Venison Breakfast Sausage Recipe: Homemade Patties With Pork
Venison breakfast sausage made from scratch beats anything at the grocery store. Meat you harvested yourself, spices already in your pantry, and a tradition worth keeping alive. It doesn't get better than that.
My husband is a deer hunter, and every season our freezer fills up with ground venison. I love that. But I also know that feeling of staring at all that meat and wondering how to use it in ways the whole family will get excited about. That's exactly why I put this deer sausage recipe together.
I wanted something simple enough for a weekday morning but flavorful enough to make everyone ask for seconds. This sausage has been a staple in our house ever since.
If you enjoy cooking with wild game, you might also love a hearty bowl of Wild Goose Gumbo on a cool evening. It's another Cajun field-to-table recipe that makes the most of what your hunter brings home.
Jump to:
- What Is Venison Breakfast Sausage?
- Why You'll Love This Venison Recipe
- Simple Deer Sausage Ingredients
- How To Make Venison Breakfast Sausage
- Tips For The Best Venison Sausage Patties
- Substitutions and Variations
- Storage
- Equipment
- Iron Skillet
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Related and/or Paired Recipes
- 📖 Recipe
- Comments
What Is Venison Breakfast Sausage?
Venison breakfast sausage is a homemade sausage made with ground deer meat and a blend of classic breakfast sausage spices. It's shaped into patties and cooked just like the pork sausage you grew up eating - only it comes from meat you harvested yourself. That alone makes it something to be proud of.
This recipe combines ground venison with ground pork, and that combination is key. Venison is naturally very lean, which is wonderful, but it needs a little fat to cook up juicy and tender. The pork brings that fat and also adds a mild, familiar flavor that blends beautifully with the venison, calming down that wild game flavor.
Why You'll Love This Venison Recipe
You only need one bowl and about ten minutes of hands-on time. The spices are straightforward - sage, thyme, ginger, ground clove, black pepper, a little heat from red pepper flakes, and just enough brown sugar to balance it all out. No special equipment, no sausage casings, and no trips to a specialty store.
This recipe is also a wonderful time-saver if you do a little prep work upfront. Mix a big batch, form the patties, and freeze them. Then pull out exactly what you need on busy mornings. Hot, homemade sausage on a weekday feels like a small luxury, and this recipe makes it easy. For more breakfast dish ideas, browse the Breakfast & Brunch category on the blog.
Simple Deer Sausage Ingredients
- Ground venison - Use freshly ground or thawed frozen ground venison. Make sure it's well thawed and patted dry if it has excess moisture. This helps the patties hold together and brown nicely.
- Ground pork - Regular ground pork from the grocery store works great here. You want the fat content that comes with standard ground pork, not lean pork.That fat is what keeps these patties from drying out. Buy a Boston Butt from the store and have them grind it or grind it at home with your meat grinder, grind the meat twice for best results.
- Sage - This is the backbone of classic breakfast sausage flavor. Do not skip it or reduce it. Ground sage is what makes this taste like the sausage you remember from Sunday morning breakfast tables.
- Brown sugar - Just two teaspoons round out all that savory spice with a subtle sweetness. It also helps the patties develop a beautiful golden crust in the pan.
- Red pepper flakes - Start with ¼ teaspoon if your family prefers mild sausage. Go the full ½ teaspoon if you like a little kick. Either way, it adds just enough warmth without overwhelming the other flavors.
How To Make Venison Breakfast Sausage
This could not be simpler, and that's part of what makes it so good.
- Add the ground venison and ground pork to a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle all of the spices and brown sugar over the meat. Use your hands to mix everything together thoroughly. You want the spices distributed evenly through every bit of that meat.
- Form the mixture into 12 patties, roughly the size of your palm and about ½ inch thick. Keeping them an even thickness helps them cook evenly.
- Spray a large skillet with cooking spray and place it over medium heat. Place the patties in the hot pan.
- Cook the patties for about 4 to 5 minutes per side, until cooked through with no pink remaining. A little golden crust on the outside is exactly what you are looking for.
Serve hot alongside eggs, biscuits, or whatever your breakfast table calls for. C'est bon!
NOTE THIS: If you are keeping the patties for later use, here is a great way to freeze or refrigerate the sausage uncooked. Lay two or more patties flat in a container like a freezer bag, place a piece of parchment paper on top, layer 2 or more sausage patties on top of the parchment, repeat if needed, seal the container, and refrigerate or freeze. This keeps them from sticking together and makes it easy to grab just a few at a time.
Tips For The Best Venison Sausage Patties
- Do not overmix. Mix just until everything is combined. Overworking the meat makes for dense, tough patties.
- Cook from thawed, not frozen. If you are cooking from the freezer, let the patties thaw overnight in the refrigerator first. They will cook more evenly and stay juicy. You can also defrost them in the microwave, being careful not to cook the edges.
