Venison Sausage Recipe - How to Make Venison Sausage (2024)

Home | How-To (DIY stuff) | Basic Venison Sausage

4.80 from 15 votes

By Hank Shaw

January 31, 2022 | Updated May 30, 2022

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This is a rich, country-style venison sausage recipe where the dominant spices are ground bay leaves and garlic. These are especially good for grilling, as bay seems to go well with the flavors that come with cooking over an open fire.

Venison Sausage Recipe - How to Make Venison Sausage (2)

I like this as a coarse sausage, but you can grind it finer if you’d like. I also prefer a mix of venison and pork — and do your best to use pork that has never been frozen. This is important, because never-frozen meat, when ground, binds to itself better than pre-frozen meat.

And you will be judged on how nice your bind is with sausages. No one likes crumbly sausage. More on this in a bit.

You will want fatty pork shoulder or pork belly, or a mix of both. You can use beef fat, too, if you prefer; use fat trimmed from steaks and roasts.

As for the venison in this venison sausage, you’ll want to use trim, mostly. No need for making a sausage from backstrap, although I do often add the “chain” off a whole backstrap. Stew meat, stuff between the ribs, neck bits, the odd and ends from squaring off roasts and steaks.

If you had your deer butchered at the processor, I would make venison sausage from roasts or stew meat.

Coarse or Fine Grind?

Coarseness in a sausage is best with “cleaner” meat, so if you do make your venison sausage from gnarly stuff, grind finer. Regardless, I grind twice. This will give you a more tender sausage. I prefer to grind with a 8 or 10 mm die, then again with a 6.5 mm die.

If you prefer a fine grind, take it down to the 4.5 mm die on a second or third grind.

Venison Sausage Recipe - How to Make Venison Sausage (4)

Additives

You’ll see dry milk powder in the ingredients. It’s totally optional, but dry milk powder is used to retain moisture in smoked sausages; you can also use products like carrot fiber, which work well to help sausages retain moisture.

Skip these if you don’t plan on smoking your venison sausages — likewise with the Instacure No. 1. This is a curing salt that protects the meat from bad bacteria while you’re smoking it. No need for curing salt if you are just making sausages for the grill.

Other Venison Sausages

Consider this venison sausage recipe as a master, a model to play with. It can be scaled up at will, and you can play with anything in it except for salt level. The 34 grams in this recipe will give you a sausage with 1.5 percent salt by weight, which most people find pleasing; note that salami and other dry cured meats need to have a higher salt content.

If you need to watch your salt intake, you can drop the salt as low as 23 grams, which will get you closer to 1 percent. Low for most people, but not awful.

New to making sausage? You can find my detailed tutorial onhow to make sausages at home here.

Here are some other venison sausage recipes you can play with, once you get the basic technique down:

Venison bratwurst, done the way they make “red brats” in Wisconsin.
British bangers, a dense sausage that uses a little ground grain as a filler.
Venison sausage with sage, which is similar to this one, but with wintry seasonings.
Garlic sausage with basil, a summertime venison sausage.

You’ll find close to 40 other sausage recipes here.

Storing and Preserving Venison Sausage

Once made, the links will keep a week in the fridge; closer to 10 days if you smoked them. Venison sausage also freezes well.

4.80 from 15 votes

Venison Sausages with Bay and Garlic

This is a basic country style venison sausage. Use it as a master to play with. Vary anything you like, but pay attention to salt. Even a little difference in salt is noticeable.

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Course: Cured Meat

Cuisine: American

Ingredients

▢ 3 pounds venison
▢ 2 pounds fatty pork shoulder or belly
▢ 34 grams salt, about2 rounded tablespoons
▢ 4 grams Instacure No. 1 (optional)
▢ About 10bay leaves, ground to a powder
▢ 6 to 8 cloves minced fresh garlic, about 2 tablespoons
▢ 10 grams ground black pepper, about 2 teaspoons
▢ 3 grams celery seed, about 1/2 teaspoon
▢ 1/4 cup red wine
▢ 1/4 cup ice water
▢ 20 grams dry milk powder (optional)
▢ hog casings about 12 to 15 feet

Instructions

Chop meat and fat into chunks that will for into your grinder. (Optional expert step: Mix the salt and curing salt – if using – with just the meat, grind very coarsely — 10 mm or 12 mm plate — and refrigerate overnight. If you don't have such a large plate, cut the meat a little finer and do the same thing. This will give you a tighter bind in the finished sausage, which is especially important, as this is a coarsely ground sausage.)
Take out some hog casings and set in a bowl of warm water.
When you are ready to grind, mix the meat and fat with all the herbs and spices. If you are using the dry milk powder, mix that in, too. I use it when I slow-smoke sausages; it helps them retain moisture and shrink less after they come out of the smoker. Make sure the meat and fat are37°F or colderby putting the mixture in the freezer for an hour or so. Put the wine in the fridge.
Grind through your meat grinder (you can use a food processor in a pinch, but you will not get a very good texture) using the coarse die (6 mm or 7 mm).
Make sure your sausage is very cold, between 28°F and 32°F. When it’s cold enough, take it out of the freezer and add the wine and water. Mix the sausage thoroughly either using a Kitchenaid on low for 60 to 90 seconds or with your (very clean) hands for 2 minutes. This is important to get the sausage to bind properly.
Stuff the sausage into the casings. Twist off links by pinching the sausage down and twisting and spinning it, first in one direction, and then with the next link, in the other direction; this helps prevent them from unwinding. (Here'sa quick video on making the links) Or you could tie them off with butcher’s string. Make sure you pierce the links wherever there are air pockets; I use a needle sterilized in the flames of my stovetop. Gently squeeze the links to remove all air pockets.
Hang the sausages in a cool place for up to a day (ideally hanging in a fridge, but even an hour at room temperature helps a lot). Once they have dried a bit, put in the fridge until needed. They will keep for at least a week refrigerated.If you are freezing the sausages, wait a day before doing so. This will tighten up the sausages and help them keep their shape in the deep-freeze.

