Homemade Italian Sausage Recipe (Fennel)

Originally published: 03/26/2020 Updated 09/13/2023

Making this homemade Italian sausage recipe is easier than you think! Way better than anything store-bought and you control the ingredients. No fillers!

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Why You’ll Love This

This Italian Fennel Sausage is packed with flavor. Every Italian family has their own recipes. This is my grandfather’s recipe with a few tweaks from us.

Homemade Italian sausage has been a tradition in our family for years. When my aunts stopped making it my sister and I kept the tradition going with some tweaks here and there to my grandfather’s recipe.

My grandfather’s recipe used ground beef and prepackaged pork sausages. My husband and I wanted a more authentic taste and texture. Through a lot of testing, we came up with the recipe we are sharing with you today.

We hope you give our delicious Italian sausage recipe a try and enjoy it as much as we do.

I like to swap breakfast sausage out in our Sausage Muffins without Bisquick recipe and use this fennel sausage. We also use it in Sausage Lentil Soup, Zuppa Toscana, and even Classic Sausage Balls.

Key Ingredients

• Pork – This recipe uses a boneless pork butt (pork shoulder). It has all the fat you need for tender juicy pork sausage.
• Seasonings – Crushed red pepper flakes, fennel seeds, ground fennel, red wine, garlic, seasoning salt, fresh Italian flat leaf parsley, dry-rubbed sage, kosher salt, and fresh ground black pepper.
• Casings – We like to use all-natural casings but you can also use synthetic casings. We use Pre-Tubed Natural Hog Sausage Casings, 35-38mm now which can be found on Amazon.

How To Make Homemade Italian Sausage Recipe

Start by cutting the pork butt up into pieces, leaving all the fat attached. Remove any sinew and throw it away. We like to cut them in strips, it just makes it easier to run through the meat grinder.

Place the pork and sausage making equipment in the freezer. You want the meat to be firm but not frozen solid. This is important because the fat needs to stay hard during processing. If it softens/melts you’ll struggle to create an emulsion with the meat and fat.

Prepare the whole fennel seed, crushed red pepper flakes, dry rubbed sage, ground black pepper, seasoning salt, ground fennel, chopped parsley, kosher salt, garlic, and red wine. Set aside.

Prepare the casings. Casings come packed in salt so you’ll need to rinse them first.

Run some water over and through the casings to remove any residual salt, then place them in a bowl of water while you get everything else set up.

Drape one end of the casing over the side of the bowl or you might have trouble trying to find each opening.

Remove the meat grinder equipment from the freezer and assemble it.

Pour yourself a glass of that wine you’re using in the recipe. This is a required step in the process.

Grind the partially frozen pork using the small holed plate. You can also you the large hole but we found we preferred the texture of a smaller grind. It’s your choice.

We grind it onto a large sheet pan and spread it out evenly. This makes mixing in the spices much easier.

Sprinkle each spice evenly over the ground pork. Mix thoroughly with your hands until combined.

Take a sample of the meat and cook it in a small skillet until browned. Taste test to make sure the flavor is right. Add seasonings to taste.

Place the remaining sausage in the freezer of the refrigerator to stay cold while you load the pre-tubed casings onto your sausage stuffing tube. Rub the stuffing funnel with a little olive oil so the casing will glide on easily.

Once you are happy with the taste of the ground sausage load the hopper with some meat and pump some through to remove any air.

Attach a casing to the end of the nozzle and tie off the end. Remove the meat from the fridge.

Now start pumping meat into the casing, being careful to not let any air get into the casing. There is a balancing act between having too much air and not enough air.

Too much air and you will end up with a poorly formed sausage. Too little air and the casing will burst.

Now stuff your sausage. Two people make this part of the process much easier. One loads the meat while the other holds and guides the casing.

Form the link to your desired length. Stop filling the casing with about 3” to spare at the end. Tie off the end. Repeat this step until all the meat has been stuffed into casings.

We usually make them into 1 to 1 1/2lb length. You can also make the sausage links into smaller single-serving sizes if desired.

We freeze most of it and save out enough for dinner or snacks, whatever. As the sausage sits the flavors combine and become much better. So the Italian sausage made and cooked the same day will not be as strong in flavor.

To cook it place a skillet large enough to hold the size you made over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

Cook covered for about 15 minutes. Remove the lid and cook uncovered for 5-10 minutes more or until the internal temperature reads 160 degrees F.

Serving Suggestions

See a few of our recipes below.

• Our Italian sausage recipe is perfect for cooking sausage and peppers!
• Pass on the breakfast sausage and eat this.
• Use it on pizza.
• Freeze it in 1-pound bulk packages and use it in endless recipes.

Tips

• You can use preground pork instead of grinding your own.
• You can adjust the heat in the recipe by just cutting down on the amount of crushed red pepper. In our opinion, this Italian sausage recipe has just the right amount of heat. But we understand everyone has their own preferred taste and opinion.
• Be sure to chill the equipment as well as the pork.
• Prepare your casings as directed per package instructions.
• You can make sausage patties, Italian sausage links, or bulk sausage by the pound.
• Do not overcook the sausage, it will dry out. Use a digital thermometer to cook it 160 degrees F.

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