Homemade venison sausage is one of the great benefits of wild game hunting, and it’s easier than many people think. One of my favorite meals is venison sausage, with mustard, relishes, and cheeses…divine! In this post I’ll share my venison sausage recipes along with lots of tips and tricks for making your own delicious sausage at home.

The Lost Art of Sausage Making

Making homemade sausage truly is becoming a lost art. Most people are satisfied to pick up a pack of Kielbasa from their local store and stick to those flavors as opposed to creating their very own flavor profiles. I have nothing against Kielbasa sausage; it really is fantastic. Yet knowing just how easy making sausage can be, I would rather get out my fresh meat and CREATE! I love that I get to determine every aspect of this sausage. Additionally, since my family hunts wild game, I needed a flexible venison sausage recipe.

An Adaptable Venison Sausage Recipe: Use What You Have on Hand

Venison originally meant any game animal killed by hunting. The word comes from the Latin venari, meaning “to hunt or pursue.” Way back when, you would categorize rabbit, pig, and even goats as venison.

Here in America, when we refer to venison, we usually mean deer, including antelope, elk, caribou, whitetail deer, and the like. That’s how I use the term in this venison sausage recipe article. Although I am using whitetail deer for my recipes, feel free to substitute that meat with whatever meat you may have.

Sausage Making: An Essential Skill for Wild Game Hunters

Venison Sausage is one of those “must haves” if you frequently dine on venison. In most hunting circles, just mentioning venison sausage evokes nostalgic memories of waking up to venison breakfast sausage at the hunting camp after an enjoyable weekend of hunting.

Every hunter needs to have in his skills set the ability to make his own sausage. It is really very simple. Many people believe that it is too time consuming or that they would rather leave that to the processor, but each of us are individuals with a variety of tastes. With just a little knowledge, you can make your own sausage to your liking with little effort and a super tasty reward.

Through the years of speaking on the subject of eating wild, I get to meet resourceful farmers, hunters, gardeners, and wild life enthusiasts. In the past few years, I have noticed that more and more of them are beginning to process their own deer and therefore, are looking for tools and recipes to make their processing easier.

Fortunately, you now can order almost all of the necessary tools right off the internet. Equipment may be as minimal as a manual meat grinder, depending upon whether you want to make breakfast sausage, link sausage, smoked sausage, or cured sausage.

Sausage Making Equipment

A Meat Grinder

First, you need a meat grinder. You can use your stand mixer with the meat grinder  attachments or a manual grinder. On the other hand, you can go all out and buy an electric meat grinder.

My family of 9 usually harvests about 13 deer a year; therefore, we process quite a lot of venison. Our investment in an electric meat grinder has certainly brought a tremendous return. If you are going to be processing more than a deer or two a year, I suggest that you buy at least an 1/2 horsepower grinder. They are faster and much quieter than the lower horsepower grinders.

Sausage Casings

If you are going to make links, you will need casings. There are all kinds of casings out there, but I find that  natural hog or sheep casing are the best for the money. Nothing is quite like using a natural casing. The natural casings “snap” when you bite into them and help to create a beautiful color to the sausage.

Optionally, a Sausage Stuffer

You don’t have to have a sausage stuffer — I didn’t for a long time — but I do think it is easier and more convenient to have one. Sometimes, using only the grinder attachment may cause the sausage to get too hot, resulting in a sub par texture. A sausage stuffer can be expensive, but if you are planning on making sausage often, the investment is worth it.

A Smoker for Smoked Sausage Recipes

If you plan on smoking your sausage, you will need a smoker. You can purchase these at your local sporting good store or make one yourself. This winter, I am planning on building a smoke house to cold smoke my sausage, but for now, I am completely satisfied hot smoking.

Cold Smoking

Dry sausages such as summer sausage, pepperoni, and salami are cold smoked and requires temperatures below 110 degrees for about 15 to 48 hours or longer for desired flavor and dryness. Cold smoking allows total smoke penetration inside the meat and has a very long shelf life. Using curing salts, drying, and cold smoking meats are a very effective and tasty way to preserve meats.

Hot Smoking

Hot smoking relies on a humidity and heat balance to get that great smoky flavor. A good way to regulate the temperature is to place a liquid-filled pan (I like to use apple juice) inside of a small smoker and wet wood chips an hour before smoking. 

I prefer using a propane smoker because it gives me more control over the temperature than an electric smoker. Also, the propane smoker reaches an optimal temperature faster.

