reading time: 7 Session minutes
Story and pictures of Meredith Lee I cooked, grilled, sautéed, sprinkled, and stuffed. Why not try your hand at poultry sausage? In the modern kitchen, whole birds rule the day, providing families with multiple meals from a single purchase. Sausage is easy to make from chicken, duck, or any other fowl, lightweight yet juicy, and fun to flavor in creative ways. Here are tips and tricks for making delicious chicken or poultry sausage that you can adapt to accommodate any type of bird and any flavor combination you can dream up.
meat bone
Dark meat makes a great sausage, so you can approach your recipe in a number of ways. Buy several whole birds and take off the breasts for later use, and make up your own sausage with the rest of the carcass. Or, if you’re like me, you’ll put the whole bird in the recipe, preferring a mixture of light and dark meat in the sausage. I only buy pasture-raised poultry, and prefer breeds that live longer and move more before harvesting, which inherently results in darker, more flavorful meat.
Remove all the meat from the bone. Don’t worry about the skin. You will need that too. The best way to get the bones out of a bird is to cut along the wing, thigh, or drumstick, and then “knock” the bone out of the joint. They remove easily from there. To remove the brisket, cut from the wishbone to just below the saj bone or breastbone and, keeping the knife close to the carcass, lift the breasts up on either side. Don’t forget the clamshells on the bird’s back—two on either side of the upper back near the joint between the shoulder and the main carcass, and two on either side of the lower spine, about halfway to the back. Once you’ve removed all the meat from the bones, cut the meat into 2- or 3-inch slices, and place them in a single layer on a baking sheet. Place it in the freezer to cool while preparing the seasoning. Be sure to put all the bones and any other parts of the carcass, such as cartilage, in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Put it on the stove and let it simmer for several hours. When you’re done, you’ll have a rich supply to use when cooking grains or beans or to make soup. You’ll also be able to refrigerate the bones and pick out any leftover meat for another meal like tacos, soup, or chicken salad.
Spread for flavour
Sausage needs fat, both for moisture and for flavor. If you choose to add fat, go for 30 percent duck or pork fat. If you include lard, be sure to use back fat, which has a firm consistency and a high melting point, so that it holds up well through processing and contributes to the perfect texture of the final sausage. When making chicken sausage, you can just use chicken skins, as I did in the recipe listed below. The result is amazingly hydrated and lightweight. You can weigh the skin and meat separately, if you’re worried you may need to add extra fat for the skin. In the recipe below, I used two chickens and just trusted that the skin on them would suffice. The result is less work, and delicious sausage.
Seasoning is the key
Salt is the main ingredient. Calculate 1.5 percent by weight of the meat and the fat or skin, that’s the salt content. To that, add whatever you like. The recipe I created calls for lemon preserves, fresh garlic, smoked paprika, rosemary, and white pepper. In general, the simpler the better. If you’re just starting out, I recommend salt, black pepper, garlic, fresh herbs, and a little white wine. There is no hard and fast rule for how much dry seasoning or any other ingredient can be added to a sausage recipe. Consider adding 1/3 the amount of pepper for the salt. Add other ingredients as your senses guide you, paying attention to color and aroma. Keep in mind that you are aiming to balance the ingredients. If something is inherently spicy, consider adding something sweet. If something is bitter or astringent, balance it out with something rich. The brightness of the preserved lemons in my recipe definitely stands out, but the earthiness of paprika, rosemary, and spiciness from garlic and pepper complete the flavour.