Notes

Pro Tip: Use carrot fiber in place of the dry milk to help retain moisture. You will only need a teaspoonful for this batch.

Nutrition

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

Tried this recipe? Tag me today!Mention @huntgathercook or tag #hankshaw!

Categorized as:
American Recipes, Charcuterie, How-To (DIY stuff), Recipe, Venison, Wild Game

FAQs

What is the best ratio for venison sausage? ›

We like to use a 50/50 ratio of ground pork to ground venison. So, for every pound of venison you'll use a pound of pork. This is completely subjective, though. You can use more pork to venison or more venison to pork.

Keep Reading ›

How do you make deer sausage not dry? ›

When making sausages from scratch, how do you prevent the meat inside from becoming dry after cooking? The answer is fat. If the meat you are using for sausage is very lean, like venison, you add fat. We often grind some slab bacon with the venison, for example.

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How much water do you put in venison sausage? ›

Add at least 1 oz. of water per pound of meat to aid in the stuffing process. This aid in mixing the meat with the seasoning and will ease the stress put on the gears of your meat mixer and sausage stuffer. Try experimenting with liquids other than water when mixing your next batch of sausage.

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How long does deer sausage need to be cooked? ›

Raw Sausages - Cook over medium indirect heat flipping occassionally until cooked through. About 15 minutes. If preferred, about 5 minutes before removing them from the grill, brush on your favorite barbecue sauce and turn the links over again to allow the sauce to "set" (dry out slightly).

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What is the basic sausage ratio? ›

Sausage Ratios

The standard for sausage preparation is a 2:1 lean to fat ratio (65-70% lean meat to 30-35% fat). Some ratios are as high as a 1:1 lean to fat ratio (50% lean meat to 50% fat) or lower at a 4:1 lean to fat ratio (80% lean meat to 20% fat).

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What is the fat to meat ratio for venison sausage? ›

A lot of people seem to go much leaner than 20% with their venison grind. But the rule of thumb for sausage seems to be 20-30%, or 25%-30%. I was able to source pork back fat and pork shoulder. Right now I'm leaning towards: 20% back fat, 20% pork shoulder, 60% venison = ~26% fat.

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What kind of fat do you add to deer sausage? ›

You can also use beef suet, but the texture and flavor aren't as good as pork. Another option is tallow from wild game, although deer fat is very saturated and waxy. You can incorporate a little into the mix, but be cautious about how much you add to avoid bites that coat your mouth with wax.

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How do you keep venison sausage moist? ›

No matter what kind of venison sausage you're making, you'll need to add fat to your meat block to ensure you have moisture and flavor. The fat ratio of pork belly lends itself very well to venison, and it also has a smooth flavor that won't overpower our venison and make delicious deer sausages.

Do you have to add fat to deer sausage? ›

A sausage without fat isn't a sausage. It's essential for making the meat juicy and succulent. I've heard of animal fat alternatives to fatback and tallow, such as powdered milk or sautéed veggies. I'm sure those are adequate substitutions, but I don't want to completely change the flavor profile.

Why do you put ice water in sausage? ›

As sausage ingredients are mixed together, a great amount of heat is generated, it is important to add ice as an ingredient rather that water to quickly and effectively remove that heat to prevent the product from cooking during the mixing process.

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Should you add water when making sausage? ›

Adding water helps the mixture to move more easily through your sausage stuffer, so it moves through the tube easier. It also makes it easier for you to crank the sausage meat through the stuffer. What is this? It helps with the stuffing process, and makes it easier to fill casings.

How do you know when deer sausage is done? ›

Before eating your sausages, place a food thermometer in the center of the fattest link. If the internal temperature is at least 160 °F (71 °C), the sausages are cooked and can be removed from the pan.

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Do you have to cure deer sausage? ›

No need for curing salt if you are just making sausages for the grill.

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How do you know when sausage is cooked enough? ›

Use a meat thermometer to make sure your sausage is between 160 and 165 °F (71 and 74 °C). If you don't have a meat thermometer, check that the sausage is firm and has clear, runny juices. Cut it open and make sure the inside is brown, not pink.

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What is the mix ratio for ground venison? ›

With most ground venison recipes, my magic number is 80 percent lean and 20 percent fat. Adjust the ratio according to your personal taste. For sausage and other cured meats, the fat content can be much higher. Slightly freeze the fat before running it through your grinder or chopping it into small pieces.

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What kind of fat do you put in venison sausage? ›

Pork fat is usually added to the venison meat to add fat. You can get pork trimmings from your local butcher. I like to make 60/40 venison sausage, which means you mix 60% venison with 40% pork fat trimmings. Cube the venison and pork trimming to a size that you can feed into your grinder.

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How do you make deer sausage less gamey? ›

Soaking it

Many hunters suggest soaking your game meat in vinegar. However, vinegar's acidity can often dry the meat, making it especially tough. Instead, try soaking the meat in milk or even buttermilk, which will produce better results with most wild animals, especially when dealing with backstraps.

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What fat do you put in deer sausage? ›

You will want fatty pork shoulder or pork belly, or a mix of both. You can use beef fat, too, if you prefer; use fat trimmed from steaks and roasts. As for the venison in this venison sausage, you'll want to use trim, mostly.