Make Homemade Turkey Sausage!
ByMake this recipe even easier by creating a jar of seasonings for this sausage. Learn how!
We LOVE ham and sausage at our house…but from what I read, pork is not the best for you. This Turkey Sausage is a delicious alternative…it’s easy and it tastes great!
See…it looks like sausage and everything?! My kids devour this sausage!
Homemade Turkey Sausage
1 lb ground turkey
3 Tablespoon minced onion
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon marjoram
¼ teaspoon ground pepper
¼ teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon dried basil
½ teaspoon thyme
½ teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 egg
Mix all ingredients. Chill for about an hour. (If you forget to chill this ahead of time…it cooks up okay anyway!) Form into patties. Saute in butter.
You’ll find more recipes like this in my ebook: Think Breakfast…Outside of the Box!
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Re: Sheltons Turkey Sausage – When I contacted them, the person I spoke with told me they “may” be fed GMO feed. After much research into GMO’s, nothing is further from “nature” than this threat. As far as conventional turkey, I would do without.
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Love this for breakfast but I also found a great sausage recipe to use in savory dishes (I use elk instead of turkey because we have tons) like spaghetti, lasagna, and as a pizza topping:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/italian-style-sausage/detail.aspx
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If I want to freeze these, should I form the patties, freeze raw, & cook after thawing? Or should I cook the patties first, freeze, & just heat up after thawing? I have a child in pre-K & am looking for easy, healthy breakfast ideas so she’s not eating cheerios every morning before heading out the door. :) Thanks!
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Laura Reply:
September 22nd, 2011 at 9:34 am
Yes, I usually freeze raw patties and cook them as needed. I usually just take them out of the freezer and put them frozen, directly into the pan to cook. Works great!
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Lyndsay Reply:
October 2nd, 2011 at 7:00 pm
I made a bunch of these, cooked them all, and froze the leftover patties. They reheated really well in the microwave and were quick and easy!
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I love this recipe I don’t form it into patties I just let it chill then brown it like ground beef. Then put it in the freezer. I then use to mix with our hash browns and eggs or in pancakes.
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Stephanie Reply:
September 19th, 2011 at 8:08 am
OK, thanks for the tip! I went ahead & formed the patties, cooked them, then froze – sounds like I did the right thing. :) We ate them for the first time this morning; I just heated them in the microwave. One girl ate her patty right up; the other one didn’t seem to like it as much. I think next time I will try your suggestion & add to the eggs. Thanks!
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Kristie Reply:
September 22nd, 2011 at 6:00 pm
Do you add the egg to the recipe even if you don’t plan to form it into patties? I want to try to make a turkey sausage version of Olive Garden’s “Zuppa Toscana” and was hoping to use this turkey sausage recipe in it!
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Stephanie Reply:
September 23rd, 2011 at 6:43 pm
Yup I still put the egg in I’m going to try making a soup similar to that in the next coup drags and hoping this sausage will go well in it
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LindseyforLaura@HHM Reply:
October 7th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Laura skips this step if it is not being formed into patties. Sounds like either way will work fine though! :) Mmmmm….Olive Garden is going to get my mouth watering!
I am betting your recipe is delicious!
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Laura, Is pork sausage not good for us, or pork in general?
Thanks!
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LindseyforLaura@HHM Reply:
October 10th, 2011 at 11:00 am
Pork in general has a lot of saturated fats when compared to most turkey products.
Turkey is a leaner option to substitute in most recipes.
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Rachael Reply:
November 10th, 2012 at 7:44 pm
Brady, I know I’m late to this ball game, and you may have already heard this by now, but here goes….Laura is correct in what she said about the pork. I think for me, what made me pay attention and stop eating any and all pork is the fact that pigs don’t sweat. Which means, their bodies don’t pass the toxins in their body and since the bulk of their body is meat and all of their bodies are used in most pork products, that meat is LOADED with toxins. Ew. That was all I needed to know!
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Helen Reply:
March 11th, 2013 at 9:22 pm
Rachael, it is not true that pigs don’t sweat. They don’t sweat the way human’s do (we sweat a lot of water) but they do sweat. The “toxins” you speak of are processed in the liver, and eliminated in urine. They don’t store toxins in their meat. The major problem with port is fat. Even “lean” pork is fairly high in saturated fat.
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I’m so confused :/ Butter, coconut oil, beef, whole milk are all high is saturated fat but I thought it was the polyunsaturated that are to be worried about :/ Doesn’t Nourshing Traditions and the whole food movement in general support eating saturated fats?
