This week’s Carnival of Super Foods theme is “un-processed foods.” That is, things you could buy at the store, but which, in this case, you’re going to make yourself, instead. Presumably, these are foods that are healthier if you make them yourself because you can make them without MSG or hydrogenated oils or nitrates or with whole grains, for instance. Like a healthy breakfast sausage or Italian sausage.
I could post a lot of things for such a carnival.
For instance, I make most of my breads from scratch. (Crackers are an exception. I have yet to find a decent cracker recipe. Not the snack variety, but the top-with-cheese-or-peanut-butter variety. If you have a cracker recipe that doesn’t just taste like pie crust, please share!) In place of cream of chicken or mushroom soup, I usually use flavored white sauce. And I make my own Ranch dressing mix, taco seasoning, etc.
But I’m not sharing any of those particular recipes here today.
Today, I’m sharing sausage — both breakfast sausage & Italian sausage.
About the Sausage & What Kind of Meat Can You Use?
Although the breakfast sausage recipe calls for ground turkey, the great thing about making your own sausage is that you can actually use whatever meat you want.
Maybe you don’t want to use turkey. Maybe you’d rather have beef breakfast sausage, or use the deer you hunted to make venison sausage. Pretty much any major meat will work here. Just be sure you’re starting with it raw, and if the meat is pretty fatty, omit the oil; if the meat is pretty lean, include a little oil to moisten it.
Personally, I most often use turkey for the breakfast sausage and beef for the Italian sausage.
Both of these recipes are gluten-free. I’ve made the breakfast sausage without the black pepper — which makes it AIP-friendly — and it’s still quite good. The Italian sausage, though, relies heavily enough on seeds and nightshades for its core flavor that I don’t think you can really convert that one. Sorry!)
It’s also pretty easy to make your own sausage. All you really have to do is mix the seasonings in before you brown the meat — either as crumbles or as patties, so it isn’t much more complicated than just browning beef.
Healthy Breakfast Sausage

Turkey Breakfast Sausage
Ingredients
- 1 lb. ground turkey raw
- pinch sugar I don't have any issue with using sugar in small amounts as a seasoning.
- 1/2 tsp. pepper
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1-1/2 tsp. rubbed sage
- little bit of extra virgin olive oil to moisten
Instructions
- Mix well with your hands. You can make this into patties or just brown it, crumbled, to use in eggs, etc.
Notes

Healthy Italian Sausage
This Italian sausage is pretty good. It’s perfect for homemade pizza.

Italian Sausage
Ingredients
- 1 lb. ground meat
- 3 cloves garlic minced (I might substitute garlic powder here, just because I'm not sure how well cooked the garlic will get once it's in the sausage, and raw garlic has quite a bite.)
- 2 tsp. fennel seeds
- 1 tsp. hot pepper flakes This kind of seems like a lot to me. You might want to start with less and work up.
- 3/4 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. pepper
- 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper opt.
Instructions
- Mix well.
- The original recipe calls for forming this into patties and grilling them. I will brown it, crumbled, for use on pizza.
Awesome! Thanks for these recipes — I’ve got them bookmarked.
Thanks for the comment about my link, Rachel!
Yum! I’ve made my own sausage before, but not in a long time! I’ll have to give this one a whirl!
Best,
Sarah
This looks great! My husband LOVES sausage with breakfast, so this would be great for us! I might try this with pork since that’s what he really likes, but turkey would be good too.
How embarrassing that it took over a week to visit your post! You will love the Italian sausage – it’s all about the fennel! (Try Sarah’s Musings for cracker recipes if you have a sourdough starter.) I really appreciate you linking up to the Un-Processed foods Carnival; it will be a valuable resource that I will direct my readers to often!
Thanks, Katie