Sausages

Toulouse Sausage

Saucisse de Toulouse - Coarse French Pork Sausage

Toulouse Sausage is a smoked sausage built on a 75% pork / 25% lean meat or pork blend, using pork butt or pork shoulder. Finish at an internal 160°F (71°C), stuff into 32-35 mm natural hog casing, grind at Coarse (3/8"). Exact amounts scale to any batch weight in the DeepWoodz Smokehouse app for iPhone and Android.

Toulouse is the sausage in cassoulet, and it is famously plain: pork, salt, pepper, and a touch of garlic, nutmeg and white wine. With that little going on, the salt and the pepper do all the work, so season it properly and crack the pepper fresh. Grind it once, coarse, and leave it alone; a fine grind turns it into a different sausage. It is never smoked. Grill the coil, or brown it and lay it in a pot of beans.

• Savory
• Peppery
• Traditional

Internal temp

160°F (71°C)

Casing size

32-35 mm

Casing

Natural Hog

What goes in it

• Kosher Salt
• Coarse Black Pepper
• Fresh Garlic (minced)
• Sugar
• Ground Nutmeg
• Dry White Wine (chilled)

Amounts are calculated for your batch weight in the app — including the cure, which is held at a fixed, food-safe rate.

The meat

Pork Butt · Pork Shoulder · Lean Wild Game

Bear or wild hog: take it to 165°F and hold 3 minutes. Freezing, smoking and curing do not reliably kill trichinella — only heat does.

How it's made

1. Cube the pork and lean meat and chill until the edges are firm. Keep everything below 34°F.
2. Grind everything once through the 3/8" plate. Do not regrind - Toulouse is a coarse sausage.
3. Crack the peppercorns fresh and grate the nutmeg fresh. Mix all the dry seasonings together, salt included.
4. Add the dry seasonings, garlic and chilled white wine to the meat. Mix 1 to 2 minutes until the meat is tacky. Use a crisp, dry, unoaked white such as Picpoul de Pinet, Sauvignon Blanc or a Gaillac blanc. Avoid oaky Chardonnay and sweet wines.
5. Fry a small test patty and taste it. If it tastes flat it is under-salted, not under-spiced.
6. Stuff into 32-35 mm hog casings as one long coil. Leave it whole, or twist into 5 to 6 inch links.
7. Refrigerate overnight before cooking.
8. Grill over medium charcoal or pan-fry, turning often, until the internal temperature reaches 160°F. Run two skewers through a coil to hold its shape.
9. Serve with mustard and mashed potatoes or lentils, or brown it and add it to cassoulet. Freeze what you will not cook within 2 days. Toulouse sausage is usually made with pork alone. Our recipe uses three parts pork butt to one part lean wild game or more pork.

Before you start

• Venison to fat ratio and blends