Once you start really reading food labels, you find all kinds of things you can’t pronounce and don’t have a clue what they really are (do you really wanna eat that?) AND sugar or sweeteners in EVERYTHING. I mean seriously why would I want sugar in my breakfast sausage?
Several years ago, my son contracted the alpha gal 3 allergy from a tick bite. The doctor instructed me to not feed him any red meat for a calendar year. Oh boy…
Then I happened on this recipe for homemade turkey breakfast sausage. At the time, I found turkey to be a little icky in the taste department. I couldn’t imagine so little spice could cover that taste. But I had to try it because the boy missed sausage…and it was an absolute winner!
Now I’ve expanded my collection to include two more winning sausage flavors you can make fast. (Click on the title for the original recipe)
Turkey Breakfast Sausage
Now here’s the way to make it cleaner and quicker. Dump your ground turkey in the skillet and break it apart/spread it out over the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle all the spices evenly over the top, then continue breaking apart and turning as it cooks. Cook until all the pink is gone…about 10-15 minutes. Drain on a plate covered with a double layer of paper towels.
Serve with eggs (about 5 servings) or use in your favorite sausage casserole!
Homemade Sweet Italian Sausage
This one I modify a bit. First, I use ground turkey…it’s cheaper for me at Aldi and gives me a less fatty option that tastes just as good. Then I use apple cider vinegar (I don’t usually keep red wine vinegar in the house). I definitely leave out the brown sugar. Come on, ¼ teaspoon in 3 pounds of meat? Yeah, you can do without that.
And for that matter, I don’t make 3 pounds at once. I scale the ingredients down for 1 pound of meat (and go ahead and put the same amount of oregano and thyme in there cause it’s so good!).
I was skeptical of the ground fennel seed because I’m not a huge fan. But I went to my local Sprouts and found they have a bulk spice endcap. I bought a very small amount for a very low cost, and I’m pretty sure I’ve made sausage 4 or 5 times and STILL have some left.
Again, I break apart the ground turkey, spread it out, sprinkle all the other ingredients on top, and cook it while continually breaking it apart and turning it till all the pink is gone. Drain just like the breakfast sausage above. Great to use in any recipe calling for Italian sausage.
Chorizo
(I found this one by Tammy Algood in an issue of Tennessee Magazine, put out by the Middle Tennessee Electric Cooperative…the link above has one version of original recipe though in the article she simply used 3 lbs meat already ground and went straight to browning rather than putting it in casings. It’s at the very bottom of that post.)
Here’s my scaled down ingredient list…
- 1 lb. ground turkey
- 2 tablespoons chili powder (just plain red chili powder is fine or add a little cayenne pepper for some heat)
- 1/2 tablespoon salt
- Scant teaspoon minced garlic (so just short of a teaspoon)
- 1/3 teaspoon oregano (just plain oregano is fine – a little less than ½ teaspoon)
- 1/6 teaspoon cinnamon (use a ½ teaspoon measure and fill it less than half full)
- 1/6 teaspoon cumin
- 1/6 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/6 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/9 cup apple cider vinegar (use a 1/3 cup measure and only filled a little less than half full)
In this case, I actually cook the meat most of the way first, being sure to really keep breaking it up so it’s in small bite-sized pieces. (There is so much red spice in this, you can’t SEE if the meat is still pink or not…and you definitely want to cook it all the way.) But then I continue like normal and just sprinkle the spices on and mix them in well. Last time, I forgot the vinegar, and we didn’t notice a difference!
And we like ours with eggs; so once you finish cooking the sausage, you can simply break 12 eggs in there with it and continue to mix and cook until your eggs are done to your liking. (If it starts to stick – there’s no oil in the turkey – add a little olive oil or bacon grease on the skillet surface and just keep going. No draining necessary). Simply FABULOUS!!!!
Extra tip
Red spices tend to “stick” in your spoon. If you dip your spoon into your spice jars like I do, you’ll want to put in all the other spices before the red one so you don’t get chili powder in the other jars.
There you have it! Three 3 sausage flavors you can make yourself…all super quick and super tasty. Please share with a friend and get cooking!
