Homemade Italian Sausage Recipe
Published October 7, 2022. This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
Learn how to make the best authentic, flavorful homemade Italian Sausage recipe from scratch that is simple to cook and delicious. I promise, you will love the flavors in this sausage and the satisfaction of making it at home.
Italian sausage adds incredible depth of flavor and a hearty dose of protein to so many dishes. I love using it in my pasta with Italian sausage recipe or in my sausage with peppers and onions for a classic, satisfying meal.
Italian Sausage
Italian sausage is ground pork often flavored with garlic and fennel seed. It comes in two different styles, sweet or hot. Hot Italian sausage usually is flavored with spicy red pepper, while the sweet version has no pepper in it. In addition, Italian sausage is a very popular pizza topping in coarse loose chunks or sliced links.
In my family, Italian sausage is always part of our holiday celebrations. Whether it’s simmering in a rich sauce or grilled and served on a bun, it’s a very popular cased protein. My recipe is a balanced approach to the sweet and hot version with ingredients that complement each other and provide a lot of flavors.
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Pork – A trimmed pork shoulder or pork butt is the perfect meat cut. You can add in some pork belly for more fat and flavor.
- Spices – I use a combination of fennel, basil, oregano, red pepper flakes, paprika, nutmeg, and coriander.
- Parsley – Adding some chopped fresh parsley will add some nice flavors and freshness to the Italian sausage.
- Garlic – Finely minced cloves are traditional to use and provide outstanding flavors.
- Casing – I use natural hog casing for this.
- Wine – A good Italian white Pinot Grigio is what I used. However, you can use a red Sangiovese or Chianti in this as well.
- Orange – This is an addition to traditional Italian sausage, but it is an ingredient often used in Italy while making sausage.
- Sugar – This will help to balance out some of the spicy seasonings in this.
- Ice – Shaved ice will help keep the sausage moist when encased.
How to Make Italian Sausage
Soak: I add the hog casing to a medium-sized bowl and cover it with 4 to 5 inches of cold water. Then, I set it aside to soak while I prepare the other ingredients.
Prep the Pork: I trim the meat away from the pork shoulder bone and cut it into 1-inch chunks. Then, I place the pieces in the freezer or refrigerator to chill for 15 to 20 minutes.
Prepare: While the pork chills, I measure out the spices, grate the garlic and orange zest, chop the parsley, and portion out the shaved ice. I set everything aside until it’s time to mix, keeping the ice in the freezer so it stays cold.
Assemble: I set up my grinder, attaching the auger, blade, dye, and tightening ring, making sure everything is secure and ready for use.
Grind: I run the cold cubed pork through the food grinder fitted with a medium-size dye, letting the ground meat fall into a clean pan for easy mixing.
Season: I add all the spices, including the wine and shaved ice to the ground pork and mix thoroughly, ensuring the seasoning is evenly distributed throughout the meat.
Test: I fry a small piece of the Italian sausage mixture and taste it to check the seasoning. If needed, I adjust the flavors before placing the mixture back in the freezer or refrigerator for 15 to 20 minutes to keep it chilled.
Rinse: I run water through the center of the hog casing to flush out any salt or residue. Then, I set it aside until it’s time to stuff the sausage.
Stuff: I attach the hog casing to the sausage stuffer, securing it in place. Then, I tie a knot at the end and run the sausage mixture through the attachment at low speed, carefully stuffing the casing to ensure an even fill.
Secure: I tie a knot at the end of the stuffed sausage, then continue filling the remaining casing until all the sausage mixture is used.
Shape: I hold the filled sausage casing in the middle and pinch it to create the first section for forming links.
Link: I move down about 6 inches, pinch the casing again, and twist the two sections together to form the first sausage link.
Secure: I take one of the hanging links and loop it through the center of the two twisted 6-inch links, locking them in place. Then, I repeat the process along the entire filled casing until all the links are formed and secured.
Finish: I tie a double knot at the end of the sausage links to keep them secure, then trim off any excess casing. At this point, they’re ready to store or cook.
Chef Tip + Notes
The key to making the best Italian sausage is keeping everything cold. Chilling the pork, grinder parts, and even the mixing bowl prevents the fat from breaking down too soon, which keeps the texture firm and juicy instead of greasy. I always freeze the cubed pork for 15-20 minutes before grinding and chill the sausage mixture before stuffing to lock in the best flavor and consistency.
