Kabanos, the World’s Greatest Slim Jim
February 04, 2013 | Updated June 06, 2022
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I must confess I’d never heard of kabanos until about eight years ago, I started looking for a superior sausage recipe that used sheep casings. I’d never really used sheep casings before, but I like the idea of narrow, easy-to-eat sausages and salami.
Think Slim Jim, but several orders of magnitude better.
My first impulse was to make cantimpalitos, the skinny little chorizo sticks from Spain that are to canned Vienna sausages what God is to a lump of mud. I will make these, by the way, but later.
I’d been making a lot of paprika-heavy sausages lately, so I decided to go with something less aggressively spiced. That’s when I read about this Polish kabanos recipe in one of the finest charcuterie books ever written, Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages by the Marianski Brothers.
Kabanos, pronounced Kah-bah-NOSS so far as I can tell, is what a Slim Jim dreams about becoming when it grows up. It is fairly lightly spiced with garlic, nutmeg, black pepper and a hint of caraway, smoked over cherry, apple or beech wood, then hung for a few days to dry. Kabanosy is the plural of the word.
It is an unusual sausage because even though it’s air dried, you don’t use starter cultures or Instacure No. 2. The drying process is too short for that. (Two other great recipes with short drying time are stångkorv, a Swedish breakfast sausage, and landjaeger, a German dry-cured sausage perfect for taking on a hunt.)
Traditionally, kabanos is a pork sausage, but really any meat works: Pork, beef, wild hogs, bear, venison, duck or goose, whatever. Kosher versions use chicken or turkey. I used venison, cut with pork fat.
Make LOTS of these, as you will find yourself eating them uncontrollably. Once made, kabanos will keep in the fridge for a couple weeks or so, and after you vacuum-seal them or wrap them tightly, they will freeze for up to a year without loss of quality.
If you can’t find sheep casings where you live, you can buy sheep casings online from The Sausage Maker.
Kabanos, Polish Smoked Meat Stick
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 pounds pork venison, wild boar, bear or other meat
- 10 ounces pork fat
- 23 grams kosher salt, about 2 tablespoons plus a teaspoon
- 3 grams Instacure No. 1, about 1/4 teaspoon
- 4 grams sugar, about a heaping teaspoon
- 4 grams crushed black pepper, about 2 teaspoons
- 2 grams nutmeg, about 1 heaping teaspoon
- 2 grams caraway seed, 2 teaspoons
- 1 gram celery seed, about 1/4 teaspoon
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/3 cup ice water
Instructions
- Cut the meat and fat into pieces that will fit in your grinder. Mix all the salts and spices with the meat and fat. Put everything in the freezer for 1 hour to chill. Meanwhile, take out about 20 feet of sheep casings and soak them in tepid water.
- Grind the mixture in the fine die of your grinder, making sure everything stays cold. If the meat warms beyond 35°F, stop and freeze everything for 30 minutes to cool it down. Put the ground meat in the fridge while you clean up.
- Using a Kitchenaid or other stand mixer, or your (very clean) hands, add the ice water and garlic. Mix the meat and fat -- use the lowest setting on a stand mixer -- until it binds, about 1 to 2 minutes. Again, put the meat in the fridge while you clean up.
- Flush the sheep casings with warm water and set aside.
- Put the meat mixture in your sausage stuffer and stuff into the sheep casings. Remember that sheep casings are weaker than hog casings, so you do not want to overstuff them. As you are stuffing, fill up a link between 12 inches and 24 inches, leaving plenty of extra casing on either end. Cut the casing and continue to make these large links until you've used all the meat.
- Use a sterilized needle to pierce the casings wherever there are air pockets. Gently squeeze the meat in the casings to tighten. You may break some until you get the hang of it. If you do, put the meat back into the stuffer and make another link. Once all the links are firm in their casings, tie the ends together in a double or triple knot. Trim any excess casing.
- Hang the links to dry in a cool place for several hours, depending on how warm it is. If the temperature is 70°F or above, hang for only an hour.
- Move the links to a smoker and smoke until the interior of the meat hits 150° -- keep your smoker cool enough so that this takes about 4 hours. You want the links to get lots of smoke time.
- Let the links cool, then move to a place to hang them. Ideally this place is between 35°F and 60°F and dark. Hang the links for 3 to 5 days to let them dry out a bit. They are now reasonably shelf stable, but I keep them in the fridge. If for some reason you plan on keeping them more than a month or so, wrap tightly (or vacuum seal) and freeze.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Is drying time appreciably different with 17mm collagen vs sheep casing?
