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I’ve written in the past how we try to go grain free in our household a day or two each week, usually on the weekend. The practice isn’t necessary as no one is gluten sensitive or has allergies in our home, but my husband and I have been practicing this since last summer when we both came off a few months on GAPS. During that time, we realized just how heavy in grains the Western diet truly is and how beneficial regular and frequent digestive breaks from them can be.
Grains are the hardest foods to digest, after all, which is why nearly all gut healing diets exclude them. This includes GAPS, SCD, and Autoimmune Paleo (AIP).
The kids generally dislike this practice as they all really enjoy toast or sourdough bagels for breakfast. Lately, though, they’ve warmed to the idea as they’ve been getting a homemade breakfast sausage from a local farm and they really love it!
My husband actually came up with the idea. Our favorite sausage from a local farm was back-ordered, and we were desperate for a breakfast sausage fix. So, hubby decided to try his hand at creating his own with some excellent quality pastured ground pork and five different spices.
I am happy to report that this breakfast sausage recipe turned out fantastic! In fact, the majority vote in the house is that Dad’s homemade sausage is the yummiest they’ve tasted yet!
I don’t think we’ll be going back to store-bought ones, since this recipe is so easy to make, tastes better, and is more budget-friendly.
Homemade Breakfast Sausage
Below is the easy breakfast sausage recipe we use in our home with suggested substitutions that work well. I truly hope you enjoy it courtesy of my husband’s creativity in the kitchen!
Love breakfast sausage? You may wish to try this pastured meatballs recipe too.
Breakfast Sausage Recipe
Easy, delicious breakfast sausage recipe flavored with herbs you probably already have in your spice drawer.
Ingredients
- 1 pound pastured pork or ground turkey
- 1 large egg preferably pastured, lightly beaten
- 2 Tbl butter softened
- 1/4 tsp ground cumin preferably organic
- 1/4 tsp ground oregano preferably organic
- 1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper preferably organic
- 1/2 tsp dried basil preferably organic
- 1/2 tsp thyme preferably organic
- 2 tsp sea salt
Instructions
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Mix all ingredients together and chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour or so. This allows the flavors to blend.
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Form the chilled meat into small patties and cook on the stovetop in a frypan until cooked through.
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Time saving tip: Make a bunch of homemade breakfast sausage patties ahead of time to freeze for quick breakfasts on the go! Separate patties in the storage container using parchment paper.
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Refrigerate any leftovers. They will be good to reheat and enjoy for several days.
Recipe Notes
If using ground pork for this recipe, it is best to marinate in 1 cup of apple cider vinegar for 1 hour in the refrigerator first. Dry the marinated meat thoroughly with paper towels or a clean dishtowel before proceeeding.
Ground turkey may be substituted for the ground pastured pork as desired. Ground turkey does not require marinating.
Ghee may be substituted for the butter.
perfect! just got some pastured ground pork and this will be great. thanks for sharing!
My kids like this sausage better than bacon, which I find nearly impossible as good quality bacon is sooooo amazing.
The Booze Hound and I are doing a challenge at our gym that requires us to go grain free for 10 weeks. The foods we are supposed to focus on (veg, fruit, meat, nuts, seeds) are supposed to mimic the “Paleo Diet.” Although I do NOT subscribe to fad diets as the norm, I have to say we have both felt GREAT being grain- and sugar-free (except for fruit) for these past 2 weeks. Our normal diet is quite good, and I do love to bake, so we will go back to including dairy (grass-fed) and starches, but I will have a new arsenal of grain-free recipe ideas to pick from now. We have been eating a LOT of bacon lately from our local Earth Fare and it is AMAZING. We are going through so much of it. Kind of embarrassing, really 🙂 But neither of us wants to lose weight, so we’re finding that bacon and (grass-fed) butter and heavy cream are things we need to incorporate regularly to keep the weight up.
Just wanted to say hello and that we’ll probably adopt a similar 2-day-a-week grain vacation once this challenge is over.