Hot smoking dries out the surface of the meat, creating a barrier for smoke penetration but allowing enough smoke flavor to create great sausage in a relatively short amount of time. Hot smoked meats should be kept in the refrigerator. If you don’t plan to consume them fairly quickly, you should freeze them.

More Sausage Smoking Tips

When smoking links, allow the links to dry for an hour or two before putting them in the smoker. Smoke the links for about 3 hours, maybe longer if they have not reached an internal temperature of 150-160 degrees. I usually remove the wood chips after the first hour and one-half and continue to maintain the temperature in the smoker until the desired internal temperature is reached.

You can remove the sausage from the smoker and finish them in a 200 degree oven if this works better for you. Allow them to cool before freezing.

The Basics of a Good Venison Sausage Recipe 

First, a good venison sausage recipe hinges on fresh ingredients and proper balance. Venison is quite lean; as a result, it needs a little fat, liquid, salt, and herbs and spices to create a super sausage. Once you have the right balance of ingredients, the sky’s the limit.

I like to use pork, beef, or lamb along with my venison in sausages, but this is not necessary. I do recommend using fat back if you aren’t going to use multiple meats because venison can be a little dry by itself. Here are a few basic sausage making steps that will give you a leg-up on sausage making.

1. Everything that you are going to be using to make your sausage, such as bowls, feeder for the grinder, stuffer, meat, and fat needs to be very cold. Why? If your ingredients get warm, your sausage mixture is going to get mushy.  So I suggest putting all your equipment, venison, and fat in the freezer for about an hour before using them.
2. Before removing your ingredients from the freezer, make certain that you have all your spices ready to go into your mixture. You are going to need to work fast so that your meat remains cold.
3. Remove only your meat from the freezer, and cut the meat and fat into 1-inch cubes. Mix with your dry ingredients, cover,  and place back into the freezer along with any liquid that is to go into the recipe. Freeze for another 30 minutes.
4. After your sausage mixture has chilled, remove equipment and ingredients from the freezer and set up your work station.
5. If you are making link sausage, soak your casings in warm water to remove the salt and to soften them. I like to use 32-36 mm casings. If you aren’t making link sausage, ignore this step.
6. Add the liquid to your chilled sausage mixture and blend with your hands. Attach the 3/8-inch plate (course or largest die) to the grinder and begin feeding the mixture. By using this plate, you have less chance of your sausage becoming mushy. If your mixture feels warm, place it back into the freezer for a few minutes while you attach the stuffer to the grinder and clean up a bit.If you are not stuffing your sausage, freeze as if you were freezing ground venison or prepare patties: freeze on a cookie sheet, place wax paper between the patties, and place in a freezer bag. Give them a night in the refrigerator if you are planning on eating them fresh; that gives the flavors time to infuse into the meat.
7. Place a casing onto the stuffing tube leaving about 5 to 6 inches off the end of the tub to tie off. Air will fill some of that casing. Feed the mixture into the stuffer. Allow the sausage come out in one long coil, trying to keep the sausage casing consistent in size as it comes out of the tube. Remember to leave about 8 inches of extra casing after the last of the sausage is stuffed. Tie off the casing in a knot.
8. If you wish, every 5-inches or so, pinch off what will become the links. Roll the link a few times and repeat until you get to the end of the sausage. Tie off the other end. Arrange the links on a wire or cooling sheets where air can move around them.
9. Allow the sausage to dry for about an hour. If you are smoking the sausages, place them in the smoker, but if you are freezing them, refrigerate overnight then dry and package them for the freezer.
10. If you are going to eat them, the sausages will keep in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Stacy Lyn’s Italian Venison Sausage Recipe

One of my very favorite link sausages to make is Italian sausage. It is a wonderful sausage to smoke, grill, or fry. I personally like my Italian sausage fried with onions and bell peppers. It is great on a bun or on top of greens, grits, or mashed potatoes.

The versatility of Italian Sausage amazes me. Oftentimes, I will remove the casing and add the sausage to my pizza or spaghetti sauce.

If you try any sausage recipe at all, this one is a must. I like to smoke mine before cooking. It seems to add an earthy element to the sausage that I can’t get any other way.

When in a fix, marinade your sausage in a dark beer. I like cooking with Guinness beer. If you don’t want to use beer, you can brush a very small amount of liquid smoke over the sausage links before grilling, baking, or frying them.