It has been such a privilege over the last several weeks to get to share our pork with our customers. We’ve gotten lots of good feedback and we are stoked that y’all are loving it!
One of our favorite pork products is our sausage. It’s so versatile and I love how you can use the various flavors of our sausages to spice up lots of meals in a unique way.
I wanted to take some time to walk thru each sausage type that we currently offer along with some fun meal ideas for each and hopefully inspire some excitement in you to go whip up some yummy food!
I feel like sausage gets a bad rap or that people think it isn’t as good for you or that it’s “just the leftovers”, BUT I’m here to tell you that is totally not true. Sausage is the trimmed meat that didn’t fit perfectly into the cuts during processing, so it’s a mixture of pork chops, ham, shoulder meat, and more.
While yes, there may be a tad more fat in sausage (this helps hold it together and it’s great during cooking to brown the meat), pastured pork fat is actually a wonderful, natural source of fat (our brains thrive off natural fats!) and it doesn’t hurt that it’s delicious as well :)
Mild Breakfast Sausage
This is one of our most popular and for good reason. It’s got such good flavor but not too much of a kick that kiddos or people that don’t enjoy heat would be turned away. The main spices are black pepper & sage. This sausage is wonderful browned and crumbled with scrambled eggs or made into patties.
Tips for making sausage patties:
roll first into a ball, 1-1.5 in diameter (or larger if you’re making patties to fit onto a large bun or biscuit)
flatten into a large circle - sausage tends to plump up when cooked so I tend to make my patties as flat as I can get them without them falling apart, about 1/4 - 1/2 inch
press your thumb into the center of the patty - this will help it cook flatter and not plump up as much
no need for oil, just simply heat a pan over medium-high heat and throw your patties in to cook, it’s fine if they’re touching, they’ll shrink as they cook
Hot Breakfast Sausage
This is my personal favorite. I like a little kick (with the addition of cayenne!), but I love that it’s not overly spicy to the point that I’m sweating. I enjoy cooking this up and reserving it in a container to cook with eggs all week, whether it be in an egg casserole, scrambled eggs, or even just cooked into over easy eggs.
Simple & delicious breakfast: Brown a bit of hot sausage in a medium pan along with chopped onion/bell pepper and/or leftover roasted potatoes. Once warmed, add 2-3 scrambled eggs over top. Scramble until cooked to your liking. Toss in some chopped cherry tomatoes, freshly shredded cheese, salt & pepper. Enjoy!
This is one of my favorite breakfasts to whip up for Mason and I during the week and it’s the inspiration for the picture at the top of this post.
I also love using this instead of ground beef in multiple recipes, especially spaghetti. So much more flavor than ground beef in my opinion.
Italian
These are wonderful in spaghetti as well or really any pasta/Italian dish instead of ground beef. Italian sausage has the addition of fennel and the hot version has the addition of cayenne.
Here’s a simple dinner idea: Make some rice with bone broth instead of water. Saute some chopped onion & bell peppers with the sausage until cooked through. Add a can of drained diced tomatoes and the prepared rice. Enjoy!
Chorizo
This is like Mexican-flavored ground pork and like all the others, AMAZING with scrambled eggs. But my absolute favorite way to use this sausage is to brown it up and use it for pork tacos. It has chili powder, garlic, salt, a bit of vinegar (you don’t really taste this, it’s mainly for giving it that signature crumble you expect with chorizo), along with some other spices perfect for a pork burrito or taco salad!
Simple pork tacos: I literally did not add a thing to the chorizo when I cooked it and those tacos were some of the best tacos we’ve ever had. I simply browned the chorizo sausage for 10-12 minutes. Meanwhile, I chopped some fresh romaine lettuce & tomatoes and shredded some cheese. I also had salsa, guac & sour cream. Joe enjoyed his in a burrito, while I enjoyed a taco salad over a bed of romaine. So so good and no need to worry with adding any extra spices to the meat, because it’s already the perfect blend!
Brats
These come in packs of four 6 inch links. These are best grilled and served in a bun with fixin’s such as peppers & onions. Set your grill to medium low (300-350 degrees F) and cook the brats for roughly 20 minutes or until 160 degrees F. Turn them often to make sure each side is caramelized. Enjoy!
Confession: we actually don’t have a grill at the moment. Neither of us are huge grillers, my dad is the griller in the family. So when Joe & I cook brats at home, I usually chop the links into 1.5-2 inch segments and saute alongside sliced strips of onion & bell pepper. I like serving this with roasted potatoes, yum!
We hope you enjoyed our breakdown of our sausage varieties, we’d love your feedback! Would you prefer to have some of these in 6-inch links instead of bulk?! Different flavors?! Tell us in the comments below :)