Homemade Seasoning for Breakfast Sausage

This sausage recipe has been moved to our new blog!  Just click here and it will take you to the Homemade Seasoning for Breakfast Sausage recipe at Sufficient Acres.com.

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Here are some of my other homemade spice and seasoning mixes you might like:

Ranch Seasoning PacketsItalian Sausage SeasoningPumpkin Pie Spice MixHomemade Seasoning SaltOnion Soup Mix Packets

DSCN6068 (640x480)-1Sorry for the inconvenience while we slowly move posts to our new blog.

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131 thoughts on “Homemade Seasoning for Breakfast Sausage

      1. We buy 4-H market hogs. I have ground pork but I need a recipe without SAGE as I am allergic to it. I’d make 2# at a time. Thank you. Jan Caldwell

    1. This is the best breakfast sausage ever. Even my wife, who doesn’t usually eat sausage, loves it.
      I go the extra mile when I make this. I buy a whole boston butt, cut it all from the bone, remove most of the fat, and grind it myself. Much leaner, and I know what’s in the pork.

      I then make into patties, put them on a foiled covered baking sheet and put them in a 350 degree oven until almost done. When cool, I freeze them, then when I want one or two all I have to do is heat it in a skillet or microwave.
      I usually do 4-5 pounds, and adjust seasonings accordingly. For a little variety, try adding a teasoon of cinnamon for a mideastern flavor.

  1. These look really tasty. We dont really eat breakfast sausage but they look like they’d make a nice and different burger flavour. Found you via Townsend House and now following on FB. thanks

  2. This looks delicious. I wonder if you can tell me where to find information about how to put the little printable recipe card at the bottom of my posts?
    lane.family at yahoo.com

  3. I’m so excited to find this recipe! I live in Spain, where there is no such thing as breakfast sausage. In the past, I’ve bought bulk sausage spice mixes when I go home to the States in the summer, but with luggage restrictions, making my own mix would simply be smarter.

    One question: I have sage, thyme and parsley in my garden – do you know the amounts needed for fresh (not dried) herbs?

    Thanks again!

    1. Oh, using fresh herbs sounds heavenly! I don’t cook with fresh herbs often, but I know that dried herbs are more potent and concentrated. I read that the general rule is to use 3 times as much fresh herbs as you would dry. So I would try 4.5 teaspoons of sage and parsley and 1.5 teaspoons of thyme and see if that works? Please let me know how it turns out, just thinking about it makes my mouth water! I need to grow more herbs! Thanks for stopping by Karen.

      1. Update: I made it and my kids loved it! Fresh herbs are so hard to quantify (they don’t really sit down in the measuring spoons, and are too light to weigh), so I just sort of eye-balled it. I will say, though, that our wild mountain thyme has teensy leaves, so I used half fresh and half dried store-bought thyme. I’m willing to go through the nightmare of harvesting thyme for Thanksgiving stuffing, but for breakfast sausage, not so much!
        Just wanted to let you know – thanks again for the recipe!

        1. If I had fresh herbs to use in this recipe, I’d convert them to dried herbs using the microwave. The thyme is the trickiest, but still easy. Just carefully spread the sprigs on a paper towel, keeping them separate. Microwave on high for 20 seconds at a time until the herb is dry, being careful not to let them burn. Then, it’s easy to crush the dry leaves off the stems with your fingers. The sage and parsley leaves are separated from their stems before microwaving. Again, spread them on a paper towel, keeping them separate. The dried herbs can be crumbled with your fingers, then measured or ground to a fine powder in your spice grinder. You’ll be pleased at the way microwaving preserves the color of the herbs, and since they have not sat around in a kitchen cabinet for months, the flavor is stronger and fresher than anything you can but in the supermarket.

  4. This sounds very, very good. I have been wanting to make my own sausage but haven’t gotten very far with the whole process yet. Your recipe sounds good– I might have to give it a try.

