Homemade Chicken Breast Sausage

Homemade sausages from chicken breast with sautéed or fresh vegetables and with any desired herbs and spices, are easy to prepare, provide quality nutrients and are convenient for serving. These sausages are juicy and delicious prepared in different ways. The best feature of this dish is flexibility in taste, where you can make sausage mix as salty and spicy as you wish. I have made two versions of the recipe. One with fresh cauliflower, sautéed onion and chicken stock, the second with sautéed onion and leek, and just water for extra moisture. In terms of appearances 3 options were tried. I made traditionally shaped sausages and cooked them in simmering water, lightly fried sausage mixture as flat rissoles,

as well as made Pariser like sausage to be used on sandwiches.

Sausage mixture is quite soft, so it is possible to use pastry bag with a wide opening and make sausage shape or flat round shape on a lined with baking paper tray and bake sausages as you normally make meatballs. I haven’t tried it, but plan to do it future. Larger diameter sausage goes well for sandwiches, especially on baguette shape bread (recipe is coming in the next post) with homemade mustard.

Ingredients:

Recipe I

• 400g chicken breast meat, skin off (one large breast)
• 1 medium onion, lightly sautéed
• 150g fresh cauliflower
• 100ml chicken stock
• 1 egg
• 1 tea spoon salt
• pinch of thyme leaves
• 1/4 tea spoon coarse black pepper
• pinch of fennel seeds to sauté onion
• 1 table spoon olive oil

For this recipe preparation I first processed cauliflower to cauliflower “rice” in food processor and added sautéed onion and chicken breast later. Even after blending for fine texture, some pieces of cauliflower were still felt in cooked sausages. More fine and homogenous texture could be obtained with cauliflower, cooked lightly together with onion.

Recipe II

• 400g chicken breast meat, skin off (one large breast)
• 2 medium onion, lightly sautéed
• 1 leek, lightly sautéed (weight of sautéed onions and leek together approximately 250g)
• 50ml water
• 1 egg
• 1 tea spoon salt
• 1/4 tea spoon coarse black pepper
• 1 tea spoon garlic and chilli paste
• pinch of fennel seeds to sauté onions and leek
• 2 table spoons olive oil
• 1 tea spoon finely chopped medium heat deseeded chilli

Preparation:

• warm olive oil in a pan
• add fennel seeds
• add sliced leek and onion (onion and cauliflower)
• lightly sauté  until translucent
• transfer to a small bowl and blend with a stick blender
• chop chicken breast in 1-1.5cm pieces
• place chicken meat, pureed vegetables, an egg, salt, pepper (herbs and spices if using) in food processor bowl
• process the mixture to fine texture, adding liquid (chicken stock/water) half way

to make sausages

• spread a piece of gladwrap on a working surface
• place sausage mixture and shape it a log
• roll sausage meat tight in gladwrap
• twist the two ends, and tie them securely with twine

• cook in simmering water for 15 min
• take sausages out of the water, place them on paper towel to absorb water, take off plastic wrap

to make flat rissoles

• grease the pan with olive oil or coconut oil
• place 1 serving spoon of sausage mixture on the pan
• flatten the mixture
• fry on medium heat on both sides

• egg frying rings can be used to obtain rissoles with round shape, perfect for burgers

to make Pariser type sausage

• spread muslin/cheese cloth on a working surface
• place a sheet of baking paper (alternatively plastic wrap)
• shape sausage mixture as a log on baking paper (make sure that the length of the sausage would not exceed the diameter of the pan for cooking the sausage
• roll the sausage tightly in baking paper
• twist the ends and tie them with twine (it is easier to tie one end, squeeze all air from the other end, and tie it)
• cut baking paper ends if they are too long
• roll the sausage tightly in cheese cloth
• tie both ends of cheese cloth
• cook sausage in simmering water for 20-25 min, depending on how thick is the sausage
• take in out of the water, let it rest and cool, before unrolling baking paper

To make sure I am happy with the taste, I usually fry small portion of sausage mixture and taste it for seasoning and general flavour. Cooked sausages can be frozen.