Who doesn’t love the typical Dutch grill sausage? Everyone, right? And rightfully so, a slice of grill sausage is always delicious. As with everything, making your own is more fun AND tastier. Moreover, making your own grill sausage is not at all difficult. You don’t need many ingredients for it and it can just be done with materials you already have around the house. In this blog we will explain to you step by step how to make your own grill sausage at home, from both chicken and pork and with or without cheese.

This recipe is based on THE recipe for grill sausage from the Worstbijbel and from the famous grill sausage making workshops of Mr. Wateetons, author of the Sausage Bible.

First of all, we give you the easy recipe for making grill sausage that you don’t need to buy anything at all. Want to take a step more professional? Then read on, because we also have a professional-level recipe for butcher’s grill sausages!

What are the minimum materials you need to make your own grill sausage?

In this recipe for grill sausage, we use materials that you just already in the house. This is guaranteed to produce excellent results. Want to take grill sausage making one step more professional (at the butcher’s level), Then we have tips for optional materials for you a little further down.

What do you need at a minimum:

• A food processor with chopping function
• One roll of cling film
• A piping bag or a sturdy sandwich or grip lock bag
• A needle or pin
• A spacious pan
• An oven or BBQ

What are the minimum ingredients you need to make your own grill sausage?

The choice of your meat

Grill sausage can be made from any kind of meat. Most importantly, it’s nice and fatty. Sausage should be fatty. You can use pork as well as chicken. Beef can also be used, but we recommend combining it with pork fat otherwise it will be too dry.

For about 2 to 3 grill sausages:

• 1 kg of bacon slices
  OR
• 1 kg chicken thighs

Making grilled beef or game sausages?

Making grill sausages from beef is also possible, but we recommend combining it with pork fat otherwise it will be too dry. A nice game grilled sausage is also great, but again remember that like beef, most game is rather lean. Combine it again with pork fat. Use this 50-50 with your lean meat. You then get:

• 500 grams of lean beef or venison
• 500 grams of chinch bacon.

The spices for your grill sausage

As for the spices, we can distinguish between two types: those on the inside of your sausage, and those on the outside.

The inside

Spices per kilo:

• 18 grams of salt
• 15 grams of mustard
• 3 grams of ground white pepper
• 3 grams of onion powder
• 1 gram of ground ginger powder
• 1 gram ground mace or nutmeg
• 0.5 grams of ground cardamom seeds

The outside

Although the spicy outer edge is characteristic of the grill sausage, there are really no set recipes for it in particular. Most butchers use what they have on hand: grill seasoning, meat seasoning, chicken seasoning, whatever. So just buy a nice jar of chicken seasoning at the supermarket and you’re done.

Tip: grill sausage package (Handy!)

Get all the additives and casings in 1 kit together? Buy this handy grill sausage kit from startercultures.eu

Cheese or no cheese

Then you still have the choice of adding cheese or not. During our online grill sausage making workshop, participants are usually split 50-50. We ourselves are secretly from team cheese. That melt-in-the-mouth blob when cut, makes the grill sausage even more irresistible.

Per kilo:

• 150 grams of (young) mature cheese cubes measuring approximately 0.5 x 0.5 cm

Additives in your grill sausage

To make sure your grill sausage succeeds, it is important to use additives. The ice in this recipe prevents your meat from getting too hot from grinding in the food processor, causing the sausage to fall apart. The potato starch/cornstarch/rice flour ensures that the meat sticks together well and the ice water does not flow back out. There are also even better additives, which professional butchers use. See below for that.

Per kilogram of meat

• about 50-100 grams of ice cubes
• 30 grams of cornstarch/potato starch/rice flour (doesn’t really matter which you choose)

