Homemade Italian Sausage Recipe
Published October 7, 2022. This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
Learn how to make the best authentic, flavorful homemade Italian sausage recipe from scratch that is simple to cook and delicious. You will love the flavors in this sausage and the satisfaction of making it at home.
Italian sausage can go in a myriad of dishes to help enhance the flavor of a recipe and provide protein. Try out this recipe in my Pasta with Italian Sausage or Sausage with Peppers and Onions.
Italian Sausage
Italian sausage is ground pork often flavored with garlic and fennel seed. It comes in two different styles, sweet or hot. Hot Italian sausage usually is flavored with spicy red pepper, while the sweet version has no pepper in it. In addition, Italian sausage is a very popular pizza topping in coarse loose chunks or sliced links.
Every holiday we celebrate seems to have Italian sausage as one of the items served. Whether in a sauce or grilled and served on a bun, it’s a very popular cased protein. My recipe is a balanced approach to the sweet and hot version with ingredients that complement each other and provide a lot of flavors.
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Pork – A trimmed pork shoulder or pork butt is the perfect meat cut. You can add in some pork belly for more fat and flavor.
- Spices – I use a combination of fennel, basil, oregano, red pepper flakes, paprika, nutmeg, and coriander.
- Parsley – Adding some chopped fresh parsley will add some nice flavors and freshness to the Italian sausage.
- Garlic – Finely minced cloves are traditional to use and provide outstanding flavors.
- Casing – I use natural hog casing for this.
- Wine – A good Italian white Pinot Grigio is what I used. However, you can use a red Sangiovese or Chianti in this as well.
- Orange – This is an addition to traditional Italian sausage, but it is an ingredient often used in Italy while making sausage.
- Sugar – This will help to balance out some of the spicy seasonings in this.
- Ice – Shaved ice will help keep the sausage moist when encased.
How to Make Italian Sausage from Scratch
Add the hog casing to a medium-sized bowl and cover by 4 to 5 inches with cold water, and set it aside.
Trim the meat of a pork shoulder away from the bone and cut it into 1-inch chunks and place them into the freezer or refrigerator to chill for 15-20 minutes.
In the meantime, prepare the spices, garlic, orange, parsley, and shaved ice. Set it aside until ready to use. Keep the ice in the freezer.
Assemble your grinder with the auger, blade, dye, and tightening ring.
Run the cold cubed pork through the food grinder using the medium size dye into another pan.
Add in all the spices and mix thoroughly to combine.
Fry a small piece of the Italian sausage and taste it to adjust any seasonings, and then place it again in the freezer or refrigerator for 15-20 minutes.
Run some water through the center of the hog casing to rinse everything out. Set aside.
Attach the hog casing around the sausage filler, tie a knot at the end, run the sausage through the attachment at low speed, and stuff the hog casing.
Tie a knot around the end of the sausage and continue stuffing until all the ingredients have been used.
Hold one filled casing in the middle and pinch it.
Next, go down about 6” inches and pinch again and twist them together.
Use one of the hanging remaining links through the whole of the two 6” links twisted together, and then repeat the process until the filled casing is tied.
Tie a double not at the end of the links and cut off any excess. Store or cook.
Make-Ahead and Storage
Make-Ahead: You can make this up to 3 days ahead of time. Just keep cool in the refrigerator and cover until ready to cook.
How to Store: Cover and store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. The Italian sausage will freeze well for up to 6 months, either raw or cooked. Thaw in the refrigerator for 1 day before cooking or reheating.
Chef Notes + Tips
- Each hog casing is roughly 2 to 3 feet in length. When adding it to the sausage filler tube, you can place 2 to 4 casings at once.
- Feel free to make smaller links like in my bangers recipe.
- There can be variations in the seasonings placed into the filling, and I encourage you to find the blend you like. However, some staples must be used, such as garlic, fennel seeds, salt, pepper, paprika, wine, and red pepper flakes.
