Wild Boar Breakfast Sausage

When I think of a breakfast sausage I immediately think of the flavors. Some people like to serve breakfast sausage in skins, whereas others prefer to serve them as patties, like McDonald’s.

To me none of that really matters, it’s all about the flavor. For my venison breakfast sausage, I sometimes make them in skins, this wild boar breakfast sausage I made loose, for patties.

What is important is the flavor, you want a sausage that is flavorful but ideally able to adapt to sweet or savory, so it needs to be light.

This wild boar sausage is just that.

Ingredients

As I mentioned a wild boar breakfast sausage needs to be light on seasoning so it adapts with a variety of sides, but not so light that you can’t taste anything.

A classic ingredient of breakfast sausage is sage, and it’s something I like adding to a wide variety of sausages, whether it be this breakfast sausage or an old-fashioned venison sausage.

Some people like to add sugar to breakfast sausage to make it adaptable to sweet dishes, and that’s fine, but for me, I much prefer to gain this through the herbs used.

Wild boar is a naturally sweet meat to begin with, so to elevate the sweetness I used tarragon.

This would be akin to fennel used in some sausages like a standard wild boar sausage, but sweeter.

I also mixed black and white pepper to make it less spicy and again a little sweeter with the white pepper.

If you prefer a spicier breakfast sausage you could do all black pepper or swap the white pepper for mustard seeds.

The savory comes from the thyme and onion powder.

Meats and Fats

Wild boar meat is a dry meat with not as much fat as pork, although wild boar meat has more fat than venison, like venison, this fat is mostly unpalatable.

For this reason, you will need to add fat to the mix.

I’ve experimented with many different types of fat, such as pure pork fat, beef fat, pork shoulder, etc.

What I’ve come to find is it mostly doesn’t matter. I mostly use pork belly as it adds a little extra flavor.

In some cases, I use a mix of pork belly and pork fat, particularly if the pork belly I have isn’t fatty enough.

Ideally, you should be aiming for 20-30% fat to prevent from having a dry crumbly sausage.

Making Wild Boar Breakfast Sausage

These hog sausages are some of the easiest sausages I’ve ever made.

There is little more than a handful of ingredients, and I serve this as a loose sausage.

As with all sausages, keeping things cold plays a huge role, no matter whether you serve it loose or in skins.

1. Start with stiff (not Frozen) cubed meat from the freezer
2. Grind through the grinder, ensuring an even mix between hog and fat
3. Grind spices and sprinkle over, gently mix, not so much to blend the meat together
4. Place in refrigerator for 24 hours

If you like, you can also make links from this sausage. The only additions to the steps above would be to pipe into sausage skin using a sausage stuffer and to hang for a few hours.

I like to hang for a full day in the fridge, a cold room will also work. You can get away with hanging for 6 hours if you don’t have time.

Cooking Wild Boar Breakfast Sausage

There is really no right or wrong way to cook wild hog breakfast sausage. I’m partial to cooking these sausages on a frying pan.

It’s not that I don’t like to grill them, but rather that I don’t fancy firing up the grill at 5-6 in the morning when I’m having breakfast.

Of course, you could have these sausages at any time of the day, and if you do your options for cooking are endless:

Frying Pan

To fry wild boar breakfast sausages using a frying pan:

1. Set a cast iron pan over medium-high heat
2. Pour on a tablespoon of oil, avocado oil would be best
3. Place the sausage patty on the pan and sear one side, flip, and sear the other side
4. Reduce temperature to medium and cook until the internal temperature is 160F (approx 5 minutes per side)

Grill

Grilling breakfast sausage is not so different than frying them.

Heat the grill to about 400F with a dual zone setup
Oil the sausage patty
Place over the direct heat on the grill and sear each side
Move to indirect heat and cook for about 5 minutes per side
Rest for 5 minutes before serving

I honestly prefer the taste of grilled sausage patties, so if you are up for grilling them it’s worth it.

Oven

Sometimes you just prefer to make things easier and chuck it all in the oven.

However, for a decent breakfast sausage it’s not so simple. If you want to cook them in the oven you will still first need to sear them.

Some people will argue that cooking patties will give you a juicier dish, but the jury’s still out on that one.

But if you insist, these are the steps:

1. Set the oven to 325F
2. Brown the sausage on the pan following the frying pan instructions
3. Place the patties in the oven, preferably on a wire rack, as the may drip
4. Remove the sausages from the oven when they reach 160F
5. Rest for 5 minutes, and serve