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Most Men Love Meat / Make Your Man Summer Sausage

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Men Love Meat / Make Your Man Summer Sausage, homemade, grass-fed summer sausage

Have you ever tried your hand at making summer sausage?

Do you have extra ground meat (venison, beef, etc.) on hand in the freezer?

Men Really Love Their Meat

If you have a hunter in the family or just need a creative way to make space for summer freezing, you can’t beat this!  After making this as an experiment, our guys raved about it. You know how many men love their meat!!

We have great friends who raise Boer goats, and they kindly offered us a 1# package of their prime grass-fed ground goat to try. I have always loved summer sausage with cheese and crackers, so my mind instantly went to making summer sausage.

Any kind of ground meet will work!

I remember as a little girl having summer sausage with fresh, hot artisan bread and cheese in the Italian Alps with my father’s family. It had more than a hint of sweetness and savory spices that were bursting with flavor.

My biggest hurdle was not having or wanting to use an intestinal casing to hold it in a log shape.

When I got home with the ground meat, I could hardly wait to try my summer sausage idea! I had maple syrup, sea salt, and some Italian spices on hand, so I set out to do it, but I had no idea how much of these ingredients to use!

SO…I guessed! Now, you won’t have to.

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Summer Sausage Recipe:

  • 2# of ground venison, lamb, pork, goat or beef, thawed
  • 6 tsp. Himalayan pink salt or any good grey sea salt (preserving qualities)
  • 5 tsp. McCormick Italian herb (or other) seasonings in a grinder set at medium grind. Contains rosemary, black pepper, red pepper, garlic, onion, sea salt, tomato and parsley (again, preserving properties)
  • 3 TBSP maple syrup
  • fresh or powdered garlic, to suit your taste, optional
  • 1 TBSP fennel seed, optional, traditionally added to give a hint of sweetness

Options to add heat or kick:

  • 1/2 tsp. hot red pepper seeds to your discretion (seeds are hotter than the flesh of hot peppers)

Directions:

  • I blended all the ingredients together and worked them thoroughly through the meat with my hands.
  • Then I placed it in the refrigerator, covered, for 24 -48 hours for the flavors to mix and slightly ferment. (This fermentation does NOT affect the taste at all, if only to make it better).
  • When you finally take it out of the fridge, this aromatic mass of meat will be pleasant to your senses and not gross at all, at least it wasn’t to us. The spices and sea salt, as well as the sugars in the maple syrup have acted as preservatives and aided in ‘keeping’ the meat fresh.
  • Pre-heat the oven to 350°.
  • Form the spiced meat into a log.
  • Wrap it first in parchment paper, then aluminum foil (so the meat isn’t in contact with the aluminum foil).
  • Wrap the foil with the folded edges up so the juices don’t run out as it bakes.
  • Place this on a cookie sheet and into the 350 °oven for 1 hour.

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As my experiment baked, the wonderful spicy aroma filled our senses, taking me back to the old German, Dutch and Swiss meat shoppes filled with smoked and naturally-preserved meats.

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Let the almost completed summer sausage cool thoroughly before slicing. It should have developed a skin, a firmness, and you can slice it very thin to serve with cheese and crackers or make sausage sandwiches, etc.

No Casing

It is firm with its own smooth, shiny, sealed skin. You can almost see it is smooth and has a bit of a shine in this photo. I didn’t have to use a casing after all.

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With Ground Beef

Later that same week, I did it again with ground beef. The color was browner and did not have the brighter typical color of the goat sausage which you see in the photos, but both were pronounced ‘very good’!

I encourage you to give this easy summer sausage a try.

Men Love Meat / Make Your Man Summer Sausage, booklet on how to build a smokehouse

This sausage would also be delicious smoked.

It is something we will be learning about soon from the Build A Smokehouse book. I love the idea of having naturally-cured meats like those of yesteryear hanging from the rafters with no preservatives and no refrigeration needed. Meats cured and dried this way will keep for years.

 

“…she that is married cares for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.” ~1 Corinthians 7: 34b

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Thanks for reading!