    Thanks for sharing on our Healthy Tuesdays Blog Hop!
    Kerry from Country Living On A Hill

  5. Even though I’m not a fan of pork, I must say, that looks really good! Good alternative to store-bought! Thanks for sharing at A Humble Bumble 🙂

    1. So don’t use pork! Use ground chicken or turkey (which is what I use, but not the ground white meat because it gets really dry – for sausage I just get the stuff labeled “ground turkey/chicken” that’s something like 80% or 85% lean), or even beef, or lamb if you like it. Lamb makes awesome sausage. A friend told me rabbit makes really good sausages too but you have to add some kind of fat – she uses beef suet that she has the butcher grind up fine for her.

  6. i have been doing this for yrs. because i know what is in the meat and can spell what the ingredients are. lol. but, recently have been cutting back on pork fat so have been using ground turkey and putting for every pound of it 1 tablsp. canola oil mixed in.

  7. Sounds delish – have been wanting to tey our hands at making sausage for a while now and this looks like it will work well.
    Thanks

  8. Perfect timing. I’m always looking fr a new recipe, especially meats. My brother and I are making 50 plus pounds of sausage over the weekend and, I’ll give this recipe a try, sounds great.

    Every year we continue to become more self sufficient raising and growing are own. I can’t remember the last time I purchased meat from a grocery store.

    Come September we will put up at least 8-10 hogs for the winter. The first request from my boys will be an extra large batch of pulled pork!

    Thanks.

    1. Oh!! Pulled pork is the BOMB!! That would be my first request too! 😀 Thanks for stopping by and good luck with all those hogs. I can’t wait until we can get some decent fencing so we can grow more of our own meat…..sigh….a freezer full of home grown meat is a truly WONDERFUL thing!

  9. Thanks for the recipe I am from From Texas and living in Guatemala where I can,t get good sausage. I like mine spicy so I doubled the red pepper. It makes great sausage and biscuits.

  10. Have you tried freezing any of these recipes (in quantity) ?
    I’m trying to save time in the kitchen in the mornings and would like to have breakfast “on hand” from the freezer. Some years ago, my husband and I made egg sandwiches for the freezer and they were terrible. It’s not that I mind doing the work to make a homemade, healthy meal. It’s just that my mornings get consumed with so many tasks that I would like for breakfast to not be one of them. ( I would love to get out in the garden!) Thank you.

    1. Hi Kathy, Sorry it took so long to reply. I have not experimented with cooking in bulk and freezing YET. I don’t like to freeze bread because it always seems to come out soggy, but some people do it all the time. I am going to try making sausage patties and freezing them individually. I think they would be very handy to have on hand. Sorry this is not much help. Thanks for stopping by the red double wide. 🙂

      1. Hi, I am so excited to try some of these homemade spice recipes!

        I just wanted to say that when our kids were at home I would cook up big batches of hamburger and freeze in meals sized containers. Made supper time( or any meal) so easy. Maybe cooking everything first is the trick!?

        Also,my our recipe above says rubbed sage, I have never heard this term before. Is it just ground sage?

        1. Thanks Nancy! Rubbed sage is a little different, if you want to substitute ground sage for the rubbed sage just use half the amount that the recipe calls for. Glad you stopped by!

      2. Hi Kathy, if you want to freeze bread the best way I have found is a brown paper bag. If you can find them, lol everyone seems to have went to plastic. Anyway I put 2-3 loaves of bread on one paper bag then lay the bag on its side so I can get to the bread easier in my side by side freezer. When we start getting low on bread, I just take it out and let it thaw at room temp. It tastes just like it did when I bought it. No hard on one side pieces, no sogginess, no freezer burn. It’s awesome to have learned this trick, I have frozen bread like this for over 30 years now and is always fresh.

    2. When I was young, we changed butcher shops because the butcher that we took our pigs to always seasoned the sausage, even though my mother told him not to, as frozen sausage went rancid over time. After that, we got plain ground pork that Mother seasoned herself after thawing it. I really don’t know what she put it it except salt, pepper and sage. I bought half a hog recently and had them leave the seasoning out of the ground pork for the same reason. I’ve been doing it my mother’s way, but it’s been rather plain, so I’m going to try your recipe tomorrow, less the red pepper.

