Chicken sausage

[Clay]

Have any of you made any chicken sausage? I am curious to know what you do to make up for the leanness of the meat. What I am considering is grinding all of the meat from the chicken with the skin and seeing how that works. Have any of you done this?

[mcherbies]

I have not made chicken sausage. Wonder if you grind the dark and white to get the correct fat content?!? I don’t know about grinding the skin…maybe that is the way to go? idk. I just looked in my go-to sausage book. not many chicken recipes…but there was one for turkey sausage. It used 7.5 lbs turkey, 2.5 lbs pork trimmings.

If you are using whole birds, get some in the 5 plus pounds range…they may have enough fat on them to use. Broilers are great for growing your own. Easy to get from a Farm Store in the Spring or a 4-Her. Only take 6-8 weeks to grow and get nice and fat. We usually grow them until 6-8 lbs…and they are usually loaded with fat. Or check with your local butcher…sometimes they will give you the fat off animals for free. Can you mix turkey fat with chicken, idk…

Good luck. Maybe Austin has a solution…

pete.

[Austin]

Clay mcherbies

Chicken sausage is fun to make, and we’ve done quite a bit of it here in our test kitchen. You can definitely add the skin to help increase the fat content, and adding pork fat is always an option as well if you don’t want a 100% chicken sausage. Thigh meat is fattier than white meat, so that helps as well either doing all dark meat, or part of both.

We’ve done chicken sausage as 100% chicken breasts, thus probably 95-99% lean, and used chicken thigh meat to make 88-92% lean.

Probably the best version we’ve made here was with 100% thigh meat.

Adding water and a meat binder like Sure Gel will help with a lean sausage like chicken. It’s hard to exactly say how much to use though, and how much water to add. Chicken will purge a lot during thawing, and even chicken that is already “water added” or pumped may slightly vary depending on how well the already added water bound to the meat already. We’ve typically varied the amount of added water and Sure Gel each time. Adding some will be good, but if you do too much, it will make the meat really soupy since chicken doesn’t have the same structure to it like pork or beef. It will also really help in making chicken sausage if you keep the meat extra cold to give it a little extra structure and not get too warm and start getting soupy.

Let me know if I can help with anything further!

[Clay]

Austin mcherbies
Thanks to both of you for getting back to me. At this stage I’m just trying to get as much information as possible from experienced sausage makers. Once my new grinder from Walton’s comes in I’m going to be doing a lot of experimenting myself.
It makes sense that making sausage using strictly thighs would create the best tasting end product.
I didn’t really think about the water added to store bought chicken playing into the binding properties of the mixture. That would definately be a guessing game when adding Sure Gel. Having the ability to grow or at least have access to fresh broilers would probobly bring some consistency to the mix.

[Gomez]

Clay Like Austin, I have good luck using thigh meat for chicken sausage. Their Mango Habanero seasoning pairs very well with chicken for brats, but it does have some heat.

[Jonathon]

I finally have the Chicken Thigh Brat video done and posted to youtube you can view it here https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/573/chicken-brats-made-from-thigh-meat I have to say it made a big difference and the South of the Border Cheddarwurst was a great choice, these were probably the best Chicken Brats I have made!

[calldoctoday]

Jonathon johnsbrewhouse Margaret has been really bugging me to make some chicken/apple sausage. I will use Walton’s apple blend with perhaps a few more apple & maybe some cider for good measure & liquid content or some of my homemade chicken bone broth. I have got some white meat for part of the meat block & waiting for a sale on some dark meat parts to bone out. johnsbrewhouse, haven’t you done a lot of chicken sausage successfully? what have you discovered about the dark/white meat ratios, fats, etc.? Are you just using the little bit of chicken fat & skin for the fat or are you sneaking in some pork or something? I am trying to get this all set up in my mind.

[johnsbrewhouse]

calldoctoday I have used both boned out chicken quarters and mechanically separated chicken both with the same results. The MSC was a whole lot easier to use, no grinding. You don’t really have to add any fat, since it is already in there. Just add some sure gel and the bone broth would add more chicken flavor. You can usually find chicken quarters pretty cheap, but the MSC used to be about a buck a pound. Have not bought it in a while.

[mrobisr]

calldoctoday Commercially with turkey it was always dark meat with the skin added as the fat. The skin was ground very fine, and the meat was coarse, and no white meat was added.