Grind and mix everything
You will need a way to grind the meat. For this recipe, I used a LEM Big Bite Grinder #8, which does a great job of making up to 15 to 20 pounds of sausage in one go. You can also purchase an attachment for the KitchenAid mixer, if that makes more sense for your home. I recommend the Chef’s Choice attachment because it is made of stainless steel. Place the working parts of the grinder in the freezer, along with the poultry meat and fat you have prepared. Since poultry carries the highest number of bacteria of any meat we consume, it is important to keep the process cool at all times to reduce contamination. Keep surfaces clean with a mixture of 60% alcohol and water. When you’re ready to grind, mix your seasoning with the meat and fat, and send it through the coarse plate of your meat grinder. Then, take half of the mixture and send it back. If you want a finer texture, send part of the mixture a third time. Using gloves, mix sausage thoroughly for at least 1 minute. This will ensure the buildup of mucin, a protein that produces a glue-like substance to bind the sausage together. When the sausage is mixed and sticky enough, put the meat mixture in the refrigerator and clean out the grinder. Before stuffing the sausage, make a test patty from the minced meat and cook it in a small skillet. Let it rest for a moment and then taste it. Do you need anything? If so, adjust as needed.
stuffing wrappers
Make sure your counters are clean before stuffing your sausage. The best machine for the job is a hand-operated vertical sausage stuffer. For this recipe, I used 5 lbs LEM Mighty Bite stuffing and 32- to 35-millimeter natural pig casings. Sausage stuffing usually comes with 3 to 4 interchangeable stuffing tubes. In this recipe, you’ll use the medium-sized tube meant for bite-sized links. Put all of the sausage mixture into the box. Make sure the plunger is screwed onto the drill properly, then start turning the crank and forcing the plunger to press down into the can. This will compact the meat and start evacuating the product from the air. When the meat begins to ooze out of the end of the sausage tube, load all of the casings into the stuffing tube. Tie a double knot at the end of the casing, place your hand on the sausage tube to guide the casing, and start turning the crank. Allow the meat to fill the casings before releasing more sausage tube casing. You will feel it as you go. The meat will fill the casing, and you simply direct the amount of casing released from the sausage tube, so you can control the fullness of the sausage. You want them to be plump and firm but still flexible. This is so that when you tie them down, they will have room to squeeze into the links without bursting. If you do get a tear, just remove the meat from the problem spot and cut and tape the casing before you start stuffing again. Any meat missing from broken casings can be returned to the can and re-stuffed, or packaged as loose sausage to be cooked into patties or mixed into meatballs.
Make the links dry
Once you’ve stuffed your sausage, decide how long you want the links to be. Five to six inches is the norm. Click on the place where you want to create a link between your thumb and forefinger. Then roll 5 to 6 times to form the link. Go down another 5 to 6 inches, pinch, and roll in the opposite direction. Keep pinching and twisting, alternating the direction you twist each time, until you reach the entire coil of sausage. Once the sausages are bound, arrange them on a platter or baking sheet and leave them to dry in the refrigerator, uncovered, while you clean up your workspace and get ready to cook.
Boil and burn
The best way to cook sausages is to boil them first, then grill them or pan-fry them. This ensures that they are cooked through without being overcooked on the outside. Poaching is cooking water below boiling point, so simply get a pot or dutch oven filled with water and bring it almost to a boil, but not quite. Carefully lower the sausages into the boiling water and allow them to poach for about 6 to 8 minutes. Then take them out of the boiling water. At this point, you can keep them in the refrigerator for up to three days before removing them from the heat, or you can roast or grill them right away. The drier it is before you sear it, the better the browning reactions that will appear on the surface, which enhances flavor and texture.
For the following recipe, I used pastured chicken, and served the sausage with sautéed cabbage and white beans cooked in chicken broth. Vary the recipe with other flavors, and you’ll be well on your way to building your own recipe book of great poultry sausage.
Chicken sausage with preserved lemon and smoked paprika
- 1760 grams poultry meat and skin (2 whole, boneless chickens, 4 to 5 pounds each)
- 26g sea salt or kosher salt
- 7 grams of white pepper
- 10 grams of smoked sweet pepper
- 8 grams of ground dried rosemary
- 28 grams of minced fresh garlic
- 95g preserved lemons (about 2 whole), washed and sliced
- A splash of chicken broth (moisture is important if you’re using skin only and no added fat)
Originally posted on the Community Chickens website and has been regularly checked for accuracy.