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With the possible exception of the hot dog, no sausage looms larger in my mind than does the simple sweet Italian sausage. I’ve eaten more of this type of link than any other — including hot dogs — and I’ve been making it, off and on, for nearly 20 years.
This is the sausage swimming in the spaghetti sauce. It’s the one you eat with peppers and onions. It’s the stuffing for pretty much everything, the base for meat sauces and the star of many a sandwich.
Originally a sausage made by and for Italian immigrants to the United States, according to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food in America, this style spread in popularity across the country after Word War II, when returning GIs who’d eaten real Italian sausages wanted that flavor back home.
Virtually every supermarket worth its salt makes their own, and virtually every home sausage-maker has his or her own version. This one’s mine, developed over the years.
Sweet Italian sausage has a few commonalities no matter who makes it. For starters, “sweet” is a misnomer, although there is sugar in many recipes, including mine. The term sweet is mostly to differentiate this sausage from the hot Italian sausage, which will have lots of red pepper in it.
Fennel is another constant. If a sweet Italian link doesn’t have whole fennel seeds in it, something just doesn’t seem right to me. Lots of green things, typically chopped parsley, is another constant. Use fresh parsley here, too.
I prefer my Italian sausage a bit coarse, but not so coarse it won’t bind. My grinder only does coarse and fine, so I improvise by grinding half the mixture coarse and half fine; I find that this gets me the consistency I grew up with.
A word on fat. Good Italian sausage is fatty. My recipe below is about the minimum amount of fat-to-meat you want to go. Sometimes I go with 3 1/2 pounds of meat to 1 1/2 pounds of fat. You can also use some really fatty pork shoulder, too: Ask your butcher to give you a five-pound hunk before he’s trimmed it.
That’s it, really. This is a very simple sausage, a utility link you will find yourself making over and over because while it has great flavor on its own, this sausage goes well with all kinds of dishes (especially my Bolognese sauce).
New to making sausage? You can find my detailed tutorial on how to make sausages at home here.
Sweet Italian Sausage
Ingredients
- 4 pounds of lean (ish) pork or wild boar
- 1 pound of pork fatback
- 36 grams of kosher salt, about 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon
- 30 grams of sugar, about 3 tablespoons
- 18 grams of fennel seeds, about 2 heaping tablespoons
- 10 grams freshly cracked black pepper, about a heaping teaspoon
- 1 gram of nutmeg, about 1/4 teaspoon
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 heaping teaspoon fennel pollen (optional)
- 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
- 1/2 cup white wine, chilled
- Hog casings (if you are linking your sausage)
Instructions
- Get out about 15 to 20 feet of hog casings and soak them in warm water.
- Cut the meat and fat into chunks you can fit into your meat grinder. Mix together the salt, sugar, half the fennel seeds, black pepper, nutmeg, oregano and fennel pollen, then mix this with the meat and fat until every piece has a little on it. Put in the freezer until the meat and fat are between 30°F and 40°F. Put your grinder parts (auger, dies, blades, etc) in the freezer, too, and put a bowl in the fridge.
- Grind half of the mixture through the coarse die on your grinder, and half through the fine die. This creates a more interesting texture. If your meat mixture is still at 35°F or colder, you can go right to binding. If it has heated up, you need to chill everything back down. Use this time to clean up the grinder.
- Once the meat is cold, put it in a large bin or bowl and add the remaining fennel seeds, white wine and parsley. Mix well with your (very clean) hands for 2 to 3 minutes -- a good indicator of temperature is that your hands should ache with cold when you do this. You want to to mix until the meat binds to itself. You can also do this in a stand mixer set on its lowest setting, but I find you don't get as good a bind as you do when you do this by hand.
- You now have Italian sausage. You can leave it loose, form it into patties, or link it. I link mine most of the time. Put the loose sausage into a stuffer and thread a casing onto it. Stuffing sausage is easier with two people, one to fill the links, the other to coil, but I do it solo all the time. Stuff the links well but not super-tight, as you will not be able to tie them off later if they are too full. Don't worry about air pockets yet. Stuff the whole casing, leaving lots of room on either end to tie them off; I leave at least three inches of unstuffed casing on either end of the coil.