      1. Leon if you prefer hot sausage add some red pepper flakes or cayenne pepper to spice it up.

        If you like mild use salt, pepper and sage. You can also add a bit of smoked paprika to it for a smokey flavor. Use the spices you like and then it will always turn out good! 🙂

        Myself, I love my sausage sage-ie ….maybe you just need to add a bit more sage than you usually use.
        m

  11. This is great. Thanks for sharing. We live in Germany and don’t get breakfast sausage here. Great to find a simple recipe that I can get all the ingredients for.

  12. This is wonderful to find this recipe! I’m in Ireland and their notion of breakfast sausage is sausage links. Sausage meat is sold in stores but it’s like mush! (Which is ok if you’re making sausage stuffing) I’ve been craving good ole sausage patties lately. Plan to make these for dinner tonight. 😀

      1. Two thumbs up!! Nothing but praise from the dinner table!! My Irish hubby said PLEASE make them again!! Leftovers going in the fridge to add to scrambled eggs in the morning. Thanks again for such a wonderful recipe!!

  13. I would love to try this with ground venison. Could you suggest something to add for lack of fat? I’m trying to stay away from pork. Thx!

    1. Well I asked my husband, who used to guide hunters for a living, what they would add to lean venison and he said, “pork fat”. So I guess that doesn’t help you much! When I get lean sausage I end up adding a little olive oil to the pan to keep it from sticking, but that’s about the only advice I can give. Sorry I’m not very helpful! Thanks for stopping by Jgrace. 🙂

      1. We do our own butchering for venison as well, and we use beef suet for hamburger. We are making our own sausage for the first time this year, and probably going to use beef suet for it also, I imagine it will work just fine.

      2. I had pork added to my ground venison once on the recommendation of someone in my hunting camp. It was terrible. The butcher shop I use now adds suet and no one ever knows it’s not ground beef.

  14. Loved the recipe, we eat a lot of venison and I was looking for a recipe to make sausage with it, I used your recipe and combined 1 lb ground pork with 1 lb ground venison and it was delicious! My son said it was the best sausage he’s ever had! Thank you!

  15. I’m waiting on delivery of a new electric meat grinder now, and am gonna get back into the sausage business, mostly for myself, but also for siblings. I used to make up to 400 lbs at a time, and used whole hog. Well, minus a few things. I sold it, but it turned out to be a “non profit organization” as I sold it too cheap. But it sure was good. Not gonna go that route this time. I was checking the interweb for some breakfast sausage spices and ran across your recipe, and I might give it a whirl with a small batch. It sounds good. I always used the ready mixed seasonings, but I can’t recall the one that I used that was so good, as it has been over 40 years ago.

      1. Gonna be just a hobby at this stage of the game,(my age) and I plan on making my own bacon too. Just thought it might be fun to try it again, and maybe retrieve some of my childhood memories of long ago. I will keep up with your blog, now that I’ve found it. It’s always interesting to read different views on things. Have a great Thanksgiving Day, everyone.

  16. This looks pretty great — I’m going to get adventurous and put it in some ground venison since I don’t have any ground pork on hand. I’m hoping it’ll make a good ‘biscuits & sausage gravy’ breakfast. 🙂

    1. Hey, The red pepper flakes are made from different kinds of red chili peppers, Cayenne being one of them. The mixture of peppers varies depending on what brand you buy. Hope this helps!

  17. I just killed our piggie a few days ago and ground about 1/4 of her up. Gonna use this recipe and multiply it for like 30lbs.

    I’ll let you know how it comes out after 5 days in the fidge to ‘set’!

  18. Thank you for posting this great recipe for Homemade Breakfast sausages. It’s great and I’m grateful. Also love your site and all that you do on it. Thank you for being there for people like me. Many Blessings to you and your family.

