etc. etc. So I decided to try my own with Penzey's help. I had my local Basha's grocery store grind up 2 one pound packages of pork butt (I thought pork loin would be too dry). I prepared one pound yesterday and tried it this morning. My wife wasn't too sure it would taste good because she wasn't getting the good sausage aroma as she fried it in the CI skillet. However, it turned out great! Great flavor (in our opinion), not hot and the meat was free of gristle and bone... perfect! I'll continue to buy this seasoning from Penzey's and make my own sausage patties as long as this stuff is available. It only requires 1 TB per pound of ground pork, so it goes a long way. If you like hot sausage, it's easy to add more spice to the recipe but I like it as is.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this with my friends here on TVWBB!
 
I don't think you'll be disappointed. I ordered 2 one pound packs because I wasn't sure I would like it and I could use the other pound of ground pork to add to ground chuck for meat loaf, burgers, etc. However, I'm preparing the other pound of pork tomorrow. It's so good I might just order a meat grinder to make my own ground pork and ground chuck!

Hope you enjoy!
 
"It's so good I might just order a meat grinder to make my own ground pork and ground chuck!"

Hey Mike If you do that you are only one more step (the stuffer) away from making your own sausage from scratch. Pork butt is ideal, enough fat to add flavor, keep it moist but not too much fat. Another plus for making your own is you can control the amount of salt you add to your meat. Picnic shoulders also work but have more fat. There are tons of sausage recipes out there too. I would love to try the Pensey's but getting it up here is the problem.
 
What Gary said. We have a grinder with a stuffer attachment from Harbor Freight that works well and was a minimal investment (especially compared to the Kitchen Aid attachment).

Thanks for the Penzeys tip!
 
I started making patties is 1986. That lasted for about 2 months before I found an antique stuffer made by Enterprise. It had a gear system big enough to change out a truck differential! The big advantage to buying an actual stuffer over a grinder with various sized stuffing funnels is you eliminate the air pockets and you can load your casings according to the mix. In other words the density of the meat filling into the casings. Some grinds and mixes are more or less liquid than others. I have had a Tre Spade now for several years. (made in Italy) It holds 10 lbs of meat at a time. Making sausage is fun, very rewarding and it can be quite healthy as compared to store bought products. Lots of commecial sausage contains fillers too.
 
Do you guys use the stuffer for links or for sausage rolls you cut patties from (like Jimmy Dean sausage rolls)? I'm so new at this that I'm just hand-forming patties and putting them between sheets of wax paper in a freezer bag....
 
Mikey that's great handforming your patties. Basically when you stuff sausage meat into casings you are filling several feet of casing and then while it is in one length you twist into links. You can freeze it like that or cut the links at that point and freeze or cook them. I have a comercial food saver as I would make 50 lbs at a time and package my links four to a bag for freezing. I also have 2" casings that I stuff for making sausage rounds. I freeze them, take them out for 10 minuts, slice while frozen and fry'em up. They are awesome too.
What you are doing is fine for now but the patties will dry out over time in the freezer. Get yourself a good book like Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing by Ryteck Kutas Google The Sausage Maker. I bought his book back in the 80's from Cabellas. There are also a lot of vids you can watch. For home use my recipes are for 10 lbs of meat at a time. If you want to send me a p/m we can discuss this more if you like.
The real thing to remember about sausage is you cook them slowly and they boil in their own juices. A lot of people buy sausage and put them on a grill stab the "Heck" out of them. Sometimes that's because what they are used to is a casing full of fat. Your pork patties will be very good but they will taste even better once you put that same meat into a casing.
 
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Thanks for the quick reply Gary. The amount of pork I've done so far (one pound at a time) doesn't last that long around here! I haven't considered stuffing sausage as I prefer breakfast patties to breakfast links, but the freezing advantage the casing provides might change my mind.

I'll look for that book by Ryteck Kutas as well as doing more online research. Thanks again!
 
If you are just looking at stuffing 2" casings you may not need much of a stuffer as you have a lot more room to work with. The idea is to get the meat in the casing, pack it really tightly, no air pockets, tie it off or clamp it off with a hog ring plyers and freeze it. When you slice the rounds the casing comes off anyway.
 
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