Make Your Own Sausage

This weekend, I made my own sausage for the first time. It was easy and cheaper than buying sausage in the store. It took about 20 minutes and I ended up with 2 pounds of sausage, which I froze in half-pound sections for easy use.

Italian Sausage
Ingredients:

2 lbs of pork shoulder
1 Tbs salt
1 1/2 Tbs paprika
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp pepper
1/3 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
3 Tbs parsley

Directions:
A couple of months ago, I bought several pork shoulder steaks for cheap at my local market. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, since the steaks are tough and have a lot of fat. Since someone gave me a sausage attachment for my KitchenAid Mixer, I decided to try making my own sausage with the meat.

First, I cut the pork into cubes and combined all the herbs in a bowl. I mixed thoroughly to combine the herbs and meat.

Next, I simply ran the meat through the attachment. I used the smaller of the two blades I had, put the meat in the top, and watched it come out of the blade. I did a little bit and then fried a piece up to make sure it tasted good. It did–it tasted like a mild, properly seasoned sausage. Satisfied, I ran the rest of the meat through and ended up with this:

To store, I separated the meat into half-pound sections, wrapped them in wax paper and plastic bags and put them in the freezer. Well, all except the bit I fried up and put on homemade pizza.

Now that I have had a taste (no pun intended) of making sausage, my mind is open with possibilities. Chicken-and-apple sausage. My own Chorizo. Lamb sausage with Mediterranean spices… Hmmm….
Cost: 2 lbs pork shoulder: $1.69; Spices: $.40-ish.
Total Cost: $2.05 for 2 lbs, $1.05 a pound.
In the stores: In my grocery store, country sausage–i.e. Italian-ish sausage outside the casing–goes for $1.99 a pound. Sausage in the casing seems to be much higher, 4-5 sausage for about $5.99. However, for the sake of comparing apples to apples, we’ll go with the $1.99 a pound price.
Total Savings: $.94 a pound

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