Homemade Sausage (Chicken Feta Sausage Recipe) (2024)

Learn how to make homemade sausage! This chicken feta sausage recipe is a lighter version of classic pork sausage, and it skips the additives you may find in processed meats. I’ve taken a Mediterranean twist with this homemade chicken sausage by adding feta, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, and a variety of herbs. It’s a wonderful addition to Italian dishes and also works well as a breakfast sausage to serve with eggs!

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📖 Recipe Card

➕ Homemade Sausage

Have you ever tried making homemade sausage? I used to stick to making sausage by seasoning store-bought ground meats. Using a meat grinder really opens up a whole new world of options in terms of ingredients and flavor combinations!

I’ve seen it suggested that it is possible to mince the ingredients for sausage by hand. Even though this is a slow food process, I cannot imagine the amount of work that would take!

I am using Cabela’s Pro DC Grinder. It does a great job grinding this mixture perfectly. This recipe for spinach feta chicken sausage was adapted from a recipe in this grinder’s manual.

Unfortunately, the recipe they included was a bit vague for sausage-making novices. For instance, they did not specify whether to use a fine or coarse grind for the sausage.

I found that there are differences of opinion regarding the best sausage grind. I ended up choosing a coarse grind because some sources say finer grinds require more fat. This is a reasonably lean chicken sausage (the feta does provide additional fat), so a coarse grind seemed like the way to go.

Chicken Sausage Ingredients

Here are the ingredients in this homemade chicken sausage recipe (quantities listed in the recipe card above):

• Chicken thighs
• Chicken breasts
• Feta cheese
• Sun-dried tomatoes in oil
• Chopped fresh garlic
• Dried oregano
• Dried basil
• Lemon zest
• Salt and black pepper
• Red pepper flakes
• Baby spinach
• Hog casings
• Olive oil (for cooking the sausage)

Reading up on the different sausage casing options was a bit interesting. I ended up ordering these natural hog casings on Amazon. They get pretty good reviews.

I was looking for the larger-sized casings, not the small ones you’d see for breakfast links.

A few of the things that drew me to this brand:

• Many reviewers said that they were sturdy, with minimal tearing during the stuffing process.
• These casings come packed in salt and threaded through a ring. The ring makes it much easier to untangle the casings after soaking.

Some mildly alarming reviews discussed the bad smell of hog casings. This is probably the thing that worried me the most about ordering these. You know what part of the hog the casings come from, so there’s likely to be some validity in these complaints.

So, here’s my honest opinion. The smell upon opening the package was not that bad. After the initial soak and rinsing the inside of the casings at least three times, there was no smell at all.

If you see that the casings are not dry upon opening the package or if the smell is overpoweringly horrid, I would return them. You probably have a rancid package!

As to the positive reviews, I found they were all true. I had no tearing issues during the stuffing, and I had no issue untangling the casings.

🐔 How to Make Chicken Sausage

Here are the step-by-step instructions for how to make spinach and feta chicken sausage:

1. Keep the ingredients at 38-40F/3.3-4.4C (almost frozen) for easier cutting and grinding. Cut the chicken breasts and thighs into 1-inch (2.54 cm) cubes (or smaller).

2. In a large bowl, place all the sausage ingredients except the spinach. Stir to combine. Refrigerate this mixture while you set up your meat grinder.

3. When you are ready to grind your mixture, stir in the spinach. Using a meat grinder, coarsely grind the mixture. Send the mixture through the grinder slowly, so that you do not create a jam.

4. You can shape the mixture into sausage patties at this point if you would like. If you would rather have links in casings, refrigerate the sausage mixture while you do the next steps.

Making Chicken Sausage Links

5. Clean the meat grinder thoroughly and set it up for stuffing sausage. I needed to use the largest stuffing funnel for the hog casings. Rubbing the outside of the stuffing funnel with a little oil can help the casing slide on easier.

6. Remove your hog casings from their packaging and rinse them in cool water. Prepare them for filling as directed on the packaging.

7. When you are ready to stuff sausages, slide a casing over the end of the stuffing funnel. My grinder recommends leaving 2-inches (5 grams) of casing overhanging the end of the stuffing funnel, but the directions for your grinder may vary.

8. Slowly start sending your ground sausage mixture through your meat grinder. One hand can use the stomper to push the mixture into the grinder while your other hand can help guide the casing as it fills. You can make small links by stopping the grinder and tying off the casing frequently with kitchen twine, or large links if you don’t want to stop the grinder as often.

9. After removing the link from the machine, tie off the open end. Then slide a new casing onto the machine and continue the filling process, repeating the steps until the meat mixture is used up.

Homemade Chicken Sausage Recipe Tips

The meat grinder I have comes with three different stuffing funnels. The rinsed casings looked extremely narrow, so I tried the smallest sausage attachment first. After I turned on the grinder and air started filling the casing, I saw I needed a larger funnel.

I tried the medium-sized funnel next. Again, the casing enlarged beyond the size of the funnel once I turned the grinder on.

It really did not seem like I would be able to get the casing to fit on the largest funnel. I was beginning to wonder if I needed some sort of half-sized funnel but would have to make do.

After knotting one end of the casing, I was able to get it to fit by gathering it like I would gather pantyhose I was about to stick my toes into. Once the casing was gathered into a tidy bunch, it slipped fairly easily onto the funnel.

(P.S. I know I am dating myself with the pantyhose reference and some will have no idea what I am talking about. Haha Seriously though, just trying to slide the casing on the funnel without gathering it first was an exercise in frustration.)

By the way, this recipe makes a lot of food! Double-wrap and freeze the raw sausage you don’t use right away. If you have a vacuum sealer for food, you can use that instead.

🔥 How to Cook Chicken Feta Sausage

Since this is lean chicken sausage, you want to make sure you don’t overcook it. Here's how I roast these in the oven so that they don’t dry out:

Preheat the oven to 400F (200C). Line a rimmed metal baking pan with parchment paper and put about 1 pound (454 grams) of sausage on the pan. Drizzle the sausage with 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

Once the oven has heated, put the pan on the bottom rack. Roast for 15 minutes. Flip the sausages over using tongs and roast an additional 10-15 minutes. Don't overcook them; they'll dry out on you!

Chicken sausage should reach a minimum safe internal temperature of 165F (74C). Use a meat thermometer to check the middle of the sausage to ensure it is cooked through.

FAQs

How to make chicken sausage without pork casing?

You don’t have to use any casings at all when you make sausage. Just shape the ground mixture into patties or links by hand and call it a day.

What to serve with chicken feta sausage?

This homemade chicken feta spinach sausage recipe is delicious over pasta for dinner. We also like cooked chicken sausage for a healthy breakfast with some cheesy scrambled eggs and a big serving of fruit.

👩🏻‍🍳 More Homemade Sausage Recipes

• Homemade Italian Fennel Sausage
• Chorizo Recipe
• Chicken Bratwurst
• Pork Sausage in Air Fryer

You may also enjoy learning How to Render Lard in a Crock Pot.

I hope that this post inspires you to try something new in the kitchen. Food is one topic where there is always a new recipe to try or technique to learn. It never gets boring!

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