
So I decided to try my hand at making homemade hot Italian sausage. I found a recipe called Fr. Dom’s Pizza Sausage on www.breadmonk.com while looking for some new and flavorful bread recipes to try, and lo and behold I found sausage instead.
Although the recipe was meant to make sausage patties, I decided to stuff some casings and make some traditional hot Italian sausage links instead. I used his basic recipe but modified it slightly by using only pork. Making the sausage with the same spice base but changing the amounts to heat the sausage up and make it less salty. The sausage was delicious! Here is the modified version for a spicier sausage link!
Ingredients:
- 2 lbs. ground pork
- 1 tbsp. Italian spice
- 1 tbsp. garlic powder
- 1 tbsp. fennel seed
- 2 tsp. ground black pepper
- 1 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
- 1 tsp. paprika
- 3/4 cup cold water
- Natural hog casings ( pull out 3 or 4 strands and keep rest in the package for next time)
Prepare the Sausage Casings:

- Take hog casings from the package and rinse with cold water. Soak the casings in cold water for 15 minutes.
- Open the casings one at a time and run cold water through the entire length and set aside.

- place ground pork in a large mixing bowl.

- add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
You are now ready to stuff the casings with the sausage meat. If you don’t have a sausage stuffing tool, it can be a difficult job. You can get an inexpensive one like the Aimeeli manual sausage maker. It is very easy to use and to clean as it is completely dishwasher safe.
- to stuff sausages, fill the sausage maker with the meat mix
- attach the appropriately sized attachment
- slide the sausage casing all the way onto the hone
- tie off the end to hold the meat inside
- twist the handle and fill the casing
- when the casing if full tie off the other end
- twist the sausage every 5-6 inches
- Cook by baking, grilling or frying

This recipe is really quick and easy. I apologize for the lack of sausage stuffing how-to photos here, I had both hands occupied at the time. This will soon be added in an additional post.
Interested in reading a review on this sausage maker? Check out the link below.
Try some other delicious Italian dishes like these:
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