[Dave in AZ]

Ciuple recent youtube videos by 2guysandacooler on chicken sausages with tips.
I just deboned 24 chicken thighs today, cut each thigh into 2 so it fits in my 22 grinder. Any extra fat I cut off and froze separate. All in freezer for making chicken sausage.
Potato starch works well with low fat sausage for mouth feel, if you don’t have much chicken fat and skin. I will grind it all on a 3mm plate for fine texture. I am making a thai satay sausage.

[calldoctoday]

johnsbrewhouse Thank you. Any other tips on chicken sausage will be much appreciated.

[calldoctoday]

Dave in AZ Thanks. I am just awaiting for a sale on those thighs preferably to mix with the breasts I have all cubed & in the freezer, & the apples & ready to go.

[calldoctoday]

mrobisr Hmm, that worries me now. I already put the white meat aside for about half the meat block, all cubed & frozen. Just awaiting for the dark meat to go on sale now, hopefully soon. Margaret’s getting impatient…

[johnsbrewhouse]

calldoctoday it is very sticky to mix when you get your ingredients in, protein extraction is not a problem. It stuffs really well too. The 4.5 mm plate is small enough for your grind unless you want it like super fine like a hot dog texture. Check you seasoning levels before you stuff too, chicken is very bland as you know and it sucks up a lot of the seasoning levels of the salts.

[Cindy Bushar 0]

Subject is: Chicken Garden vegetable Brats. My son lives in a small town in Wisconsin, there is a hometown butcher shop making these brats. He said when you make them they taste like homemade chicken soup. They love them while ice fishing. He asked me if I could make these. So, naturally I come running to you,… my team. Where would you start?

[Jonathon]

Cindy Bushar 0 There was a seasoning that we got as a sample from Excalibur at one point that was Deluxe Beer Cheese Soup Flavored Sausage. Chicken stock was fairly high up in the ingredients as was Natural Cheddar Cheese and Butter Flavor. If you are going to use chicken stock then you can reduce the amount of salt you would normally add as that has a good amount of salt in it already. The ingredient level though I don’t remember though, sorry! I checked to see if we still had the bag and we don’t

[calldoctoday]

johnsbrewhouse Thanks a billion for all the help. Hopefully I will be able to put it to good use, very soon.

[johnsbrewhouse]

Cindy Bushar 0 Same ingredients as chicken soup, using diced par cooked veggies, good chicken stock or chicken base. If you wanted a creamy taste, you could add cream into the mix. Definitely would add poultry seasoning for some added flavor too.

[Dave in AZ]

Cindy Bushar
Here is how I’d do it, for a fresh sausage.

1. Chicken thighs only. Bone them out. Freeze w skin and grind at 3mm or 4.5mm, fine to medium. All meat, skin, fat at 30f or so. Recipe for 1kg meat.
2. All bones into instant pot pressure cooker with 500ml water or so, half onion, 1c celery, cook under pressure 90 min or so to get cartilage to dissolve to rich stock.
3. 10 to 15% chilled/frozen stock, so 100 to 150 ml. Eat rest for soup.
4. 1.6% salt, but use Lawrys seasoned salt, so 16g. It has some sugar so it will be 1.5% salty, good.
5. 0.3% sugar, 3g. Good chicken soup has sweetness from sauteed veg.
6. 0.3% or 3g each of ground spices: thyme, black pepper, garlic powder. 0.6% or 6g onion powder. 3g sage if you like it. 3g marjoram.
7. Veg: if you can get the dried dehydrated veg spice mix you can shake into soup, I’d add that, 150g or so, maybe half cup? I use dehydrated onions a lot in sausages.
   ----OR---- fine chop in a dice carrots, celery leaves, onion. Sautee on med high heat in olive oil to just brown for tough of caramelization and drying. Use as much as desired, don’t overcook to mush.
8. Binder: potato starch gives good mouthfeel in chicken and low fat sausage. 2% or 20g, maybe 3%.
   9… Mix pretty well to strong extraction so veg and fat is well bound, all stuff 30 to 32f.
   Add all spices, up to 15% frozen or cold stock, binder. If you have cold phosphate, I would add some.
9. Stuff 30-32mm hog casings or fresh collagen.

Ought to give good chicken sausage with strong soup flavor, good moistness and bind. I do a similar recipe for making chicken satay flavored sausages. Poach and grill, or just grill indirect heat, or pan fry low to med heat.

If you don’t tey it, I will in a day or two! thx for the great idea!

[wdaly]

Dave in AZ Thanks for sharing that. Might have to give it a try this winter