There is nothing exotic or unusual about this garlic sausage, except maybe that I am using venison along with the pork. You could use all pork or any combination of similar meats.
I like to call this my “A Zone” sausage. It’s a California inside joke, as the state, in its infinite wisdom, makes us hunt blacktail deer in the Coastal Range mountains in August, when temperatures can soar beyond 100°F.
The bright side? Once you get the meat cooled down and ready to cook with, you happen to be blessed with summer’s ingredients.
No juniper, rosemary or winter flavors here. No sir. This sausage is all about our Mediterranean summers: Fresh garlic, lemon zest, white wine — and lots of fresh basil. Or you can jack up the garlic even more if you’d like.
Fresh garlic is the way to go here, although if you used garlic powder it’ll do, but it’s just not as nice in a fresh sausage as freshly chopped. If you do use the powder, use a tablespoon to start.
I do like these as a garlic sausage, where that is the main flavor other than the meat, but you can play with things and make the lemon or the basil the stars. Similarly, you can vary the grind more than I do — I do a mix of medium and fine grind, solely because I like it.
I prefer garlic sausage on the grill, more or less like bratwurst or Italian sausage, but you could pan-fry them or bake them or use them in place of Italian sausage or a Spanish butifarra sausage in those recipes.
These are also excellent smoked. If you smoke your garlic sausage, do so at about 200°F until the internal temperature hits about 150°F, then either eat or plunge in ice water to cool for storage. I prefer fruit woods here, but you can use whatever wood you’d like.
You can also skip the casings and use this as a loose sausage for spaghetti sauce or sausage, peppers and onions, or meatballs.
New to making sausage? You can find my detailed tutorial on how to make sausages at home here.
Venison Garlic Sausage
Ingredients
- 3 1/2 pounds venison, or antelope, elk, moose, or beef
- 1 1/2 pounds pork shoulder
- 34 grams kosher salt, about 2 tablespoons
- 15 grams cracked black pepper, about a tablespoon
- 25 grams fresh chopped garlic, about 2 tablespoons
- Zest of a lemon
- 3 grams celery seed, about 1/2 teaspoon
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 6 tablespoons of fresh chopped basil
- Hog casings
Instructions
- Take out some hog casings and set in a bowl of warm water.
- Chop meat (and pork fat, if using) into chunks. (Optional expert step: Mix the salt with just the meat and grind it very coarsely, like with a 10 mm or 12 mm plate, and refrigerate it overnight. If you don't have such a large plate, chop the meat into 1/2 or 3/4 inch pieces and do the same thing. This will create a tighter bind in the finished sausage.)
- When you are ready to grind everything, Mix the meat, fat, lemon zest, celery seed -- half the black pepper, garlic and basil. Why only half? You’ll want to add the rest right before you do the final mix on the sausage. This keeps the spices larger, altering the sausage’s texture, making eating it more interesting. Chill the meat until it is 37°F or colder by putting it in the freezer for an hour or so.
- Grind through a medium-coarse plate (6 mm or 7 mm). If the mixture is still below 37°F, immediately grind 1/2 the mixture through the fine plate (4.5 mm). If it's too warm, freeze it all until it's cold enough. You are doing this extra grind to make the texture of the sausage more interesting -- you can skip it if you want.
- After you are done grinding, freeze the sausage until its between 28°F and 32°F. When it's ready, add the rest of the black pepper, basil and garlic, plus the wine, then mix thoroughly either using a Kitchenaid on low for 60 to 90 seconds or with your (very clean) hands for 2 minutes. This is important to get the sausage to bind properly. Once it is mixed well, put it back in the fridge while you clean up.
- Stuff the sausage into the casings. Twist off links by pinching the sausage down and twisting it, first in one direction, and then with the next link, the other direction. Or you could tie them off with butcher’s string. Make sure you pierce the casing wherever there are air pockets, gently squeezing the links to remove any air.
- Hang the sausages in a cool place for up to 4 hours (the colder it is, the longer you can hang them). If it is warm out, as in hotter than about 70°F, hang for one hour. Once they have dried a bit, put in the fridge until needed. They will keep for at least a week in the fridge. If you are freezing the sausages, wait a day before doing so. This will tighten up the sausages and help them keep their shape in the deep-freeze.
Notes
Keys to Success
- You want everything cold, cold, cold! When meat and fat warm it causes smear, where the fat smears over the ground meat. It will destroy the texture of your sausage.
- You want fatty pork shoulder here, not lean. You could use belly, or bacon ends, too. If you do use bacon ends, cut the salt to 20 grams.
- You can vary the spices and herbs, but not the salt. I've used many other herbs, like fresh oregano, parsley, summer savory, even epazote.
- These are so much better made a day or three before you eat them. Keep them in the fridge until you grill your links.
Maybe the tastiest sausages I’ve ever had! I made them with just pork (since I let all the deer go this year) and wife and I can’t stop snacking on it. Can’t wait to try it again with some game meat.