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Laura Reply:
October 10th, 2011 at 11:53 am
Actually (sorry Lindsey, I should have talked through this one with you!) I’m not afraid of saturated fats. It’s the fact that pork is VERY difficult to digest and therefore can cause other health issues that I avoid pork. I do eat it occasionally, because sometimes a girl just needs some bacon. :) But usually I try to find turkey substitutes for pork.
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LindseyforLaura@HHM Reply:
October 10th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
No worries! I was not aware on the digestion issue (so good to know!)
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Erin Turner Reply:
November 18th, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Yes, turkey is a leaner option for meat. But as an organic hog farmer, I have to say that when raised properly, pork can be lean and healthy. Fresh, healthy, organic pork looks and tastes SOOO much different than anything in the store! Did you that “real” ham is NOT pink? Our hams are a blend of white and dark meat! Pork gets a bad rap, but if raised right and butchered correctly (extra fat trimmed off) pork is a healthy meat! (PS–we raised organic turkeys too so I’m an advocate for turkey meat as well! I just always feel bad about pork! :))
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carmell Reply:
November 26th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Do you sell and ship your organic pig and turkey meat?? I live in Alaska and I am very limited at my local grocery store!
I can’t find organic ground turkey. Is there such a thing? Are turkeys given hormones and antibiotics like chickens and cows? I could research, but figure you already have ;)
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Laura Reply:
October 19th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
I use Shelton ground turkey, which isn’t organic, but it is free range – the best I can find!
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Tina Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
@Elizabeth – I know this is a late reply and you may have already found what you are looking for however I did want to share. I purchase all of my meat through a local buying club that partners with a variety of local farms. I know the names of my farmers, have be lucky enough to meet many of them through the club’s social events and everything I purchase there is superior in quality. As an added bonus I am supporting my local economy.
Here is the link to the buying club. You can’t buy from them however it is an amazing business model.
http://www.foodshedbuyingclub.com/Welcome.html
My ground turkey is $6.50 a pound and is free range, antibiotic free and no pesticides are used in the meadow.
http://www.thefoodshedutica.com/products/Turkey-%252d-Ground-%252d-Sweetgrass.html
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Tina Reply:
November 6th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
@Elizabeth – Geeze! I forgot the entire purpose behind my response! LOL Check with local CSA’s or your local Cooperative Extention. You should be able to find what you are looking for. There is also Local Harvest where you can find the CSA’s in your area.
http://www.localharvest.org/
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Crystal Reply:
November 17th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
I found organic turkey at HEB. I live in Texas but they have a web
site and it is http://www.organicprairie.coop Hope that helps.
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I made a batch of the sausage patties this morning. I thought they were pretty, good but I will use less sage next time. The flavor was too much for me. It was super easy to make! Thanks for the idea!
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I can’t wait to try this recipe! My husband is a fan of sausage and I just saved your breakfast casserole recipe. While I’m not an egg lover the rest of my family certainly is. I’ll be whipping this up next weekend so they have it through the week to eat. Thanks for all the wonderful recipes you post.
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Thanks so much for the recipe! I’ve been having a terrible time finding turkey sausage in the store so when there was none on the shelf again this week I thought “Oh well, I’ll make my own!”
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I don’t have any nutmeg…think it will still be tasty without it? Or is there another spice I could use as a substitute?
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Laura Reply:
November 26th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Yes, you can skip the nutmeg and be fine!
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have you ever made these into links. I am currenlty looking to make some chicken and turkey link sausage. I have alot of special people we know that could use some extra meals this time of year. we are giving some deer sausage we made away but chicken and turkey would be good as well ???
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Laura Reply:
December 16th, 2011 at 3:37 pm
I never have made these into links. I’m not sure they would roll into links very well, but it’s worth a try. Deer, chicken, and turkey all work well with this recipe. I think it’s great that you’re doing this for others!
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Sooo glad to have found this recipe! Hubby and kids love sausage but we have chosen to not eat pork anymore due to religious reasons. this will definitely become a staple in our house :)
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I’m excited to try this recipe. I have tried a couple of others but they were not really that great (ie they were yuck). This one has many more seasonings, I love seasonings!! (they cover a multitude of sins err I mean new foods).
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This has officially been approved by my Jimmy Dean loving husband. He likes it better and doesn’t mind that it is turkey. Thanks for a great recipe.
