Smoked Chicken Andouille Sausage
Slightly spicy homemade smoked chicken andouille sausage made from chicken thighs or legs.
Servings: 20 servings
Cost: 15
Equipment
- 1 Meat grinder and sausage stuffer
Ingredients
- 5 lbs chicken thigh meat
- 12 oz bacon optional
- ¾ cup diced yellow onion
- 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
- 2 teaspoons mixed ground cloves allspice and nutmeg (or a generous ½ teaspoon of each)
- 1-2 tablespoon cayenne pepper to taste
- 1 TBSP paprika or smoked paprika for color
- 2 teaspoons white pepper optional
- 1 TBSP coarse ground black pepper
- 22 grams kosher salt (1% of the weight of meat) roughly 4 teaspoons salt, plus more to taste
- 2 T fresh thyme chopped (10g)
- 10 ft Hog casings or lamb casings
Instructions
- Soak the casings in water for an hour. Change the water twice to ensure they're not too salty.
- Remove the skin from each chicken thigh, then remove the thigh bones. Reserve the chicken skin for rendering chicken fat.
- Cut each chicken thigh into roughly 6 pieces.
- Combine the chicken thighs with the salt and spies and refrigerate overnight.
- The next day, mix in the onion and garlic.
- Grind the meat twice through the coarse die of a meat grinder.
- Cook a small piece of sausage and test the seasoning. Adjust the seasoning for salt, thyme, pepper or cayenne. Cook another small sausage patty and repeat the process until the flavor's perfect.
- Pack the sausage into hog casings and tie them off at about 4 inch lengths. You can also make one large link rolled into a coil.
- Smoke the sausage at 200 F for 45 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 145-150F. Remove the sausage and cool.
- Cut the sausage into links, vacuum seal, label, date, and freeze until needed.