  19. Thanks for sharing! I was looking for breakfast sausage recipes and found your awesome blog! I made 12 pounds of sausage this morning and the eight in our family that eat solid foods loved it ( one too young)! I could hardly stop myself. We froze most for future mornings and shared some with neighbors. We raise our own pork, two pigs at a time so this is a fun and very enjoyable way to save money and spice up mealtimes ( no pun intended).

  20. FINALLY!!!! I have tried for YEARS to make plain, ole breakfast sausage like the “good-tasting” (but not good for ya) stuff you get in the store but have not been successful! I am extremely sensitive to salt and nitrates and just can’t eat the store stuff without a lot of bad side effects. I tried your’s this morning and used only half of the sea salt and it tasted perfect. I’m going to scramble the rest up to use a little in my eggs/egg beaters each morning. Now I’m gonna try the eggs in the giant muffin tins! Thank you!

    1. Hi Robin, So glad you liked it! Isn’t it amazing how much weird stuff they put in the store bought sausage?! Thanks for the nice comment and Merry Christmas!

  21. Greetings from Everett, WA. Just tried your spice mix this morning and it was excellent. I was worried that it wasn’t enough for two pounds to give the amount of flavor I was looking for, but it was. I choose yours over another one that used cloves and marjoram instead of nutmeg and thyme. Glad I did. Next time I’ll make it the night before to let the flavors meld a bit. Thank you.

    1. Hello, My brother and sister in law live in Everett, we live a few hours away in the Columbia Gorge. 🙂 So glad you liked the sausage recipe and thanks so much for taking the time to let me know!

  22. Hello from Iowa! I’m dying to make this sausage with the hog we butchered yesterday. We are new to hobby farming, so this is our first try at making our own food. So far we are loving every minute of it. The problem is, we live in a small town and no one has ‘rubbed sage’ on hand. I would need to order it. Could I sub dried sage leaf for rubbed sage? Or should I just order the spice and freeze the meat while I wait? Thanks for any help you can give me. I hope to have a herb garden this spring so I can try fresh and dehydrate my own:) Thank you!

    1. Hi Megan, Congratulations on all that fresh pork! Here is a link about different forms of sage.
      It looks like if you have dried sage leaves you can just rub them between your hands to make rubbed sage. I prefer rubbed sage to ground sage if that is what you have, I just think the flavor is better. Hope this is a help to you! Grace

  23. I am doing a whole30 right now and I cannot find compliant sausage anywhere in my little town…or any of the neighboring “cities”. I just tried this seasoning blend and I was so completely thrilled. It is super quick and easy and it tastes better than any conventional breakfast sausage in the grocery store. I love it! Thank you!

  24. Grace, I found this recipe while searching for a spice mixture we could use to liven up the ground turkey in pizza. I’ve been making whole wheat pizza for years but have relied on buying sausage for the times that’s what we want on it. We had 1/2 lb of turkey to use and after mixing the spices up i absentmindedly dumped the entire bit into the 1/2 lb of turkey. we decided to run with it after the mistake was realized, and I have to tell you it made for some mighty spicy and fine pizza that night. I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone but we sure enjoyed it and will be trying this again.

    1. Haha, don’t you love it when you mess up and it still comes our great! I bet that was some spicy pizza. Thanks for stopping by. 🙂

    1. Good question, I put them in mason jars, old spice containers, and in recycled jelly jars. A Parmesan cheese container lid fits on a narrow mouth mason jar and works great!

  25. I am going to try your seasoning mix this morning. We love sausage gravy but due to my Husbands heart condition he doesn’t eat much meat, so I was looking to get the flavor of sausage in the gravy without the meat. I will let you know how it turned out after breakfast. Thanks for posting this mix. Because of our restricted diets it is so much easier to regulate what is in what you eat if it is made from scratch.