- Freeze the remaining pork bones in the freezer for pork stock on a large date.
- If you do not have a spice grinder, you can use a mortar and pestle.
Recipes Using Italian Sausage
Video
Homemade Italian Sausage Recipe
Ingredients
- 15 to 18 feet natural hog casing
- 9 pounds bone-in pork shoulder
- 2 tablespoons fennel seeds
- 2 teaspoons coriander seeds
- 1 tablespoon dry basil
- 1 tablespoon dry oregano
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 3 tablespoons sea salt
- 1 tablespoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon Paprika
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons grated garlic
- Zest of 1 orange
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 1/3 cup chopped Parsley
- 1 1/2 cups crushed shaved ice
Instructions
- Add the hog casing to a medium-sized bowl and cover by 4 to 5 inches with cold water, and set it aside.
- Trim away the meat of the pork shoulder away from the bone and cut it into 1-inch chunks and place them into a bowl, cover them, and put them in the freezer or refrigerator to chill for 15-20 minutes.
- In the meantime, add the fennel, coriander, basil, oregano, basil, oregano, nutmeg, pepper flakes, black pepper, salt, paprika, and sugar to a spice grinder and pulse 10 to 15 times to break down the fennel and coriander a bit. This does not have to be perfect.
- Run the cold cubed pork through the food grinder using the medium size dye into another pan.
- Add in all the spices, garlic, orange zest, white wine, parsley, and shaved ice, and mix thoroughly.
- Fry a small piece of the Italian sausage and taste it to adjust any seasonings, and then place it again in the freezer or refrigerator for 15-20 minutes.
- Run some water through the center of the hog casing to rinse everything out.
- Attach the hog casing around the sausage filler, tie a knot at the end, run the chilled sausage through the attachment at low speed, and stuff the hog casing. Watch the video.
- Tie a knot around the end of the sausage and continue stuffing until all the ingredients have been used.
- Hold one filled casing in the middle and pinch it.
- Next, go down about 6” inches and pinch again and twist them together.
- Use one of the hanging remaining links through the whole of the two 6” links twisted together, and then repeat the process until the filled casing is tied.
- Tie a double not at the end of the links and cut off any excess. Store or cook.
This is great! Just tasted the tester. I made the recipe exactly the same. I can see I’ll be making this a lot more! Thanks for this. trying the Breakfast sausage now.
Thanks for giving it a shot!!
Awesome homemade flavor way better than commercial. Understand the reason to start with 9 lb bone in for the large effort to make links. As retired and fixed income without the equipment, we did a calc to take the ingredients to support 1 lb fresh ground we get from the butcher. Take all the dry ingredients and pulverize in a spice grinder. Use a digital scale and obtain the total weight in grams. Figure about 8 lb of meat. Divide total by 8 to obtain per pound grams. For wine, it divides out to 1 tbsp/lb. Garlic we rounded up to 1 tsp/lb. The parsley is about 2 tsp/lb. Orange is a guesstimate. Hand mix by folding sort of like kneading bread until mixed. Done. We simply make patties and freeze.
Best sausage flavor ever! A bit of a workout to make, but we’ll worth it
thanks for giving it a shot!!
I want to give this a try, but need advice. My sister is allergic to anything in the capsaicin family. What do you suggest as a replacement for paprika and red pepper flakes? Thanks! Pat
You can skip those two
Hey Billy.
I used to help my mom make this. We used a hand grinder (Universal)This was a wedding present to all of us.
I love the additions you put in and the ELECTRIC grinder!!!
Love this recipe. My first attempt at sausage making since I received the KitchenAid attachment for Christmas. I would say it tastes and smells amazing and that is with a novice making it. I do have one question related to how keep food safety from becoming a problem. I was very careful to clean and refrigerate at every stage in the process, however, after leaving the stuffed sausages in the fridge over night there was some sausage “juice” in the bottom of my container….is that normal? I lightly rinsed and dried the sausages before freezing today. Your’s look so clean!!
