Perfect Homemade Breakfast Sausages.

If you’re anything like me, your menu usually reflects what’s currently on sale when you browse though the grocery store. Such is the case with this sort of hack breakfast sausage I made this morning. I came across Italian sausage meat (no casing) on sale and two packs immediately found it’s way into my shopping cart. One pack will go towards making a meat sauce for pasta during the week and the other was transformed into this amazing breakfast sausage I had on toasted English muffins topped with a slice of Pepper Jack cheese.

You can certainly make this with plain ground turkey, chicken or beef.  However you’ll need to add a bit of salt and some toasted fennel seeds along with a couple cubes of crushed garlic. You can also add any other dried spices you like.

Ingredients

1 lb Sausage 1 lb Sausage meat
2 scallions
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
1 pimento pepper (aka seasoning pepper)
1/4 habanero pepper (optional)
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
2-3 tablespoon olive oil for frying off

• add the sausage meat to a big bowl
• toss in all the ingredients and mix well
• be sure to chop the parsley, scallion, thyme and peppers very fine. Wash your hands with soap and water immediately after handling such hot peppers
• if you want it spicy you can use the Habanero peppers as I did and you’re free to go in with more
• the pimento peppers (aka seasoning peppers – NOT spicy but packed with flavor) may be difficult to source if you’re not based in the Caribbean. Try Asian, West Indian and Latin grocers/markets
• don’t over mix and do allow it to marinate for about 1 hour
• if doing this with ground chicken or turkey, I’d suggest adding a bit of oil so they don’t become too dry when cooked
• heat your oil on a medium flame
• shape into sausage links or patties (as I did)
• fry on each side for about 4-5 minutes
• drain on paper towels

You can fry these off as I did, grill over a medium flame or you can certainly make them in moderately hot oven. TIP!  Use the same pan to slowly fry onions to use as a topping for your breakfast sandwich. The flavors will be infused in the onion as it slowly cooks. You’ll end up with sweet onions unlike any you’ve ever had.

While the sausage meat on it own would have been fine for most people, by going in with the additional ingredients I took it to a next level.. thus the sort of hack on breakfast sausages.