- Casing Tip: Each hog casing is about 2 to 3 feet long, and I can load 2 to 4 casings onto the filler tube at once to keep the process smooth.
- Link Size: I like making traditional links, but if I want smaller ones, I use the method from my bangers recipe. for a tighter, more compact shape.
- Seasoning Variations: I always encourage tweaking the spices to personal taste, but garlic, fennel seeds, salt, pepper, paprika, wine, and red pepper flakes are non-negotiables for authentic flavor.
- Pork Bones: I never toss the leftover pork bones, I freeze them and save them for a rich homemade pork stock later.
- Grinding Spices: If I don’t have a spice grinder, I use a mortar and pestle to break down the fennel and coriander for the perfect texture.
Serving Suggestions
I often slice this Italian sausage and toss it into a rustic sausage and lentil soup for a comforting, protein-packed dish.
If I’m firing up the grill, I serve it with a side of roasted garlic potatoes and a crisp Italian salad for a balanced meal.
Make-Ahead and Storage
Make-Ahead: You can make this up to 3 days ahead of time. Just keep cool in the refrigerator and cover until ready to cook.
How to Store: Cover and store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. The Italian sausage will freeze well for up to 6 months, either raw or cooked. Thaw in the refrigerator for 1 day before cooking or reheating.
Recipes Using Italian Sausage
Video
Homemade Italian Sausage Recipe
Ingredients
- 15 to 18 feet natural hog casing
- 9 pounds bone-in pork shoulder
- 2 tablespoons fennel seeds
- 2 teaspoons coriander seeds
- 1 tablespoon dry basil
- 1 tablespoon dry oregano
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 3 tablespoons sea salt
- 1 tablespoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon Paprika
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons grated garlic
- Zest of 1 orange
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 1/3 cup chopped Parsley
- 1 1/2 cups crushed shaved ice
Instructions
- Add the hog casing to a medium-sized bowl and cover by 4 to 5 inches with cold water, and set it aside.
- Trim away the meat of the pork shoulder away from the bone and cut it into 1-inch chunks and place them into a bowl, cover them, and put them in the freezer or refrigerator to chill for 15-20 minutes.
- In the meantime, add the fennel, coriander, basil, oregano, basil, oregano, nutmeg, pepper flakes, black pepper, salt, paprika, and sugar to a spice grinder and pulse 10 to 15 times to break down the fennel and coriander a bit. This does not have to be perfect.
- Run the cold cubed pork through the food grinder using the medium size dye into another pan.
- Add in all the spices, garlic, orange zest, white wine, parsley, and shaved ice, and mix thoroughly.
- Fry a small piece of the Italian sausage and taste it to adjust any seasonings, and then place it again in the freezer or refrigerator for 15-20 minutes.
- Run some water through the center of the hog casing to rinse everything out.
- Attach the hog casing around the sausage filler, tie a knot at the end, run the chilled sausage through the attachment at low speed, and stuff the hog casing. Watch the video.
- Tie a knot around the end of the sausage and continue stuffing until all the ingredients have been used.
- Hold one filled casing in the middle and pinch it.
- Next, go down about 6” inches and pinch again and twist them together.
- Use one of the hanging remaining links through the whole of the two 6” links twisted together, and then repeat the process until the filled casing is tied.
- Tie a double not at the end of the links and cut off any excess. Store or cook.
This is great! Just tasted the tester. I made the recipe exactly the same. I can see I’ll be making this a lot more! Thanks for this. trying the Breakfast sausage now.
Thanks for giving it a shot!!
Awesome homemade flavor way better than commercial. Understand the reason to start with 9 lb bone in for the large effort to make links. As retired and fixed income without the equipment, we did a calc to take the ingredients to support 1 lb fresh ground we get from the butcher. Take all the dry ingredients and pulverize in a spice grinder. Use a digital scale and obtain the total weight in grams. Figure about 8 lb of meat. Divide total by 8 to obtain per pound grams. For wine, it divides out to 1 tbsp/lb. Garlic we rounded up to 1 tsp/lb. The parsley is about 2 tsp/lb. Orange is a guesstimate. Hand mix by folding sort of like kneading bread until mixed. Done. We simply make patties and freeze.