- Make a test patty first. Before forming all 12 patties, cook a small piece of the mixture in your skillet and taste it. This is your chance to adjust the seasoning before you commit to the whole batch.
- Use a cast iron skillet if you have one. Cast iron holds heat evenly and gives you that gorgeous brown crust on the outside. My Easy Homemade Sausage Gravy is proof that a good skillet and a great sausage can turn a simple breakfast into something the whole family talks about.
Substitutions and Variations
- No ground pork on hand? You can use ground pork sausage instead - just reduce or skip the added salt and spices since store-bought sausage is already seasoned.
- Want to skip the patties altogether? This mixture also works beautifully as a loose, crumbled sausage. Just cook it in a skillet, breaking it up as it goes. It is fantastic stirred into a breakfast casserole or made into a gravy spooned over biscuits. Speaking of which, my Easy Breakfast Casserole is a wonderful way to use this deer breakfast sausage on a weekend morning when you want to feed a crowd.
- You can also play with the spice level. Leave out the red pepper flakes entirely for a very mild sausage that even little ones will enjoy, or add a pinch of cayenne if you want more heat in the Cajun spirit!
Storage
- Refrigerator: Store cooked or uncooked patties in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
- Freezer: Uncooked patties freeze beautifully for up to 3 months. Cooked patties can also be frozen and reheated in the microwave or a warm skillet. Having a freezer full of ready-to-cook venison sausage patties is one of the best feelings on a busy morning, I promise you that.
Equipment
Iron Skillet
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Frequently Asked Questions
You can, but the patties will be much leaner and can dry out quickly. If you want to skip the pork, add a tablespoon of olive oil to the mixture to help with moisture. The texture will be different, but the flavor will still be delicious.
Not at all. The blend of spices, particularly the sage and thyme, works beautifully with venison and brings out its natural savory flavor. The pork also mellows any strong wild flavor. Most people who try this can't even tell it's deer meat.
This particular blend is seasoned for a classic breakfast sausage flavor, so it works best as a fresh sausage cooked in a skillet or on a griddle. For smoked or cured sausages, you'll need a different spice blend and cooking process.
Venison should reach an internal temperature of 160°F. A meat thermometer is your best friend here. The patties should show no pink in the center and have a nice brown crust on both sides.
Absolutely, and I encourage it! This recipe doubles and triples beautifully. If your hunter brought home a big haul this season, make a large batch and stock your freezer. You will thank yourself all winter long.
If you try this venison breakfast sausage recipe, leave a comment below and tell me how your family liked it.
Related and/or Paired Recipes
Looking for other recipes like this venison sausage recipe? Try these:
📖 Recipe
Venison Breakfast Sausage Recipe: Homemade Patties With Pork
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 12 sausage patties 1x
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: pan fry
- Cuisine: American
Description
Homemade venison breakfast sausage made with ground pork and bold spices like sage, thyme, and ginger. A simple wild game recipe your whole family will love.
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground venison
- 1 pound ground pork
- 2 teaspoons of salt
- 3 teaspoons of rubbed sage
- 1 teaspoon thyme
- ¾ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ to ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 2 teaspoons packed brown sugar
Instructions
- Add the ground venison and ground pork to a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle all of the spices and brown sugar over the meat. Use your hands to mix everything together thoroughly. You want the spices distributed evenly through every bit of that meat.
- Form the mixture into 12 patties, roughly the size of your palm and about ½ inch thick. Keeping them an even thickness helps them cook evenly.
- Spray a large skillet with cooking spray and place it over medium heat. Place the patties in the hot pan.
- Cook the patties for about 3 to 4 minutes per side, until cooked through with no pink remaining. A little golden crust on the outside is exactly what you are looking for.
Notes
Make sausage when processing deer. Run the sausage and pork through the meat grinder with the seasonings before putting it in the freezer.
Do not overmix. Mix just until everything is combined. Overworking the meat makes the patty dense and tough.
Cook from thawed, not frozen. If you are cooking from the freezer, let the patties thaw overnight in the refrigerator first. They will cook more evenly and stay juicy.
Make a test patty first. Before forming all 12 patties, cook a small piece of the mixture in your skillet and taste it. This is your chance to adjust the seasoning before you commit to the whole batch.
Use a cast iron skillet if you have one. Cast iron holds heat evenly and gives you that gorgeous brown crust on the outside. My Easy Homemade Sausage Gravy is proof that a good skillet and a great sausage can turn a simple breakfast into something the whole family talks about.
Place the sausage, loose or in patty form, in a sealed container to refrigerate or freeze for later use.
Use loose sausage to make sausage gravy or use it in recipes that call for breakfast sausage.
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Have a nice day!
"Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom."
Charles Spurgeon
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