Easy Homemade Italian Sausage Recipe

For today’s Italian Sausage recipe, we will use pork shoulder. Whether you’re looking for simple fun ideas or delicious week-long dinners, this amazing Italian sausage recipe will make every meal a delicious Italian feast. Italian sausage has a rich flavor and is great for all kinds of recipes, from pasta to stuffed peppers. 

You can even use my homemade Italian sausage in soups or stews.

When it comes to Italian sausage that you buy at the grocery store, it’s not easy to know what is in the sausage. This is why I want to give you an easy homemade recipe for Italian sausage that you can make in the comfort of your own kitchen. This way, you will know exactly what you are eating. 

Ingredients For Hot Italian Sausage Recipes

• 3 pounds of boneless pork shoulder
• 1 ½ tablespoon of salt
• 5 chopped cloves of garlic
• 2 tablespoons of toasted fennel seeds
• 2 teaspoons of black pepper
• 1½ teaspoons of crushed red chili flakes
• 1½ teaspoons of cayenne powder
• 1 teaspoon of oregano
• ½ teaspoon of All-spice powder
• ½ teaspoon of ground coriander
• 1½ tablespoons of sugar
• 2¼ tablespoons of cold water

Steps to follow to make perfect 

Make sure you use pork shoulder that has little fat in it so that you can make a good sausage. Most Italian sausage that you buy in the grocery store has a lot of fat in it. Make sure you have only 25% of the fat in the pork for a juicy Italian sausage. 

Put the boneless pork shoulder on a chopping board and cut it into long strips and then cut those long strips into very small pieces. 

Put the pork pieces into a bowl and refrigerate them as you mix the spices for the Italian sausage. 

Making the marinade

Get a mortar and add 5 chopped cloves of garlic and ½ tablespoon of salt. You will add the rest of the salt directly to the pork.

Grind the garlic into a paste. The salt will help our garlic to soften up easily. 

Add 2 tablespoons of fennel seeds to the garlic paste. Fennel seeds are a key ingredient in the Italian sausage recipe. 

Grind two teaspoons of black pepper into the mortar.

Crash all the ingredients in the mortar so that our flavors can mix. However, you shouldn’t crash them into a fine powder. Just crush them lightly. 

The next part of the recipe will determine whether you are making the sweet Italian sausage recipe or the hot Italian sausage. 

If you are interested in the hot Italian sausage recipe, please add 1½ teaspoons of crushed red chili flakes and 1½ teaspoons of cayenne powder. 

Hot or Sweet?

If you are not looking forward to the hot Italian sausage, please don’t add the chili and cayenne. 

Add 1 teaspoon of dried oregano flakes, ½ teaspoon of all-spice powder, and ½ teaspoon of ground coriander. 

Finally, we shall add 2¼ tablespoons of cold water into the spices and mix them very well.

As you have already noticed, the beauty of making your own Italian sausage from home is that you control whatever spices go in. You have the freedom to add other spices of your choice that are not mentioned here. If you want the sweet Italian sausage recipe, you can skip the chili and hot spices. 

Get the pork out of the fridge and mix it with the spices very well. Sprinkle the rest of the salt into the pork in an even manner.

Put the pork back into the fridge to marinate overnight. You can marinate the pork for 3 days if you have the patience. 

Make sure the pork is very cold for this next part.

You can put it in the freezer for 40 minutes before you grind it. This will ease your grinding process.

Italian Sausage Recipe Grinding Time

Put your cold pork pieces into a grinder and grind at the slowest speed if you are using an electric grinder. If you are using a manual grinder, then you should just carry on normally. 

Collect the ground pork into your bowl.

Attach the stuffing tube onto your grinder and put the sausage casing on and then tie one end of the casing to prevent the pork from escaping. 

 

Put the ground pork into the grinder again and grind slowly as the pork enters the casing. Grind until all the pork is in the casing as it forms into the nice sausage coil that you love. Tie the other end of the casing. 

Press and twist the casing so that you can make multiple sausages from the big coil but don’t separate the sausages just yet. 

Then put the sausages in your fridge overnight so that they can dry out. 

 

Italian Sausage Recipe Cooking time

Remove the sausages from the fridge and cut the links with a pair of scissors.

However, they should separate easily without pouring out at this stage because they have dried out in the fridge. 

To cook these sausages, you have to make the decision regarding the kind of cooking technique you prefer. 

But you can grill the sausages on a charcoal grill, deep fry them, or even bake them in the oven. 

I prefer grilling the sausages. After grilling them you can eat them alone or you can add the sausage in a hotdog bun and add some veggies and enjoy your meal.

Conclusion

Making Italian sausage takes a lot of time but it is fun and rewarding because at the end of the day you get to eat a very tasty meal.

Besides, if you have enjoyed this recipe, please check out our Italian baked ziti recipe.

Lastly, please send us images of your Italian sausage and we will post them on our blog.