Greedy Girl : Maple Sage Chicken Sausage

Fowl

I think sausages are that one thing that everyone sees as intimidating. We all just assume it’s so complicated, you need casings and sausage stuffers and fancy meat grinders. Today’s recipe proves that making a delicious 100% meat sausage, takes the same amount of effort as any other chicken dish I have made thus far. So if its homemade sausage you want, you can get it.

I am not going to lie this was actually a Greedy Girl Test kitchen recipe that was so good it made it to the blog. I was quite iffy about the whole thing. The idea to make a chicken sausage popped up in my head a few weeks ago, but I didn’t have any chicken or vegan casings. I only have some pork casing in the refrigerator and didn’t want to use that. So I decided to do some research and started to wonder if it was even possible to make sausages without a casing. A few youtube videos later and I got my answer; yes it is.

I could not believe how simple and easy it actually was. This is one of those ‘here to stay in the family’ recipes. I am super excited to try this again with the addition of all kinds of other goodies. I am pretty sure I am never buying breakfast sausages again. These were way better than any breakfast sausage I ever bought in a grocery store. The next day after making these I went to the store and got myself two more packs of chicken breast; planning to make these in bulk so we have them on hand any time we want some good homemade sausages.

Ingredients (Printable recipe)

Makes 6 sausages

For the sausage

1 chicken breast bone and skin on

2 tablespoon honey

1 ½ tablespoon oil

5 sage leaves

1/3 cup chopped onion

1 ½ teaspoon salt

1 garlic clove

1 teaspoon onion powder

½ teaspoon black pepper

2 teaspoon ground sage

To Finish

1 tablespoon oil or butter

Pure Maple Syrup

Instructions

Remove the bone and skin from the breast meat
Chop the skin into very fine pieces, save the bones for a stock or discard
Cut the chicken breast meat into even cubes
Place the chicken breast meat and skin along with all the other ingredients into a food processor and pulse into a paste
Scoop about two to three tablespoon portions in plastic film and twist into a cylindrical shape making sure to remove as much air bubbles as possible and securing each end.
Place in the freezer for 45 minutes to set the shape
Prepare a pot of boiling water and an ice bath
Remove the sausages from the freezer while still in the plastic place into the boiling water to cook for three minutes
After three minutes remove from the boiling water and place in the ice bath to cool
If you are not cooking immediately remove from the plastic film and place the sausages in a freezer bag and freeze until ready for use.
If you are cooking immediately, Heat oil or butter in a pan and add the sausage links, completely brown on all sides.
Turn constantly to prevent burning which it does fairly easily
Once all the sides are brown add about three tablespoons of water to the pan and cover to allow it to steam cook.
I repeated this steaming process about three or so times to make sure the sausage was cooked all the way through. I took about 10 to 15 minutes to cook my sausages on a medium heat.
Once the moisture has evaporated from the pot remove from the heat and place in a plate
Drizzle to coat with pure maple syrup and serve

Greedy Tips

The chicken breast sausage without some form of fat can get dry so that’s why the skin is added. The chicken skin requires a sharp knife or for the skin to be frozen for it to cut into small pieces easily. The reason I did not use it whole is because it can sometimes get stringy in a blender and I wanted the small pieces of fat thought the meat.
You only need the chicken skin if you use a chicken breast
Let say you used boneless thigh meat that dark meat has enough fat in it so you would not necessarily need the skin. You could also mix the light and dark meat as well. However I prefer to use breast meat with the addition of fat for sausages just so they are a bit leaner. The skin renders off during the cooking process and helps keep the sausage juicy.
You can also use pre ground chicken