The steps of making your own grill sausage

1. Cut your meat small, in cubes of about 2×2 cm. Keep it well cold while you go through the other steps.
2. Weigh all the seasonings and mix them into the meat. Also add the potato starch.
3. Grind your ice in the food processor for a few seconds until it is gritty.
4. Add your meat to the ice in the food processor and chop for about 1-2 minutes until it becomes a very fine paste. If you find that your food processor is not strong enough, do it in parts. Do not grind longer than necessary. The meat should still feel thoroughly cold to the touch.
5. If you are making a cheese grilled sausage: now gently mix the cubes of cheese into the meat paste by hand.
6. Place a piece of plastic wrap about 50 cm wide on your countertop, and place a second equally wide layer behind it. Let the two layers overlap by at least 5 cm. So you now have a roll about 50 cm wide and about 45 cm deep in front of you.
7. Put a third to half of the meat in a piping bag or a sturdy grip lock bag. Cut a corner off about 1 cm.
8. Now pinch a roll of meat, slightly longer than the desired grill sausage on the bottom edge of your piece of plastic wrap.
9. Squeeze in a second roll on top.
10. Now roll the two rolls gently, inside the plastic wrap into a tight sausage.
11. Prick away air bubbles with a pin or needle and roll a little tighter again so that all the air is squeezed out
12. Store the sausages in the refrigerator.
13. Heat water in a large saucepan to about 80 degrees.
14. Cook the sausages in the plastic in the hot water for about three quarters of an hour.
15. Let them cool.
16. Stream a space amount of chicken seasoning (or roasting seasoning, meatloaf seasoning etc) onto a plate and roll the grill sausages through it until they are coated on all sides.
17. Grill them for about 15 minutes in an oven, or on the BBQ at 180-200 degrees.
18. Serve them hot or cold; both is delicious.

What is the best way to store your grill sausages?

If you want to store grill sausages you can do so in the refrigerator or freezer. The most convenient way is to freeze them after cooking. Preferably vacuum-packed, or else tightly wrapped in plastic. You can then store them for months. After grilling, it can also be done if necessary.

After grilling the sausages will stay good in the refrigerator for about two weeks.

Making grilled sausage at butcher level

Want to make the very best grill sausages available, super-tight and with perfect flavor, binding, color and shelf life? Then below we have some tips for materials and additives that will take your grilling sausages to butcher level! We use a mincer for more control, and some adjuvants that ensure your grill sausage has perfect color and binding, and artificial casings for a super-tight sausage. You buy them at startercultures.eu

Materials for professional butcher grill sausages

• A mincer
• A filler horn
• Transparent barrier casings
• A sausage skewer

Ingredients for real butcher’s grilled sausages

Instead of bacon strips or chicken thighs, we use the following ingredients for top grill sausages

• 500 grams of pork shoulder
• 500 grams of bacon
  OR
• 850 grams of chicken thighs
• 150 grams of chicken skin

Additives for professional butcher grill sausages

• 18 grams of nitrite salt (for nice pink sausages (not to be used with chicken), instead of table salt)
• 3 grams of phosphate (superior meat binder, instead of potato starch)

Steps for for professional butcher grill sausages

1. Cut your meat small, in cubes of about 2×2 cm. Keep it cold while you go through the other steps.
2. Weigh all the seasonings and mix them into the meat. Also, add the phosphate.
3. Grind your meat with the mincer, as fine or coarse as you like. Ice is not necessary.
4. Mix by hand for a few minutes until the meat is well sticky. The meat should still feel thoroughly cold to the touch.
5. If you are making a cheese-grilled sausage: now gently mix the cubes of cheese into the meat paste by hand.
6. Replace the blade and plate of your mincer with the filling horn.
7. Stroke the artificial casing all the way over the filling horn.
8. Fill the casing tightly with your meat paste
9. Turn tightly, poke away any air holes with a sausage pricker and turn even tighter.
10. Make a knot in the intestine, or tie close with a piece of string, a little tighter so that all the air is squeezed out
11. Store the sausages in the refrigerator.
12. Heat water in a large saucepan to about 80 degrees.
13. Cook the sausages in the plastic in the hot water for about three-quarters of an hour.
14. Let them cool.
15. Stream a space amount of chicken seasoning (or roasting seasoning, meatloaf seasoning etc) onto a plate and roll the grill sausages through it until they are coated on all sides.
16. Grill them for about 15 minutes in an oven, or on the BBQ at 180-200 degrees.
17. Serve them hot or cold; both is delicious.

Over de auteur

Meneer Wateetons is kookboekenschrijver, worstmaker en eigenaar van starterculturen.nl. Hij schreef onder andere de Worstbijbel, Over Charcuterie en Over Rook. Door zijn boeken en workshops zijn duizenden mensen in aanraking gekomen met het prachtige ambacht van het worst maken.