Cool! My husband and I also felt great when we went grain/starch BUT I got incredibly tired after about 4 months on it and went off as I found I needed more carbs for energy. Going grain free was only was helpful short term for me as a kind of digestive rest so to speak. I find it helpful only for short periods of time. I know a number of other folks who have similar issues with going grain free for longer periods.
Thank you….my family are big sausage eaters and I would love to make them home made without all the junk!!! They will eat gluten free Jenni O turkey sausage but I can’t wait to try this!
I was interested to learn that there’s “new wheat” and “old wheat” and that here in the U.S. it’s new (modernized, hybridized, high gluten, and something called “deaminated”) while Europe uses the old wheat. Some people with wheat sensitivities here can consume it just fine in Europe. So much for food science and its so-called advancements.
Thanks for the delicious recipe, Sarah! MMMmmmm, good.
Thanks for sharing that info, Beth. That’s a good reason to use spelt if you live in the US which is a low gluten form of wheat and non-hybridized from what I understand. The bread we use is sprouted/sourdough spelt although I do occasionally use soft organic wheat that I grind fresh for pancakes and such, but spelt is a much better choice.
Beth, your comment interested me in light of something I read last week (sorry, don’t remember where) about people in biblical times eating apparently large amounts of wheat (or some kind of grain). Why did they not have problems with it? The answer was that the wheat they used was not the same as our wheat; it was much smaller in size, for instance, and had different make-up than ours. Apparently wheat has been modified quite a bit over the years to become what it is today.
Wow. And yet another US government intervention into our foods that do us little good! Just saw Fat Head yesterday at our monthly WAPF meeting and talk about government intervention! Great movie, a rebuttal to Super Size Me, and all you who know eating fewer grains an sugars should see this one. The sausage patties for breakfast fit right into what I saw yesterday. I’ll be in Europe in August and will try some European breads to see how I react to them as opposed to US, which I eat sparingly and like Sarah, take a break from weekly.
Thanks – looks great, can’t wait to try it!
Awesome! Thanks!
Thanks for this recipe, Sarah! I had some ground turkey ready to make some sausage but the recipes I’ve used so far have been disappointing. I decided to try this right away, I didn’t wait for it to chill (the meat was already chilled anyway) but went ahead and cooked up a few patties. Yay, this is truly the best tasting sausage ever, even topping any I’ve ever had before! Must be the egg, I’ve never seen egg mixed into sausage before, but I couldn’t tell it was in there after it was cooked. I used ghee and it gives a wonderful flavor also. Since we stopped eating pork (kashrut) we have really been hungry for some good sausage. I’d love to see more recipes that work well using alternatives to pork. Thanks again for sharing!
Naomi, so glad you liked it! I haven’t made it using ground turkey, so your testimonial is very helpful. Glad to know its delish with either pork or turkey. 🙂
I’m not a sausage eater, by my sons and DH love the stuff. I’m going to make this (we’ve done something similar in the past) and add just a titch of garlic powder and some dried, minced onion.
QUESTION: I have been trying to start using spelt flour, Sarah, but don’t know much about how to substitute it (proportion-wise) for the different types of flour I sometimes use. If I use spelt to make sourdough bread, do I substitute, say 1 cup spelt for the 1 cup whole wheat? Sometimes if I’m desperate and all I have on hand is unbleached white flour, do I substitute it cup for cup with that, too? Usually when I use spelt, I end up needing more and it is hard to gauge how much to keep on hand, since I have to buy it in bulk from the health food store (for now). Do you have a previous blog on spelt? If so, I couldn’t find it.
Also, a question on ghee (sorry to stray): is it true that you should only make ghee with store bought, unsalted butter? Someone recently told me my homemade cultured butter from raw cow milk won’t work to make ghee. I have no clue.
Hi D., I make my ghee with raw or low temp pasteurized grassfed butter from my local farm. It works great. I have a video on this blog on how to do it. I’ve not ever tried to make it with cultured butter, so not sure about that question.
With regard to spelt flour, I always sub 1:1 for regular wheat flour in my pancake, bread, and pastry recipes and all turns out fine.
This post made my mouth water! Definitely bookmarking this one!
Evey day is grain-free in our house. You should try it more often.