Jacqueline
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Comments

  3. This looks great ~ I also make a summer salami which I call “lunch meat” and roll in the logs the way you suggested with tin foil. However, I do not use the parchment. Is there some sort of health problem involved with the meat touching the foil? The other thing I do is poke holes in the foil with a fork on the bottom side and place logs fork face down in top of a baking rack on top of a cookie sheet so that the fat drains out. Anyways, I was curious about the foil…

    Also, glad to see you tried with goat meat since we will be butchering soon and I was a bit hesitant on eating goat (we are a chicken, turkey, lamb, beef family)… Now I know that I have some options 🙂 since I have only made my “lunch meat’ recipe with beef in the past. I will give goat a try!

  4. This sounds tasty! I have a pound of ground beef in the freezer I wasn’t quite sure what to do with, but now I think I do! I do have one question: how long can you expect the completed sausage to last in the fridge? Thanks!

    • Ours was gone in 3 days but I think at least 5 or 6 or even more due to the spice’s preservative affect. It would be fun to take a piece off and do a test! I’ll do just that when I make it again 🙂 If you experiment, would you let me know what you find? TY!

  6. Ohhhh! Just perfect for our family. My son has a birthday coming up and his little sister wanted to buy him sausage but couldn’t afford it. Thanks so much for posting this!

  7. I am really glad I found your blog! This sausage looks fantastic and I can’t wait to try it. I wonder though, I’ve never tasted goat. What does it taste like?

    • Hi, Beth 🙂 Well, it is a lot like beef, but maybe lighter and slightly redder when baked. In this case, it was not ‘goaty’ or having a weird flavor at all. We were very impressed and would buy a lot (grass-fed, too) if they had enough to sell . I’d love to know what you think when you try some…maybe you know some local farmers that raise goats. I wonder if Jesus ate goat regularly?!

  8. I am thrilled that you gave this a go and shared it! We love summer sausage and usually can’t eat it when made by others, or from stores because they contain nitrates/nitrites. Myself and one of my children get migraines from it so we are so excited to make this from scratch!

    • farmlife chick,
      I do hope it is as much a success as we found it to be! I am still experimenting 🙂 Happy preparing!

  9. Thanks for the recipe! I can’t wait to make it! I shared with a friend and she wondered about the pink salt. Is it necessary to use that kind or can we use regular old iodized salt? I have the type of salt called “Real Salt”. Can I use that?
    Your posts have really been a blessing lately! I look forward to reading them!

    • Hi, Marilyn! No, you don’t need to use the Himalayan pink salt. We use ‘Real Salt’ around here a lot, too. It is a good balance on minerals and would be very good adding that full compliment to your family’s diet whereas iodized salt in just sodium and chloride with nothing else ( and it is bleached). It would work, however. Good question 🙂

  10. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe! We’ve made our own Polish kielbasa several times (family tradition) and make our own breakfast and Italian sausage, too. Can’t wait to give this a try — so hoping my family likes it!

    Blessings to you and yours,

    Lisa 🙂

  11. I’ve been wanting to do a summer sausage with liquid smoke and ground mustard/mustard seeds. Would you add these to the recipe? Or edit it somehow? Just been trying to find recipes not using tender quick and its near impossible it seems.

    • Hi, Ileah,
      I think your idea of mustard seeds will work if you desire a mustardy taste. Liquid smoke is an additive that I avoid b/c it is highly processed and MSG-forming which can cause headaches and some neurological issues for some, but may use it anyway. I’d love to hear what you think! We love this sausage!!
      Blessings!

  12. Amazing stuff. Really great recipe. I am gonna try for sure. Smoked Garlic Summer Sausage is my favorite when I first ordered it online from Blackforestbison. It is perfect with cheese on a cracker or a peanut butter sandwich and its not only for men but my whole family loves it. The best thing is my children can also eat. There ain’t any problem.

    • Do make it, Mark! It has gotten such rave reviews that I am making several big batches for friends as gifts! Of course, it depends on the seasonings you like and decide to use. We love what I have shared here, but I hope you feel free to experiment, too! Enjoy!

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