I apologize for being a little MIA the past couple days! On Wednesday evening, we left Denver for beautiful Big Sky, Montana, driving 13 hours through the night and arrived early Thursday morning. Every summer we meet Chris’ dad’s side of the family up in Montana for some mountain fun and some cooler weather 🙂 The past several days I’ve been staying busy hanging out with family, enjoying the sunny outdoors and catching up on some much-needed sleep.

Expect some Big Sky photos soon!

And onto the recipe for today – healthier and homemade chicken breakfast sausage! This recipe is incredibly easy and you will avoid all the preservatives and nitrates from the prepackaged version. Just add the seasoning to ground meat, let the flavors meld and them form them into patties and cook. They freeze well too so you can double or triple the batch if you’d like.

If you are looking for a new breakfast item, give these sausage patties a try! In addition to enjoying them on their own, you can also make a sausage-egg sandwich or burrito or crumble them in a scramble, quiche or even a breakfast strata 🙂 They are slightly sweetened with coconut or maple sugar (I’ve used both depending on my mood), but feel free to omit if you prefer a non-sweetened version.

Homemade Breakfast Sausage

Ingredients

2 1/2 to 3 tsp dried sage
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp dried marjoram
1 tsp maple sugar or coconut sugar
1/8 tsp crushed red pepper flakes, omit if you don’t want any heat
1 pinch ground cloves
1 pinch ground cinnamon, optional
1 lb ground chicken (turkey or pork could be subbed, do not use 100% low fat or the patties will be dry)

Directions

1. In a small bowl, combine the sage, sea salt, ground black pepper, marjoram, maple sugar, crushed red pepper, cloves and cinnamon and mix well.
2. Place the ground chicken in a large bowl and spread the meat up the sides of the bowl. Sprinkle the spice mixture in and blend well to combine. Let mixture rest for several hours or overnight to allow flavors to blend.
3. Form into 8 patties. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, saute patties for 5 minutes on each side or until cooked through and no longer pink in the middle. Enjoy!

Yields 8 patties

This recipe is featured at Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays at Amy’s Simply Sugar and Gluten Free blog this week!