- To form the individual links, tie off one end of the coil. Now pinch off two links of about six inches long. Rotate the link between your hands forward a few times. (Here's a quick video on making the links) Look for air pockets. To remove them, set a large needle or a sausage pricker into a stovetop burner until it glows (this sterilizes it), then pierce the casing at the air pockets. Twist the links a little and gently compress them until they are nice and tight. Repeat this process with the rest of the sausage.
- Hang your links on a wooden clothes drying rack for at least an hour, or up to overnight if you can hang them in a place that doesn't get any warmer than 40°F or so. This lets the links cure a little, filling their casings and developing flavor. Once you've taken the links off the hanger, they can be refrigerated for up to 3 or 4 days, or frozen for up to a year.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
4+ stars. I made this today and it turned out wonderful so far. I cooked up 1 patty and have the rest in the refrigerator for overnight before I stuff it.
I used 5 g of pepper (2 teaspoons), not the 10 grams listed (which you should check because 10 g is not a heaping teaspoon as stated). I also cut back the salt to 30 g and it was still a little too salty, maybe that will mellow overnight. Did not have any fennel pollen either.
Great overall taste and I cannot wait until I eat the sausages cooked in some tomato sauce.
Thanks a lot Hank.
I have some game meat frozen waiting to be utilized, and I was wondering how much of an impact it would make to use previously frozen meat to make the sausage and then freeze again as links. Just how bad would this be? Is it worthwhile to decide well ahead of time what should become sausage and make a few batches before any freezing? Thanks very much for all the info.
Jon: Not ideal, but not catastrophic either. I’ve done it. One way to minimize it would be to poach or smoke the links until they are fully cooked, then cool and freeze. That makes them heat and eat later, and will minimize moisture loss. You can also use that C-Bind carrot fiber that The Sausage Maker sells, which will help retain even more moisture.
Thanks so much for the quick reply. I wouldn’t have thought of smoking them as a solution for this, so that’s extremely helpful. We liked the convenience of the pre-smoked sausages we got when we took our previous game animals to processors, so I’m definitely going to give that a try. I’ll also check into C-bind which I’ve never heard of before and maybe we will do some of each way and see if we can find a difference.
Thanks again!
Made this sweet Italian sausage today, 12/19/2020. Only used 4 lbs of range-free organic hog w/ 20% pork fat included. That is by far the best sweet Italian sausage I’ve ever made and tasted. It’s a permanent recipe.
Hey Hank thanks in advance as I haven’t tried this yet, but will be digging in this weekend. Quick question. I noticed in the hot Italian recipe you have the meat cure in the fridge for a a couple days, but not for the sweet. Is there a reason for the discrepancy between the two methods involving the ingredients needing to bind?
Jon: Both versions benefit from an overnight cure with just the salt. I should adjust this recipe – thanks for the heads up!
Excellent sweet Italian sausage recipe. One of these days I may link this up, but this is a standby for our family in making weeknight spaghetti sauce, or a sauce for a superlative lasagna.
I love this recipe. We like to make it with venison and fatty pork shoulder. I haven’t used the fennel pollen, but the nutmeg is a perfect, subtle touch and the fennel seed makes it sing. Enough that when I fed this to an Italian chef, he nearly cried.
Thank you Hank.
Hi. Another question re sugar. As a Low carber/ Keto person, I don’t eat it. Would a sugar substitute like Xylitol work? I have made your Spicy Italian many many times, but just leave the sugar out.
Howard: I’d just leave it out. It’s a small amount anyway.
I’m keto as well and I subbed monk fruit powder. It came out perfect!
Could you smoke these after making?
Colin: Yes, you can.
Cheers Hank, thanks so much for this great blend. I used an elk and black tail mix with 25%pork fat…. added garlic. Came out great, tastes like a Hardy yet delicious Italian sausage. Fresh and amazing. I might cut back the salt just a tad next time. Strong work brother!!!
I made the hot Italian sausage recipe using range free organic pork and pork fat, actually doubled it. It is by far the best Italian sausage I have ever eaten. Even my wife was impressed. So that is my new and only hot Italian sausage recipe
I’ve made this sausage many times, and everybody loves it. My tweak is I use some fresh garlic, not in Hank’s recipe, and some fresh Italian parsley. I toast the fennel seeds and grind them a bit in a molcajete.