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Laura, I love your website and recipes s much! I was sad that I had to stop using some of them as we went gluten free about a year ago for our youngest son. but Im glad to see all is not lost! Ive made your turkey sausage before but this time all I had was a pound of beef hamburger thawed out in the fridge. I decided to experiment i was also missing the thyme, nutmeg and marjoram so I was not very hopeful. I doubled the sage to try to make up for it. you know what/? it still tastes like sausage! a little tougher than the turkey but my husband gave his stamp of approval! now if only I could find a way to make a healthy whole grain gf stromboli!
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I have to agree on pork getting a bad rap. As long as you are buying pastured pork, it is lean, not to mention sustainably raised. I buy organic pork breakfast sausage from my local meat farmer that is free from icky ingredients and tastes DELICIOUS. The links are pretty long, so each family member gets one with their pancakes or waffles when we have them for dinner about twice a month. I haven’t had turkey sausage since switching to sustainably/humanely raised meats as I’ve yet to come across any turkey sausage that lives up to that standard.
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This is wonderful sausage! I forgot to add the egg (oops) and wondered why it was so unbelievably sticky as I was making mini patties but the taste was awesome, I don’t care about the egg at all. For half the batch I added a tiny bit of organic maple syrup just to see what it would be like and now I have 2 wonderful sausage recipes! Thank you so much.
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Thank you for this recipe! We loved it! It was the best breakfast sausage that we have had. We have food allergies so I liked that it doesn’t have MSG or dairy in it. (I used olive oil to cook it.) I also like that it doesn’t have any wheat, so I can share it with my gluten-free friends.
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Hi, Laura! I can’t wait to try this recipe! I think I might just die from hard labor if I remade it each and every time though, so I’ve put together a bulk recipe- your exact seasoning recipe, times 20, to keep in my cupboard. Then I thought, Hmmm… I probably can’t fit 20 lbs. of sausage into my Bosch Universal Mixer if I wanted to make sausage in bulk at one time. So, I also included here your same exact recipe times 8 for 8 lbs. of turkey sausage in the Bosch. Hope this is useful for somebody! But please note, that I haven’t actually TRIED this yet. Also note that I left out the egg, as I don’t ever make patties, I just break it up in my pan while cooking. Thank you, Laura- I love your recipes, and I’m sure this will be a hit!
Homemade Sausage Seasoning Mix (makes 20 lbs. breakfast sausage)
3 ¾ c. minced onion
5 t. cumin
5 t. marjoram
5 t. ground pepper
5 t. oregano
5 t. nutmeg
2 ½ t. cayenne pepper
5 t. ground ginger
5 t. basil
5 t. thyme
5 t. sage
5 t. sea salt
Add 4 T. + ¾ t. of seasoning mix to 1 lb. ground turkey or beef. Mix well and chill at least 1 hr.
Or, put 2 1/8 c. seasoning mixture into Bosch mixer. Add 8 lbs. ground turkey or beef. Mix on low speed until thoroughly incorporated. Separate into 1 lb. portion sizes and freeze.
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Question:
How do you cook ground turkey to 165 degrees
without it becoming a hockey puck?
This has been my turkey sausage experience.
Please help!
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Laura Reply:
December 3rd, 2012 at 10:46 pm
I cook mine in butter since it is so lean, so that helps!
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This recipe looks great! I’ve gotten out of the habit of buying sausage (I can’t find any good quality, reliable suppliers where I am), but I’m looking forward to trying your approach. Best, Erin
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Wonderful recipe! I have tried other recipes for breakfast sausage, but this one is a definite winner with the whole family. We did use ground pork to make it though, that we get from a local farmer who raises pigs the right way. I have heard both sides of the story about eating pork. I noticed that when I was eating pork from the grocery store I could not digest it very well, but with the pork we get now that is raised right I don’t have problems. I was wondering about the comment on pigs not sweating and keeping their toxins in the meat and did some research. Turkeys and chickens don’t sweat either.
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Hey guys! I’m a little skeptical about making turkey sausage because whenever I do it just crumbles and seems very dry? Is this recipe juicy? I just know that when I buy Turkey sausage from the store like Jimmy Deans or whatever it’s super plump and juicy. But I try not to buy frozen pre-packaged foods cause of all the sodium and preservatives and whatnot. Somebody help! ;)
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Laura Reply:
March 10th, 2013 at 7:14 pm
I’ve not found this recipe to be dry, but I do add butter while I’m cooking it. :)
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I made a batch of these and formed them into burgers and we grilled them. They were so good!
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