Homemade Venison Italian Sausage with Pork | Mild Recipe

This mild venison Italian sausage with pork is very flavorful and versatile. Use it in spaghetti sauce, other pasta dishes, quiche, soups, casseroles, on pizza and more!

My husband hunts and we buy half a pig every year (for the past few years), so in the fall there's always a lot of meat to process, package and store.

While processing, we have a bowl to throw in meat scraps, store them in large ziplocs in the freezer and then in the coming months, as we are ready, we pull them out and make sausage or just grind it and package it in 1 lb portions.

This way we don't have to worry about trying to make sausage so soon after doing so much work just to process the animal!

It's also really fun to experiment with making different flavors of sausage, and you can even try making your own recipe.

Homemade Italian sausage is always a must. It goes so well in many dishes and sometimes, honestly, we just cook them up in a pan or on the grill to eat on their own!

This recipe makes about 10 pounds of sausage, but you can adjust it if you have more or less meat.

This garlic venison sausage recipe is another staple in the freezer!

Are Venison Italian Sausages Healthy?

Using higher quality meats will yield more health benefits and nutritional value. However, even if you use lower-quality meats, this is a healthy recipe using good ingredients!

Venison - Deer meat is high in protein, iron, riboflavin and niacin. Wild game meat is often much higher in nutrients than meat from a farm, as the animals are 100% naturally grass-fed. And of course, no antibiotics or steroids, like in most farmed beef.

Pork - High in protein and vitamins such as iron, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, thiamin and many others. It's important to obtain high-quality, grass-fed pork to get the most nutritional value out of your meat. The pork fat in the meat adds some much-needed moisture that can turn a good sausage into a great sausage!

Organ meat - Organ meats, like liver and heart, are absolutely packed with nutrients, much more than muscle meat. They are rich in B vitamins (including folate), Vitamins A, E, D and K, as well as copper, niacin, riboflavin, choline, zinc and selenium. In fact, 100 grams of beef liver contain more than 200% of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin B12 (1386%), copper (730%), Vitamin A (522%) and riboflavin (201%). Like muscle meat, organ meats are high in protein as well. Putting a small amount of organ meat into homemade sausage is a great way to get more in your diet, especially if you aren't fond of the strong taste.

When you make your own sausage from scratch using fresh ingredients, you know exactly what is going into it!

WHY MIX VENISON WITH ANOTHER MEAT?

Fattier sausage is a moist, tasty sausage. Venison meat is a lean meat, so is often quite dry on its own, so adding fattier meat, like pork or bear, to the deer sausage brings in some much needed moisture and juiciness.

What Is the Best venison to Pork Ratio for Sausage?

When making venison sausage, use up to 50% venison and use a fatty meat like pork or bear for the remainder.

WHAT KIND OF SAUSAGE CASING IS BEST?

There are 2 kinds of sausage casings available: natural hog and collagen casings.

Natural casings - A layer of an animal's intestine, usually a pig. They are thin, pliable and have the best flavor (much better than collagen casings)! If you plan to smoke your sausages, the smoke can permeate through natural casings and into the sausage meat. They also look much more appealing.

Collagen casings - The cheaper of the two options. These are made out of collagen collected from animal hides and can be quite dry. They are very uniform in size but if you smoke them, they don't let the smoke through. This means you can end up with strongly smoked casing and bland sausage meat.

I recommend natural casings! The slight cost difference is definitely worth it.

Variations of Italian Venison Sausage

• This recipe uses 10 pounds of meat. You can use up to 5 pounds of venison.
• Substitute more pork or venison for the organ meat, if desired.
• This is a mild Italian sausage. Add another 1½ tablespoon cayenne pepper or 2 tablespoon red pepper flakes if you want a hot Italian sausage.
• Substitute brown sugar for the coconut sugar.

Tips for Making Venison Italian Sausage

• Use fatty pork, like pork butt or pork shoulder.
• Pro tip: If grinding your own meat, use partially frozen meat if possible. We find that taking meat out of the freezer before bed (keeping it in the fridge) and then grinding the next morning has worked well for us. Using partially frozen meat is WAY easier to grind than thawed meat!
• If you are using pre-ground meat, just mix your ground venison, ground pork and ground organ meats (if using) with the rest of the ingredients and use a sausage stuffer (separate device or attachment on your meat grinder) to form sausages.
• If you don't have a sausage maker, you can form the meat into sausage patties and package with parchment paper in between each patty.

Tools You May Need

Meat grinder

Large bowl

Cookie sheet

Sausage casings (about 30 feet)

How to Make Venison Italian Sausage

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs venison
• 6 lbs pork
• 2 lbs organ meat (or more pork or venison)
• 6 tablespoons Kosher salt
• 3 teaspoons coconut sugar (or brown sugar)
• 3½ tablespoons fennel seed, cracked
• 3 teaspoons coriander
• ¾ cup ice water (cold water works okay too)
• 2 tablespoons cayenne pepper
• 5 sprigs of fresh rosemary, chopped (about 4 teaspoons)

Instructions:

(If grinding your own meat) Place all metal parts of your meat grinder in the freezer for about 30 minutes. This will help the meat grind more smoothly.

If using natural hog casings, rinse them well (get water running through the full length of the casing) and soak them in luke warm water until ready to use.

Cut meat into 1-inch cubes. Feed all your meat through your meat grinder using a 4.5mm cutting disc.

Add remaining ingredients to the meat and mix very thoroughly with your hands. Position a cookie sheet beside the meat grinder to lay the sausage links on. Add a sausage attachment to your meat grinder and remove a sausage casing from the water.

Feed the casing onto the sausage attachment and pinch and twist the end of the casing.

Begin to feed the sausage mixture through the grinder. (This is a 2 person job!) Guide the casing along as it fills with meat mixture. You can either fill the whole casings with meat and cut it into Italian sausage links afterwards (this is what we do, as it's much easier), or twist the casing to end a link and start a new one as you go.

How to Cook Venison Italian Sausage

Add a little olive oil to your skillet. Cook the sausage over medium heat, turning occasionally, for 10-15 minutes until all sides are browned and the inside is cooked through. The internal temperature should reach 160°F.

How to Store Venison Italian Sausage

Wrap sausage in plastic wrap, then butcher paper and store in the freezer for up to 1 year. Don't forget to label it! Thaw in the fridge before cooking.

Once cooked, sausage can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days.

Did you try this recipe? If so, I would really appreciate a 5-star rating and your comments below! Thanks!

More Dinner Ideas

• Chinese Vegetable Soup With Pork
• Sausage and Veggie Foil Packet Dinner
• Ground Beef and Quinoa Skillet
• Spaghetti Squash with Meat Sauce
• Creamy Salmon Dill Sauce

More Venison Recipes

• Venison Steak with Oregano
• Braised Venison Roast
• Garlic Venison and Pork Sausage
• Venison Stew
• Braised Venison Shanks with Garlic