Hi, I love that you broke this down to per pound. But how much dry Spice mix per pound?
Thanks again!
Love this. Thank you for sharing.
Kim
Best sausage flavor ever! A bit of a workout to make, but we’ll worth it
thanks for giving it a shot!!
I want to give this a try, but need advice. My sister is allergic to anything in the capsaicin family. What do you suggest as a replacement for paprika and red pepper flakes? Thanks! Pat
You can skip those two
Hey Billy.
I used to help my mom make this. We used a hand grinder (Universal)This was a wedding present to all of us.
I love the additions you put in and the ELECTRIC grinder!!!
Love this recipe. My first attempt at sausage making since I received the KitchenAid attachment for Christmas. I would say it tastes and smells amazing and that is with a novice making it. I do have one question related to how keep food safety from becoming a problem. I was very careful to clean and refrigerate at every stage in the process, however, after leaving the stuffed sausages in the fridge over night there was some sausage “juice” in the bottom of my container….is that normal? I lightly rinsed and dried the sausages before freezing today. Your’s look so clean!!
I had to start making sausage homemade because the store bought sausage was too high in sodium for my mom’s salt restricted diet. I tried a lot of other recipes and seem to create that sweet Italian flavor we love so much. Before I invest the time in trying your recipe, which looks and sounds amazing, will it have a flavor similar to what we were used to, minus all of the sodium. The other recipes also created a dry sausage. Is that because of the lack of sodium,
And will adding the shaved ice help keep it moister. Thanks in advance for your reply. I look forward to trying this
Without knowing exactly what you were eating it’s hard to know. Check out all the reviews of what folks are saying.
Hopefully yes
I would have loved to try this but I have no idea how much “1 tablespoon” is of various spices, or how much meat there is in “9 lbs of bone-in.” You clearly have a lot of experience and I would have loved to try your recipe.
Since everyone will be starting with a different amount of meat, why not just state in percent weights? Then no-one has to get out the measuring spoons and wonder how tight to pack stuff, or what shape salt crystals you’re talking about (e.g., kosher salt has half the density of table salt).
For instance I have 1200g of ground pork meat. If you say “Salt 1%” then I’d just add 12g salt and not need to know what kind of salt you use, or how much bone is in the cut your butcher gives you in your country for a bone-in shoulder. (I can’t even get it bone-in here in Tokyo… and yet it’s people living abroad that really need your recipe since we can’t simply buy pork sausage here, we HAVE to make it!)
Instead I have to say, 9lb shoulder? Maybe has 3lb bone? So 6lb meat? Which is 454*6= 2724g? So I have 1200g, so I need 1200/2724 of 3 tablespoons of sea salt… which is 1.32 tablespoons… so about 4 teaspoons… but is your sea salt fine-grind like table salt or huge flakes? It could be 22g… or it could be 11g… or less… and if my estimate of bone weight is wrong then I could be off by more than a factor of two.
I don’t say all this as a complaint, because your sausage looks great and it’s great you’re trying to share your experience, but it’s impossible to actually make use of as you’ve written it. I see other people have the same problem. Sorry to be such a whining snowflake but I need pork sausage and can’t buy it and you look like you have the best on the internet so it’s a little frustrating.
They are in weights. Simply click where it says us customary in the recipe card and select metric.
This recipe is impractical. I only want to make 1 lb. of sausage; not 9 lb. Cannot you post a practical version?
Impractical? Whos getting their grinder out for one pound? The tone and entitlement of your post actually made me laugh out loud. Here’s a thought, though I understand that it may be hard for your simple mind to comprehend, take the given ratios and divide them for the one pound. “Cannot you post a practical version?”… you just sound like a pompous ass. Have a good day, Joseph.
Way to go derek, nobody makes 1 pound what a waste of time.
Not to mention, where can you find a one pound pork shoulder? While the nine pounds was substantial…….my neighbors were very, very happy.
If you only want one pound of sausage, go to your local butcher and buy theirs. Sausage making is an art form and a passion. Anything worth doing, is worth doing right and making enough so when it turns out amazing, you don’t have to do all the work again in a couple of days. Thats like going to the gas station 5 miles away on empty and only putting in 1 gallon.