Is the nutrition value shown 1 sausage or the whole 5lbs 9f sausage.
Wayne: In this case, one sausage, which is what I call a serving.
I just found this site and am loving the recipes. I assume the pork shoulder is being used for the fat content since venison, goat and lamb are so lean. Would I be able to sub in plain pork or beef fat instead? Could I use beef shoulder instead? I have a lot of goat in the freezer and I want to make some sausage out of some of the roasts (curry and pot roast are getting old).
Also, if I don’t have a sausage stuffer yet, can this be ground, frozen and later thawed to stuff into casings?
Amanda: Yes, it’s for fat, and also, pork meat binds to itself better than most other meats. You can make those substitutions, although the sausage will not be quite the same. As for freezing and then stuffing, I have never heard of anyone doing that. Not sure if it will work or not. I’d just keep it as loose sausage.
Hi Hank,
I found your basil and garlic fresh sausage recipe, plus your bay leaf and garlic recipe. While I want to make these two recipes, I wonder if might be able to help me with the measurements for another variation of garlic sausage? My parents made a garlic sausage all of my younger years. Thank you in advance for any help you might be able to provide me. They used fresh pork, fresh venison or beef, fresh garlic, salt and black pepper. We had an old iron sausage stuffer to load the hog casings. We did not smoke our sausage. I wish I had a picture of that large sausage stuffer to share with you and other folks. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Thank you once again,
bettyjoburgess0@gmail
This was my first attempt at making home made sausage. I used mule deer and the flavours were fantastic ! Fresh lemon and basil and garlic worked really well together. I followed all steps exactly as listed. Just need to work at getting the finished product a little firmer. But overall I was very happy with my results and your directions. Thanks for your efforts on an excellent site !
Would this be a good sausage for smoking? Maybe some apple or light hickory smoke with a tsp of prague #1..
Chris: You could, but I wouldn’t. I like the fresh flavor of the basil and I don’t think it would be good with smoke.
My sausage came out a little too dry for my liking, so can I regrind the sausage in the casing and add some cure? Or is the saying true “once it’s stuffed it’s stuffed?”
Eldon: Once it’s stuffed it’s stuffed.
Hank, I don’t have a refrigerated unit to hang the sausage, can I rest them on a rack in the fridge? Any suggestions?
Thanks
Going to try some of your recipe hope thing go well get to you soon frank
Hank,
Sorry to bother you again but am I looking for a nice fatty 1.5 lb pork shoulder or do I need additional fat in addition to the shoulder? Thanks.
Beth: So long as the pork should is very fatty, you’re fine. Remember you need at least 20% fat for the batch, and 30% is better.
Hank,
I just found a venison leg roast from 2014 in my freezer. I’m hoping it might be okay for this recipe? Also, I don’t own a stuffer so I’m wondering if you’ve ever tried leaving this sausage loose and cooking it up as a Mediterranean-style burger? Or maybe with some pasta? Thoughts on this?
Beth: It’ll be fine, but remember you need pork fat, too. And yes, I’ve left it loose several times. Great for meatballs and pasta sauce.
This gave me an idea for those without a suffer. I’ve prepared Persian kubideh kabobs (Google it) with loose ground meat pressed onto a flat skewer. I’m going to try kubideh style kabobs with this sausage. Kubideh grilled properly has a wonderful charred flavor too.
Hank,
If I am planning on smoking these, should I add Instacure?
Eric: You don’t have to, but it helps. If you don’t, just smoke hotter, like 200 to 250 degrees.
Hank,
I just made this and it’s fantastic. Nice change of pace from the typical fennel sausage. I used some pureed frozen basil from last summer. All I had was celery salt, and I can detect it in the sausage. Really great addition and one that definitely enhances the flavor.
How long and at what temp would you smoke these for if the meat was previously frozen before and I want to re freeze the sausage once made?
Bill: Length of time is up to you. I’d go no less than 2 hours. You want the internal temperature to hit at least 150 degrees Fahrenheit.
I have some deer meat that has been in the freezer for the past 5 yrs. I defrosted it and it’s not freezer burned and it does not smell bad. Should I use it?
Chad: Whoa. That’s a powerful long time. Maybe cook a little first and taste it? It could be good, but I’ve never worked with anything that old before.
Hello Ive been trying to incorporate fresh basil into a sausage recipe. would this recipe work with pork?
Absolutely!
Jon: Yes, with a caveat: The texture might suffer. A better solution is to cook the sausages before refreezing, either by smoking or poaching in hot (160 degree) water for 20 minutes. Then you can cool them off and refreeze, and when you want to eat them, all you need to do is reheat.
Hank, if the venison was frozen before processing, (using some burger), can they be refrozen?
Eric: I prefer these to be coarse sausages, so I grind only once with the coarse die. But there is no reason you can’t grind it finer.
First let me say this is my *favorite* website, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and creativity. My question is, in Step 6 should the sausage mix be ground just once with the coarse die, or a second time using a somewhat finer die after re-cooling the mix before moving to Step 7? Thank you again!