Ground Sausage
Sugarbush Maple
Maple Breakfast Sausage
Maple is delicate and most of it cooks off in the pan, which is why this leans on maple sugar instead of syrup - the sweetness actually survives the heat and reaches the plate. Sage still runs underneath it, because a maple sausage that forgets it is breakfast sausage is just sweet meat. Mix it light and fry a test patty before you form the batch.
- Internal temp
- 160°F (71°C)
What goes in it
- Kosher Salt
- Maple Sugar
- Rubbed Sage
- Coarse Black Pepper
- Brown Sugar
- Ground Coriander
- Garlic Powder
- Onion Powder
- Red Pepper Flakes
- Ground Nutmeg
- Ground Ginger
- Ice Cold Water
Amounts are calculated for your batch weight in the app — including the cure, which is held at a fixed, food-safe rate.
The meat
Lean Wild Game · Lean Beef · Pork Butt · Pork Shoulder
How it's made
- Cube the meat and fat and chill hard. Partially freeze until the edges are firm before grinding.
- Grind everything through a 1/4" plate.
- Mix all of the dry seasonings together thoroughly before they touch the meat, maple sugar included. Sugar clumps the moment it hits cold wet meat, and a clump means one sweet patty and eleven plain ones.
- Add the dry mix and the ice cold water. Mix only until the seasoning is evenly distributed and the meat just begins to feel tacky, about a minute. Do NOT mix this like a stuffed sausage. Patties want to stay tender, and mixing to full protein extraction makes them springy and bouncy like a hot dog.
- Fry a small test patty and taste it before you form the rest. This is the whole advantage of a fresh sausage: nothing is committed yet and you can still fix it. If it tastes flat it is almost always salt, not spice.
- Form into patties, pack into 1-lb chubs for the freezer, or stuff into sheep casings if you want breakfast links.
- Rest overnight in the refrigerator if you can wait. The sage and the maple both settle in and it is noticeably better on day two.
- Cook over medium heat to 160°F internal. Maple sugar browns fast, so run the pan too hot and the outside scorches before the middle is done.
- Wrap tight and freeze for up to 3 months.
- On the maple: use maple sugar if you can get it. Real maple syrup works too, at roughly 5% with the ice water cut to 2% so the mix does not go loose, but a good share of maple aroma cooks off in the pan, which is why the sugar carries further. Pancake syrup is not maple and will taste like it. If you want it sweeter, move the maple sugar before you touch anything else, and leave the sage where it is.
Safety
- Keep the meat below 40°F through grinding and mixing. Soft fat smears instead of cutting and the patties turn greasy.
- This is a FRESH sausage with no cure. It is not shelf stable, it does not get smoked at low temperature, and it must stay refrigerated.
- Cook to 160°F internal. This is ground meat, so anything that was on the surface is now mixed all the way through it.
- Use within two days or freeze it.