Dave: I don’t know. I never use collagen casings.
Hank, looks great. I saw your comment about pellet smokers. Mine only goes down to 180, you think two hours would be fime at that temp? I understand I’ll get less smoke, but these are the realities of condo living, and I’m just greatful I’ve got a smoker at all.
Max: Sure, or you could smoke for a couple hours, then cool, then smoke again.
Hi, the recipe sounds great, and plan to try it using our home raised hogs…..but I have a few questions: I assume processed ground pork is ok to use? If so, do I need to add pork fat? Do I have to use sheep casings? It’s too hot here in Missouri to hang to dry….I assume I’ll have to use a refrigerator?
Thank you for your time!
Mark
Mark: You shouldn’t need to add fat if you are starting with ground pork. And since these are snack sticks, yes, you should use either sheep casings or similarly narrow collagen casings.
Are you able to use Morton’s Tender Quick instead of Instacure? If so, would you use the same amount?
John: No. They are not very similar products. Sorry.
Started off super flavorful and enticing straight off the smoker, but after hanging for the 3-day minimum in my 50-60 degree garage these have been left dry and crumbly. They still smell fantastic, but somehow that makes the lackluster taste and texture even more of a disappointment. Am I alone on this one?
Dale: Sorry that happened, but what I think might have gone wrong is that the bind in the sausage might not have been well developed enough at the get-go, and there might not have been enough fat in them, which would make them dry. Also, 60F is pushing it for hanging temperature.
Great starter snack stick recipe, forgot to add garlic, but thats on me.
Fantastic I have converted many non wild hog eating people with this recipe.
Hang temp of 35-60, I assume a typical fridge temp of high 30s is fine, yes?
Dave: For these, yes, because they are so thin. With thicker links, you will need to add a lot of humidity to prevent the outside from drying too fast, which can rot the inside.
Good grief these are fantastic. I added some jalapeno pepper cheese just since I had it sitting in the freezer. My new go to snack stick for sure
Great recipe! Appreciate the nutrition information at the bottom of the recipe also. Is that information an average per link?
JD: Yes, it’s a rough estimation of the nutrition info per link. I use a program that has a lot of the ingredients I use, just not all of them, so it’s more of an approximation.
Really good just add a little chilli (2 teaspoons)ground, had heaps of requests for more, will do again soon. Beer and dry biscuits cheese,yum yum.
This was off the hook good! I doubled the quantity of ingredients to get a 5 lb batch. No garlic used on first try but will add some next time.
Do you think I’d be ok to use a larger casing for these?
Eric: Not really. Maybe if you got a very narrow hog casing. But the whole point of this is as an easy dried snack stick. When you use thicker casings it becomes more like a traditional salame, which of course would work, but you’d need start culture and Instacure No. 2, not No. 1.
Excellent recipe! Made a batch last weekend to try and was very impressed. I definitely recomend making this sausage.
Making a 21 lb batch of it tonight. I multiplied all the ingredients x 7…. that’s 28 cloves of garlic lol. Hope it’s garlicky enough!
Very good stuff. My kid loves landjaegers and this is a close second for him. Made this when it was cold outside so we did the grinding and mixing out in the garage so we didn’t have to keep throwing it back in the freezer. Made for some cold hands, but we go through it.
is the pork fat suppossed to melt while cooking? Or is it supposed to stay whole and visible when cooled down?
Mike: You mean smoking? Some will melt a bit, but if it’s all running out your smoker was too hot.
Couple questions. Do you put water in the smoker trip tray to keep the humidity up? Any idea what temp to set an electric smoker to get the 150 degrees in 4 hours?
Thanks
Eric: You can do that and I do put a tray in when the outside air is very dry. As for temp on the smoker, set it to 150F if you can. I now use a Traeger, so it goes no lower than 165F, and in that case I smoked for only 3 hours.
Mild, but outstanding! Everyone would love these!
Do you grind the caraway and celery seed or just leave them whole? No garlic?
Teija: I leave the caraway whole. And if you like garlic, put in a few minced cloves.
Last time I made these it was winter in California – no problem finding a cool place to hang them to dry. But, seeing as I want to make another batch tomorrow in Baton Rouge, how critical is the drying phase?
Kevin: Critical. As in, required. 😉
Are these sausages essentially the same as what I generally see in stores sold as “hunter’s sausages”?
Tres: I have no idea. There is no specific “hunter’s sausage.”