  26. I often grind beef from steaks I get from the managers specials bin. This time I bought a sizable piece of pork because my wife suggested since the equipment is already out I should make some pan sausage. I had a good idea of how to spice it and your recipe has all the flavors we savor.
    Thanks for offering your moral & religious convictions. I concur.
    Michael

  27. Glutamates, including monosodium glutamate, are natural products derived from seaweed and many other foods like kale. It is perfectly safe to eat.

    1. Hi Andrew, Monosodium glutamate is no longer derived from seaweed it is made from starch that comes from corn sugar, sugar cane, or sugar beets. The way it’s processed is what I don’t like about MSG. We try to stay away from processed foods as much as possible and MSG is one of those foods. But that’s just our preference.

  28. I am so glad I found you. My husband and his brothers got 2 deer this season and I was completely out of breakfast sausage (which I have never made before) I used your recipe and multiplied it by 12 yep made 26 lbs of sausage. We had our first taste of it this morning. WONDERFUL, Thanks so much for it. I will next time not use so much ground black pepper my daughter thought it was to spicy. I also used less red pepper flakes. What we did was grind the deer meat coursley first, then mixed in all the spices, then sent it through the grinder on the finest setting. Again Wonderful.

      1. Your recipe is the one I am going to try. Pork loin was 1/2 the price of pork sausage at the store today. I am a little surprised that cumin is not one of the ingredients in the spices???

  29. Bought some fresh ground pork and wanted to make sausage with it. After not finding the sausage spice at the store I did a search and your recipe came up as one of the results.

    After looking through several recipes, some similar and some quite different, I decided to give yours a try. I did add brown sugar, ground coriander, paprika and cayenne. I absolutely love paprika for it’s flavor and color.

    It might help to mention that I am in Louisiana and everything gets red pepper. We like bold flavors down here.

    Homemade sausage has been sitting for a little over an hour and now I’m going to go cook up some patties…

    Thanks for your recipe.

    1. Enjoying the first attempt. I like and my youngest daughter does too.

      As mentioned above, here in “Loozyanna”, we like bold, so I will add some additional spices next time. Probably cumin and chili powder or something like that for a little flavor while chewing. The red pepper flakes and cayenne are great after taste makers along with the heat. Won’t need to add any more of that here.

      In this instance, i used your recipe and proportionally added:
      1 tsp garlic
      1 tsp basil
      1 tsp paprika
      1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
      1/2 tsp ground coriander
      1 Tbs light brown sugar.

      I made this spice mix and it came out to about 3 oz. In one pound of fresh ground pork, I used a little over one oz. After mixing thoroughly, I let stand in fridge for about an hour and a half.

      Some notes, in addition to the spices…

      — I was absolutely suprised at how lean these patties were. I will definitely be buying fresh ground pork and making my own sausage from here on out.

      — I will also mix the spices into the meat and let it set over night. I know this will have an enormous effect by allowing the flavors to meld together more.

      That said, this is an awesome recipe and a great discovery for me and my family.

      Queen, I really like your site and will be back. Don’t look for a new facebook friend here though, I refuse to accept their incredibly intrusive privacy terms (or lack thereof).

      Thanks so much!

  30. We live in a hunting family and it’s always a trick to try and find new ways to use the game they bring home. Well we just found a new way to use their wild turkey. I just ground up my son’s wild Turkey breast (about 2lbs) in the meat grinder and added 1/2lb. of bacon when I ground it up for some moisture and fat. I used your seasoning mixture and fried them a couple of burgers for lunch. It was met with rave reviews from the hunters in our home. Now we have one more way to use the turkey. It typically is pretty tough and dry, but grinding it and adding that bit of bacon made it very nice. Thanks for the recipe. I also really enjoyed your site.
    Kelly

    1. Kelly, that sounds delicious! A little bacon fat makes everything better. 😉 Thanks for the comment and the turkey sausage recipe!

