Italian Sausage is full of flavor and great in all kinds of recipes, from pasta to stuffed peppers.
This homemade Italian sausage recipe combines a mixture of ground pork (or turkey) with seasonings and spices.
It’s a little sweet, a little spicy, and a lot delicious!
What is Italian Sausage?
Traditional Italian sausage recipes can be made with different types of meat or seasonings and are usually high in fat and flavor. In North America, typical Italian sausage ingredients often include ground pork, fennel, and other seasonings.
I frequently use bulk sausage to add to other dishes like lasagna or meat sauce. I like to make this sausage recipe with ground pork for great flavor and a little fat, although it has less than an Italian sausage link.
Flavor Makers for Italian Sausage
Meat: I love ground pork for sausage as it has a nice amount of fat and adds great flavor. You can also use ground turkey, beef, or chicken. If you have a local butcher, they often have mixtures of ground meat for sausage.
Seasoning: The secret is in all the seasonings (most of which are found in homemade Italian seasoning).
Fennel: Fennel seeds are really important in this recipe to give the sausage its signature flavor. You can use either whole or ground fennel (I use whole because it’s usually what I have on hand).
How to Make Homemade Italian Sausage
This Italian sausage recipe is intended to replace store-bought Italian sausage for browning in recipes. It doesn’t contain enough fat to create great Italian sausage links, but you can use it to make sausage patties if you’d like.
- Combine all ingredients (recipe below) in a large bowl (using your hands works best).
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.
- Cook in a skillet over medium heat. Drain any fat and use in recipes or add to pasta sauce.
Storage & Leftovers
- Raw pork can be kept in the fridge for 2 days or frozen for 2 months (more food safety info here).
- Keep in freezer bags with the date labeled on the outside.
- Cooked Italian sausage will keep about 2 months in the freezer and uncooked sausage will keep about 3 months.
Italian Sausage Recipes
- Pappardelle with Italian Sausage
- Stuffed Peppers 5-star favorite
- Quick and Easy Sausage Pasta – great for a weekday meal
- Crock Pot Spaghetti Sauce – set it & forget it
- Sausage & Kale Soup – 30 minute meal
- Homemade Supreme Pizza – perfect for game day
Did you make this Italian Sausage? Be sure to leave a rating and a comment below!
Homemade Italian Sausage
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground pork or beef or turkey
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon Kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon fennel seeds or ½ teaspoon ground fennel
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ teaspoon dried rosemary crushed
- ⅛ teaspoon black pepper
- ⅛ teaspoon dried thyme leaves
- ⅛ teaspoon red pepper flakes or to taste
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Using your hands, mix until well combined and the seasonings are evenly distributed.
- Cover & refrigerate at least 4 hours or up to 24 hours.
- To brown the sausage, add it to a skillet and cook over medium-high heat, breaking it up with a spoon until no pink remains. Drain any fat.
Notes
1-2 teaspoons brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/8 teaspoon smoked paprika Nutritional information includes ground pork, information may vary with beef or turkey.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Pork
Cuisine American, Italian© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
l made this last night using a lean pork loin roast ground in my vitamix. I was delicious. Tasted just like what you but in the store but much lower in fat and calories.
So glad you enjoyed it, Arlene!
I am an Italian American who currently lives in Ecuador. I never had to make my own sausage in the US as there are so many great options available in stores. In Ecuador not so much. I found this recipe and with a minor adjustment it is wonderful. The only changes I made is to double the fennel 1/2 tsp. whole and 1/2 tsp. ground fennel, and to double red pepper flakes. It’s so good!
I made these this morning are they are delicious. I forgot to put the garlic but did use smoked paprika and a touch of cayenne pepper. I didn’t have fennel seeds so replaced with caraway seeds that I put through a pepper mill. I made them into patties, rolling between wax paper then cut with a round cookie cutter. I made 17 patties from about $6of pork. A+
This is a GREAT recipe! Thank you so much for posting! I made this recipe, using Ground Turkey, and it turned out awesome! My husband couldn’t tell the difference between this Hot Turkey Sausage and regular pork hot sausage. I followed the recipe exactly and I also added the extra smoked paprika-to give a more red color and additional flavor. Delicious! Will always be my “go to” for Hot Sausage-going forward! Definitely a much healthier option!
Great recipe! I’ve tried a few and this one suits my flavor palette best. I buy Boston butts on sale and the supermarket near Dept removes the bone and grinds it for free. Today’s butt was 10# yielding 8.5# after deboning so I just multiplied your recipe x 8 and mix in my Huge stainless steel bowl. I vacuum seal it into 1 and 1 1/2# bags for freezing to use later. Less than $2/lb versus $5 for the store sausage!
Thank you and look forward to trying some of your other recipes!
Thank you so much for sharing, Brett!
This recipe is better than any store bought Italian sausage I have purchased. I have used the sausage recipe in pasta sauce, on pizza, in casseroles, even in chili. Delicious!!!!
Lovely recipe, thank you for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it, Rosemarie!
Oggi
Enjoy!
I never thought it would be so easy to make my own sausage, using my ingredients and nothing else.
Wanted a good recipe to use for Italian sausage links. I used this to make a 6 pound batch, added more pork fat, stuffed in casings. great results. Thanks again
It is nearly impossible to get Italian sausage around here! I made this last night, and it was delicious! Had to substitute for both Fennel and Rosemary, since I’m out of both and my car is in the shop. Will definitely be using this recipe again, I’m anxious to taste it with the correct ingredients. Also plan to up the red pepper flakes
I never knew how EASY making your own Italian sausage was! Clean ingredients, better tasting! I’ll never go back to the store bought brands!
how much of the homemade Italian sausage seasoning do I mix into the meat I am using?
Hi Teresa, we don’t add Italian seasoning into this recipe, just a mixture of the spices listed in the recipe. It is a similar combination of spices so you could use Italian seasoning instead if you’d like!
This was perfect! I needed Italian-flavored turkey sausage, but all I had was a package of ground turkey. I used all the herbs in this recipe and even though it didn’t sit in the fridge for four hours, maybe 40 minutes, it gave the flavor I hoped for! I am keeping this one in my permanent files. Thanks so much!!
Very easy and tastes wonderful!!! I made some to top a homemade pizza and it was excellent!
This Italian sausage is fantastic! I’ve made others in the past but this is my new go-to because of its simplicity and flavor.
Thank you for leaving a comment, Daryl! Glad you enjoyed this recipe.
This is a good recipe. However, I would not suggest using beef. Beef would not taste like Italian sausage at all. Turkey would be okay because of the similar flavor profile. Chicken might work if it was legs and thighs only. Stick with pork for best results.
I made some sausage with pork. I did add the brown sugar. Sausage was fantastic!
We love this recipe! I grind my own pork and use this recipe for dago sandwiches and anything recipe that calls for Italian sausage. We haven’t tried stuffing it into a casing, but may have to one of these days.
I have a batch of your Italian Seasoning from the last time I made this. Since the seasoning mix in the Italian Sausage recipe is similar, can you save me the math and tell me how much of the Italian Seasoning (+1/2 teaspoon of fennel) to add to a pound of ground pork or turkey to make Italian Sausage?
Hi Michele, we add about 5 teaspoons of seasoning in total to this recipe.