Chicken Sausages!
A while back my friend Alex decided she wanted to do a 40 for 40 bucket list to celebrate her upcoming milestone birthday. I was charged to help her with creating a few chicken sausage recipes since she doesn’t eat beef or pork. We decided on a jerk chicken sausage, a Caprese chicken sausage, and a hot and spicy chicken sausage.
Of course we used ingredients from my garden to make it happen and we used some easily accessible other ingredients for the items not available to us in the back yard.
First up - Jerk Chicken Sausage
I loved this one because I love all things jerk.
What you need:
(2) large chicken breasts.
(5) boneless thighs
(6) tablespoons of Walkerswood Mild Jerk Seasoning (I promise it's not that mild)
(2) tablespoons of minced garlic
(3/4) teaspoon of kosher salt
(1/2) teaspoon of Himalayan pink salt
(1/2) tablespoon of crushed black pepper
Caprese
For this one, Alex wanted to mirror a Caprese salad with Mozzerella, Sundried Tomatoes, and Fresh basil. This was a milder sausage, that was flavorful. but made me realize, I'm really here for the heat.
What you need:
(2) large chicken breasts.
(5) boneless thighs
(12) cranks of rainbow peppercorns from grinder
(2) tablespoons of minced garlic
(1) teaspoon of kosher salt
(3) cranks of Himalayan pink salt from grinder
(6) large sun-dried tomatoes
(1) tablespoon of aged balsamic vinegar
(1) handful of fresh basil
(1/2) cup of mozzarella broken up into bit sized pieces
Last but certainly not least, we made a super spicy sausage that I decided to name Vermillion, in homage to a parish in Louisiana and this sausage's orange and red coloring. This one was quite personal as I used the cayenne and habenero/scotch bonnet (Did you catch that Louisiana and West Indian tie there?) peppers growing in my yard to mix the bold, intense flavors with the with the fruity, fiery pepper. And for good measure, we added a few chilies in the mix. If you like heat, this one's for you.
What you need:
(1) large chicken breasts.
(8) boneless thighs
(1) scotch bonnet
(5) Cayenne peppers
(3) Chili peppers
(2) tablespoons of minced garlic
(1) tablespoons of onion powder
(1/2) tablespoons of thyme
(1) teaspoon ground Cayenne pepper
(1) tablespoon of red pepper flakes
(1) tablespoons of smoked paprika
(2) teaspoons of creole seasoning
(2) tablespoons of kosher salt
(4) cranks of Himalayan pink salt from grinder
(1/4) cup of apple cider vinegar
(1/4) cup of olive oil
(2) tablespoons of Mike's Hot Honey
Alex's meat grinder didn't arrive on time, so we used an alternate tool to get the meat down to size, a full sized Ninja Blender! She ground all of the chicken in her blender on pulse, as to not take the chicken down to mush. We added the various seasonings and herbs to each batch while in the blender, then hand mixed for good measure. We made these into patties and seared them on the skillet. We have intentions of adding them to the vegan sausage casing once the grinder arrives. And of course, I'll do an update. :)