  31. Who the hell wants to make 2 lbs of breakfast sausage? THINK about who your readers are. We don’t own restaurants.

    1. Hi Larabee, I cook 2 pounds of sausage all the time and my family eats it all in one meal. If you don’t want to cook that much just cut the recipe in half or less. You could also make two pounds and freeze what you don’t need for later.
      Grace

  32. Hi Grace,

    Thanks so much for sharing. I’ve been looking for a breakfast sausage recipe with sage in it. My father-in-law cannot eat red meat any longer and eats a lot of breakfast sausage (the turkey kind). I wanted to make him a few batches with a leaner mix of ground turkey and ground chicken for a surprise.

    Again thanks.

    Sincerely yours.

    Joyce Nagy

  33. Thank you for the recipe. and that dash of nutmeg is the secret ingredient.
    Best wishes to you for a fruitful winter! (the fruits of winter being not generally the edible kind)

  34. We have a grandson who won’t eat eggs, but must stay on a high protein/low carb/no additive diet during the school week. Since the other two love egg sandwiches on school mornings, I’ve been trying to find a substitute for him. Used your recipe to make sausage, and it was wonderful.

    Next time I will use more of the spice mix, as I used 2 pounds of ground pork and 1 pound of ground turkey, so meat to spice ratio was off. The only change I made was to substitute ground ginger for the red pepper (I can’t have capsaicin, but still like some heat). Thanks so much for sharing your recipe.

  35. Trying this with Victorian Epicure selections spices, and ground turkey for a healthier twist. Smells wonderful. 😉

  36. This will be my first attempt at making homemade sausage and this recipe sounds great and I am going to try it in a few days and I will let you know how it turns out but I had a couple of questions for you before I proceed to make my 1st batch. I have 1 lb. of ground Elk and I like my breakfast sausage a little more spicy than most people, so 1st questions is do you think if I mix the 1 lb. of Elk with 1 lb. of ground pork that would be ok or do you think I should add more pork? 2nd question, Do you think I should just add more red pepper flakes for spicier or do you think another seasoning like cayenne pepper or maybe a spicier black pepper? Thanks for the assist. I plan on trying a few more recipes on here as well. James

    1. Hi James, 1 pound of elk and 1 pound of sausage should work great and I think I would just add a little more red pepper flakes, but if you prefer your heat to come from cayenne or black pepper I think they would work just fine too!
      Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy your sausage!

  37. So glad to have found this recipe — absolutely spot on for great breakfast sausage with ground chicken!! I have many friends from India (no pork or beef) who share recipes with me, and they sure liked your recipe for breakfast sausage. And for myself, the flavor is so great in a breakfast skillet of cajun potatoes / chicken sausage / onions / mushrooms / cheese / poached egg that I don’t even notice that it’s less than half the fat of pork sausage.

    1. Made this again with ground chicken, and it’s oh so good! Because the chicken does not have as much flavor as pork, I found doubling the recipe (use the same amounts above for 1 pound of ground chicken or turkey instead of for 2 pounds) worked really well. Next time I will reduce the salt to 1 teaspoon, as 1.5 teaspoons was too much for just a pound of ground chicken.

  38. I made 20 lbs of venison with 20% pork. Wow! Thank you. I’d been using a premix with MSG. I Googled “no msg breakfast sausage” and your site came up. My son was worried that a new recipe would ruin one of his foavorites. Nope! better that the old stuff without the junk in it. Also, thank you for sharing your faith on line.

    God bless, Bill

  39. I have been trying to find a good sausage recipe for a while now but my search is finally over! I used this recipe for a sausage casserole. Was perfect. 🙂 Thank you so much!

  40. This is a pretty good recipe, not spot on, but acceptable for some. Personally, I would double the spices, but some might like it milder. Your Italian sausage and ranch seasonings are wonderful though.

  41. i am a fan of making my own country gravy and i have been looking for a good sausage spice. i will deffinetly try this one. thanks!

  42. Thanks for the recipe. I added about a cup of shredded apple that made it just enough sweetness without any sugar. Yummy

  43. This is a great recipe that I go back to again and again. Here in Alaska I use it to with moose, caribou and even bear! Thanks for sharing.

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