Do you like sweet Italian sausage, but don’t like paying the high prices? Have you ever considered making your own sausage? Here is a delicious homemade sweet Italian sausage recipe that is super easy to make. Give it a try, you won’t regret it.
On a trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota, my wife and I went out to dinner at a local Italian restaurant called the Red Rabbit. While waiting to be seated they were handing out samples of their homemade Italian sausage. It had the perfect balance of fennel and other spices, along with just a nice amount of heat on the back of the throat. It was delicious! We have never bought an Italian sausage that could rival this sausage.
My wife grows many of her own herbs, so as you might suspect, she decided to try and recreate it as our own homemade sweet Italian sausage. To do this she researched several recipes to identify all the different spices and herbs that were used by others and their quantities. She then set about omitting some of the ingredients and adjusting the amount of each of the remaining ingredients. All that was left to do was to give it a try.
The first batch was actually quite good. The heat was right where she wanted it and only needed to increase the amounts of a few of the other herbs and spices to further enhance the sausage’s flavor. We’ve already made our second batch and it is a big hit with the entire family.
How To Make Homemade Sweet Italian Sausage
Our recipe below is for making 3 pounds of sausage. We normally double the batch when we make it. When we double the batch we start with a 5 or 6-pound bone-in pork butt roast. Remove the bone from the roast and then add enough bacon to bring the total weight up to 6 pounds. That’s usually about a pound to a pound and a half of bacon.
Cut the roast into chunks and run both the pork and bacon through a coarse grinding disk on a meat grinder. The coarse disk gives it the perfect texture. If you need a meat grinder, we always recommend looking into a KitchenAid stand mixer.
The KitchenAid is a versatile appliance and can be used on so many other recipes. Click on this link for more information in an article we wrote on the KitchenAid stand mixer and to see some of the recipes we use it for. You can purchase a meat grinder, complete with a sausage stuffing tube for the KitchenAid and it works well for a batch this size.
If you’re making 6 pounds, don’t forget to double the spices. Thoroughly mix the spices into the meat and let sit for a ½ hour. Then re-mix the meat. This helps get all those wonderful flavors evenly distributed. Then either stuff it into casings or package it the same as you would burger. If you choose to stuff the sausage, the casing is typically available at most butcher shops.
We may only stuff half of our next batch because we enjoy it “crumbled” in a couple of recipes. You can just split the casing and remove the sausage, but if you know you’re going to use some of it crumbled it’s a little easier and will save some time.
- 2 lbs Pork pork Butt roast
- 1 lbs Bacon
- 1 Tbl Fennel crushed
- 4 Tbl Red wine
- 1 Tbl Salt
- 1 Tbl Black pepper
- 1 Tbl Garlic minced
- 1 Tbl Onion powder
- 3 Tbl Parsley
- 2 tsp Red pepper flakes crushed
- 2 Tbl Brown sugar
- 1 Tbl Paprika
- 1 tsp Oregano
- 1 tsp Thyme
- 1 tsp Basil
- Cut the roast into chunks and run both the pork and bacon through a coarse grinding disk on a meat grinder.
Thoroughly mix the spices into the meat and let sit for at least ½ hour. An hour or two is best. Then re-mix the meat and either stuff it into casings or package it the same as you would burger.
This sweet Italian sausage is delicious grilled and served on a bun with some sauteed onions, in pasta dishes, and on homemade pizza. My wife recreated the Cavatelli and Italian sausage dish that she had at the Red Rabbit, which turned out very good too. The Italian sausage was such a big hit with the family we are planning a “sausage making party” with my wife’s sister and husband.
Making your own Italian sausage puts you in control. It’s not difficult to do and it allows you to adjust the ingredients to suit your specific tastes. If you’re looking for a good place to start, we invite you to give our recipe a try. Then make any adjustments you need to make the recipe your own. We’d love to hear what you think of this homemade Italian sausage recipe and also how yours turned out. Enjoy!
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