I had to start making sausage homemade because the store bought sausage was too high in sodium for my mom’s salt restricted diet. I tried a lot of other recipes and seem to create that sweet Italian flavor we love so much. Before I invest the time in trying your recipe, which looks and sounds amazing, will it have a flavor similar to what we were used to, minus all of the sodium. The other recipes also created a dry sausage. Is that because of the lack of sodium,
And will adding the shaved ice help keep it moister. Thanks in advance for your reply. I look forward to trying this
Without knowing exactly what you were eating it’s hard to know. Check out all the reviews of what folks are saying.
Hopefully yes
I would have loved to try this but I have no idea how much “1 tablespoon” is of various spices, or how much meat there is in “9 lbs of bone-in.” You clearly have a lot of experience and I would have loved to try your recipe.
Since everyone will be starting with a different amount of meat, why not just state in percent weights? Then no-one has to get out the measuring spoons and wonder how tight to pack stuff, or what shape salt crystals you’re talking about (e.g., kosher salt has half the density of table salt).
For instance I have 1200g of ground pork meat. If you say “Salt 1%” then I’d just add 12g salt and not need to know what kind of salt you use, or how much bone is in the cut your butcher gives you in your country for a bone-in shoulder. (I can’t even get it bone-in here in Tokyo… and yet it’s people living abroad that really need your recipe since we can’t simply buy pork sausage here, we HAVE to make it!)
Instead I have to say, 9lb shoulder? Maybe has 3lb bone? So 6lb meat? Which is 454*6= 2724g? So I have 1200g, so I need 1200/2724 of 3 tablespoons of sea salt… which is 1.32 tablespoons… so about 4 teaspoons… but is your sea salt fine-grind like table salt or huge flakes? It could be 22g… or it could be 11g… or less… and if my estimate of bone weight is wrong then I could be off by more than a factor of two.
I don’t say all this as a complaint, because your sausage looks great and it’s great you’re trying to share your experience, but it’s impossible to actually make use of as you’ve written it. I see other people have the same problem. Sorry to be such a whining snowflake but I need pork sausage and can’t buy it and you look like you have the best on the internet so it’s a little frustrating.
They are in weights. Simply click where it says us customary in the recipe card and select metric.
This recipe is impractical. I only want to make 1 lb. of sausage; not 9 lb. Cannot you post a practical version?
Impractical? Whos getting their grinder out for one pound? The tone and entitlement of your post actually made me laugh out loud. Here’s a thought, though I understand that it may be hard for your simple mind to comprehend, take the given ratios and divide them for the one pound. “Cannot you post a practical version?”… you just sound like a pompous ass. Have a good day, Joseph.
Way to go derek, nobody makes 1 pound what a waste of time.
Not to mention, where can you find a one pound pork shoulder? While the nine pounds was substantial…….my neighbors were very, very happy.
I think this recipe is the best I’ve seen online and plan on making it very soon, (the orange peel is a nice touch) however I’m wondering if you also have a recipe for sage italian sausage? I live in the west coast and had a grandma who recently passed who loved and ate sage sausage every day. It is nearly impossible to get it shipped to the west coast (I’ve tried getting it from Pork King and they only sell it wholesale) and I’d love to be to recreate it to honor her and eat wonderful sausage.
Excellent recipe! I’d bought sausage casings in the store recently to push myself to try my hand at making sausages. Very grateful that your recipe was one of the first I came across, because it was easy to understand, and having the video to watch was helpful, too. My husband and I, along with our daughters, just made 36 Italian sausages and it was so much fun. Looking forward to trying the bangers recipe next.
love it!
Going to try this soon, is this spicy or mild?
mild.
Thanks Chef, made other recipes Italian Sausages before, but I must say that Yours beats them all!
This will be my “go to” for my restaurant in Bali and also will add more red pepper flakes for a spicy version.
Do you have a British Banger recipe? We get a lot of Brits here and I would like to surprise them with an authentic Banger.
