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Every year in the spring, my husband tirelessly ventures into the woods with his bow to try to bring home an endlessly elusive turkey. He almost always gets one. For the past few years, we have made turkey brats and/or sausage with it. It’s taken a few years of trying different meat ratios and seasoning blends, but we now have a recipe that we are happy with. And, my husband graciously agreed to let me share it with you all!
How We Make our Turkey Sausage
We use a 50/50 ratio of the wild turkey to pork shoulder. We purchase the pork shoulder whole from our local butcher, and we hand-grind the turkey and pork with our electric grinder. As my husband grinds it, he alternates pork and turkey through the grinder so the grinder can do a good bit of the mixing for him as it goes.
This year, we opted not to make brats, because we made venison brats in January already, and we decided that in addition to regular ground sausage being less work than stuffing brats, it’s also more versatile. So, we made two flavors and packaged them up in 1-pound packages for the freezer. (Can you guess whose writing belongs to whom?)
We don’t get too picky about exactly how much goes into each package – but we do weigh the meat at the start of each batch to ensure we are getting the seasoning ratios correct.
We made 8-pound batches of each flavor, using my husband’s 22-pound wild turkey and two 12-pound bone-in pork shoulders. (He cut what he needed for the sausage off each pork shoulder to grind, and we seasoned the bone-in portions with remaining meat two ways and smoked them. One was green chili pork and the other traditional BBQ if you’re curious!)
Seasoning Blends: Bonus Recipes
For our seasoning blends, there are two side recipes you will also need before proceeding.
- Salt cure mix = 1 cup pickling salt to 2 Tbsp cure salt. We use this in lots of various recipes, so we mix it up and save the extra for later.
- Sausage Seasoning Blend = equal amounts of fennel seed, coriander seed, and black peppercorns, slightly roasted in the oven to enhance flavor. We originally got this seasoning blend idea from the chef over at Catering by Cleavers, and he also has a line of sauces and seasonings at Honke’s Moppin Sauces if you want to check him out.
Any time we have to grind spices for a recipe, we use our coffee grinder. I also have a mortar and pestle, but we more often use the coffee grinder. Just make sure you wash it well before you grind your coffee … I admit I have made a batch of coffee before that tasted like ground jalapeno flakes …
One other tool I haven’t mentioned here yet is my set of rectangular-shaped measuring spoons that are designed to fit right into the spice jars. They are so handy for stuff like this!
Anyway – here are the recipes for how we made our wild turkey sausage. I hope you enjoy!
Homemade Turkey Sausage
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound wild turkey, ground
- 1/2 pound pork shoulder, ground
- 1 tsp sausage seasoning blend, ground * see blog post
- 1 tsp salt cure mix * see blog post
- 1/2 tsp brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp granulated garlic
- 1/4 tsp granulated onion
- 1 tsp water (to help blend spices into meat)
Instructions
- We usually make a large batch, about 8 pounds of meat total. For the purpose of this recipe, we listed seasoning on a per-pound ratio - just calculate accordingly depending on how many pounds of meat you have.
- Grind your wild (or commercial) turkey and pork shoulder, alternating them into the grinder so the grinder mixes meat for you as you go. It works best to grind the meat while it is still partially frozen, or at least very cold.
- Mix your spices in a bowl, and stir in the water so you have kind of a paste.
- Mix the spice paste mixture into the meat. It works best to do this part with your hands to ensure proper seasoning distribution.
- Portion into 1-pound (or whatever size of your choice) packages and wrap in butcher paper for the freezer.
Homemade Breakfast Turkey Sausage
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound wild turkey, ground
- 1/2 pound pork shoulder, ground
- 1 tsp salt cure mix * see blog post
- 1/2 tsp sage, ground * we use fresh dried from our garden, if you are using commercially purchased sage you may need to use more to taste.
- 1/2 tsp brown sugar
- 1/4 tsp thyme
- 1/8 tsp white pepper
- 1/8 tsp red pepper flakes, ground
- 1 tsp water * to help blend spices
Instructions
- We usually make a large batch, about 8 pounds of meat total. For the purpose of this recipe, we listed seasoning on a per-pound ratio - just calculate accordingly depending on how many pounds of meat you have.
- Grind your wild (or commercial) turkey and pork shoulder, alternating them into the grinder so the grinder mixes meat for you as you go. It works best to grind the meat while it is still partially frozen, or at least very cold.
- Mix your spices in a bowl, and stir in the water so you have kind of a paste.
- Mix the spice paste mixture into the meat. It works best to do this part with your hands to ensure proper seasoning distribution.
- Portion into 1-pound packages (or less, we are a family of 2 so we actually do our breakfast packages a bit smaller), and wrap in butcher paper for the freezer.
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