Tried this recipe an substituted beer inplace of the wine an it was fantastic.
Do u grind the fennel seeds
Steve: No, I don’t because I like the texture. You can if you’d like.
Being a butcher with over 50 years on the Block I have always enjoyed the art of Sausage making. In my work experiences, I have always used commercially prepared seasoning blends that are packaged for large batches. I have been trying to perfect the sweet Italian sausage that I make with peppers and onions. The challenge was to get the flavor of the spices to come through or rise above if you will the addition of peppers and onions. My search brought me to your website and your recipe. I followed your instructions to the letter. The grinding half coarse and half medium is a very good variation texturally and has a very good “mouth feel” to it. I made it with the fat back the first time and it was very, very good. This last time I had been saving the fat trimmed from bacon before I cooked it in my freezer and substituted those trimmings in a 70 / 30 blend. Lean Pork Shoulder/Bacon Fat. I used equal portions of sweet red, yellow, orange peppers, and sweet onion in addition to your prescribed spices blend. The result was the BEST Italian Sweet Sausage that I have EVER TASTED!! Thank you, Hank, my search is over brother!
I am eager to try some of your other offerings.
About how many 6” links will you get from the 5lbs of grind, 10-12?
I’ve been saving this recipe for a while now. First try at home made Sweet Italian Sausage! I spend 6 weeks hunting or playing hide and seek with a 160lb boar. We met in the woods so many times I named him Darren. This rascal was slick but he didn’t count on my resolve. Bye Darren. See you at sausage! His gift has paid off for me and I am lucky enough to have two 4 1/2lbs vacuum sealed bags of fresh hog shoulder in the freezer waiting for Sweet Darren Italian Sausage!
Just a question about the amount of black pepper. It states 10 grams or a heaping tsp. When I weigh my pepper it is closer to a heaping TBS. Is the weight or the unit of measure the one to go by?
Justin: That means your pepper is much more finely ground than mine. Go with the weight.
Had some venison in the freezer that we had put aside to make sausage. Used this recipe and they turned out fantastic! Mixed in some pork shoulder butt for some fat. Followed recipe to the letter, except for the fennel pollen (couldn’t find any of that in the stores). The flavours are awesome! Great balance. The texture was great as well. The 2 different sized grinds definitely gives it the proper sausage texture. This one is a keeper.
Wow! I’m fairly picky about my Italian sausage but have never attempted it myself. That said, I’m no stranger to grinding my own meat. A few years back I bought a vintage 1965 Rival Grind O Matic for a dollar at an auction. It has exactly one meat blade, one die, and one speed…very slow. Nine deer later it’s never failed me.
I found a 5 lb pork loin with a hefty layer of fat on the bottom that I got at Walmart in my freezer nearing the end of it useful life. I also had a very cheap magnum of Chardonnay in the back of the fridge. Found your recipe and me and 7 year old daughter had at it. Quality Daddy daughter time grinding meat!
Again Wow! We followed your recipe and instructions to a tee. We prefer to use the meat for patties or loose for sauce. After hand binding it we immediately fried up a few a patties in a bit of salted butter. Truly outstanding! Loved it! Then I thought hmmm maybe next time just a hint of garlic but then…I read how you let the links cure a bit. So I decided to let the meat sit in the fridge overnight. Next morning fried up a few more patties. Overnight the flavors melded exquisitely. Truly amazing. Best Italian sausage I’ve ever had. Just the right amount of salt and pepper. Just perfect!! Needless to say, I’ve decided against adding anything. The recipe is perfect and that’s using a cheap cut of meat that had been frozen for months, cheap wine, and a 54 year old grinder.
Bravo!
I wanted a seasoning mix to add to sauces, pizza and anything else needing some extra sausage flavor. After smelling the aroma I found it missing something, anise seeds. As I want it as a seasoning, I grind up all of the ingredients. When using this recipe don’t forget the anise seed add 1 tablespoon of of anise seed to the recipe. You won’t regret it.
That one change takes it from 3 stars to 5.
I’m just getting started in making sausage. You made it look simple. Little bit of labor and common sense. Good job ! Looked delicious.?