Thanks very much, keep on cookin!
I do have a banger recipe. Give it a search on the site 🙂
Where’s the anise?🤔
fennel
Thank you for this recipe. Going to make these in the mild form. Do you have a recipe you can think of for mild Portuguese sausage, that doesn’t use pepper spices in it. I know I can substitute Clubhouse Italian Seasoning with the red lid only contains dehydrated vegetable pepper instead of pepper spices, along with Clubhouse Greek Seasoning. For paprika, change that to tumeric. My next door neighbor, whom has since passed away. Used to make both the mild & spicy Portuguese sausage. She gave me the recipe for it, but somewhere down the line it got lost.
not familiar with it.
Have made the twice so far t absolutely love ❤️ this sausage 😍
love it!
Curious why you went with white wine instead of red, which is what I usually use. I find the red gives it a little bolder flavor that compliments the garlic and red pepper flakes. Going to try the white this time.
More commonly used believe it or not, in Italy.
Thanks Billy. Made my first batch with my Kitchenaid. Loved the cruahed ice tip. Turned out amazing! Cant believe I made home made Italian Sausages!
Great job!
Very good spice blend. that makes a very flavorful sausage. i did not use the orange. i also cube the pork and then mix it with the spice blend and then refrigerate. i like the spices to get infused into the meat before i grind it. i also double grind the meat to ensure that the spices are well mixed.
Excellent!
I just got everything needed to do this. The attention to detail in this recipe is just perfect for a novice. Thanks so much Billy, another great recipe! Can’t wait to make these. I am hoping you will go the thin spiral sausage with parsley and cheese next.
It’s my pleasure!
Can I use ground pork instead of a shoulder? I could run the ground pork thru the meat grinder if it is not ground finely enough….
In most cases, ground pork is ground pork shoulder 🙂
Thanks for these lessons.. my question is if I use beef instead of pork which part of it will be the best to use .
Thanks
Beef will have a completely different flavor and I do not recommend.
Thank you chef for all your wonderful recipes. I have made this sausage recipe twice. I make it in 1 lb bulk packaging and vacuum seal them and cook it up for biscuits and gravy. Some of the second batch I am going to send to my kids. Thank you again!
Best Italian sausage ever!! So balanced, tasty, and great texture. It is now my permanent recipe for Italian sausage.
I made this yesterday and froze most of it except for what we ate for supper. I didn’t use casings because I like it loose so I can saute it and add it to soups and stews. This came out pretty good. I forgot to add the red pepper flakes but did add in a couple shakes of ground cayenne pepper. Came out great! Thanks for the recipe. I’ll be making it again.
Chef – first, thank you for taking the time to put your recipe and process on this page as it helped me tremendously. I had never made sausage before but have wanted to try for quite some time. I have a KitchenAid Pro mixer and I recently bought a grinder attachment and sausage stuffer. Thanks to your instruction (and recipe), the entire process went smoothly and I was able to bang[er] out a few dozen sausages from a pork shoulder. I fried up a small patty (before stuffing the rest!) and it was excellent. I am looking forward to playing around with the seasonings and trying different types of sausages. Maybe some brats next…
I don’t have a grinder, and don’t want to invest in one right now. Can I process the pork in a food processor? I did that with the salmon for your salmon patties, worked great. And one more question, would it work to freeze this in bulk rather than links, so the sausage can be used in pasta sauces or made into patties? Thanks so much, I can’t wait to try this!
It would be better if you finely chopped it. If you place it in a food processor, it may get too fine.
Chef, I am curious, if you defrost a pork butt to use to make these sausages, can you freeze the sausages since the meat was previously frozen. Thanks
Yes
Thank you for the quick response. Can’t wait to make the sausages and bangers….
Can this be made into a patty instead of links, not using the casings? Thks
of course
I love all your videos. This is a real cooking show for real people. I watch every video on utube but am unable to make a comment to let you know how I appreciate every one I watch.
Thank you so kindly!!