Breakfast Sausage vs. Sausage

November 22, 2015 12:52 PM

USA-based sausage question: What's the difference between sausage and breakfast sausage? Can I use breakfast sausage in stuffing for a turkey?

I'm hosting my first Thanksgiving dinner this year, and I'm trying to get as much done in advance as I can. I'm planning on making turkey stuffed with traditional bread/onion/celery stuffing, and possibly baking an external pan as well.

I've been toying with the idea of adding sausage to my stuffing recipe. Today at the grocery store I saw a hot deal on quality breakfast sausage and went for it, planning to remove the casings and just incorporate the ground meat into the stuffing. But from reading the breakfast sausage wikipedia article after the fact (and just the fact that breakfast sausage has a separate article), I get the impression that this might be weird in a stuffing for turkey. Would it be noticeable or taste funny? Would you do it? Is there a significant difference between regular sausage and breakfast sausage?

(Assume I am fine with using this sausage for something other than stuffing.)

posted by ghostbikes to Food & Drink (17 answers total)

Best answer: Breakfast sausage is usually somewhat sweeter (how much depends on the brand) and somewhat fattier (again, how much depends on the brand) than regular sausage. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot of difference in general, provided you don't get obviously flavored breakfast sausage (like ones with maple syrup added).

If you really want to be precise, you can determine this from the nutritional information on the sausage. However, I'm a fairly precise cook and I'd simply decrease any sweetener in the stuffing recipe by a tablespoon or so per pound of sausage and decrease any added fat in the stuffing recipe by two tablespoons or so per pound of sausage and I doubt you'd notice the difference.
posted by saeculorum at 1:00 PM on November 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Some years, my mother would make stuffing with a 1lb brick of sausage meat, some years, she would strip the casings off breakfast sausages. They both work, and in the context of stuffing -- spiced and padded out with other things -- the differences were not noticeable from year-to-year. I imagine if you made both kinds of stuffing and tasted them side-by-side, you might notice a subtle difference in sweetness from the breakfast sausages, which often have some added sugar.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:07 PM on November 22, 2015

Breakfast sausage in stuffing is fucking delicious and imo sings better on a plate with sweet potatoes and cranberry fruitiness than standard sausage. Go for it.
posted by phunniemee at 1:08 PM on November 22, 2015 [9 favorites]

Best answer: Another distinguishing feature of US breakfast sausage is often that it has sage as one of its seasonings — which actually goes really well in stuffing.
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:13 PM on November 22, 2015 [6 favorites]

It's fine, there's a lot of flavors going on there and as long as it's not weird breakfast sausage (like maple-flavored) it will work as expected.

We normally use the sage version of tube sausage, and when I have not been able to find it I have just added some extra sage.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:13 PM on November 22, 2015

I recently made a cornbread stuffing that called specifically for breakfast sausage. as a bonus, it was good the next day with an egg cooked on it. You'll be fine.
posted by neilbert at 1:20 PM on November 22, 2015

You should be fine. "Breakfast" sausage also works really well in spaghetti sauce.
posted by SMPA at 1:24 PM on November 22, 2015

Best answer: Fresh (uncured) pork sausage is fine no matter the kind. I was going to say that breakfast sausage signals a basic pork sausage with lot of sage and also black pepper. Most "sausage" is seasoned a certain way, and "breakfast" signals sage, while "Italian" signals red pepper and oregano, Pork sausage with sage is perfect for stuffing and your breakfast sausage will work well. The only exception might be if it's maple-flavored or blueberry-flavored, as some are. I'd avoid that but on the other hand, in stuffing it might be fine, stuffing's a savory dish with lots of mixed flavor and it could just work even with maple flavoring.
posted by Miko at 1:33 PM on November 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Typical breakfast sausage has some combination of sage, thyme, black pepper, and a little red pepper. So yeah, it's essentially thanksgiving-flavored. As long as it isn't sweet (or overly so) you should be fine.
posted by O9scar at 1:44 PM on November 22, 2015

My mother and grandmother always used breakfast sausage--which is sage pork sausage--in their stuffing. In fact, I've never had stuffing that used any other kind.
posted by primate moon at 1:54 PM on November 22, 2015

I use breakfast sausage in my sausage and pear stuffing on purpose. I actually do get the maple kind because it works really well with the pears (and it isn't actually all that mapley anyway), so whatever sausage you've got, I say stuff it in there! Happy Thanksgiving!
posted by Weeping_angel at 2:09 PM on November 22, 2015

Yeah, this is somewhat confusing! We use breakfast sausage in our thanksgiving stuffing and it always turns out great.
posted by rossination at 3:28 PM on November 22, 2015

Response by poster: guess i'm going for it! Thanks everyone!
posted by ghostbikes at 3:35 PM on November 22, 2015

Best answer: Oh, hey! I just saw that you're planning on actually stuffing the stuffing into the turkey. Please don't. By the time you get the stuffing up to a safe temperature, the turkey will almost certainly be dried out and overcooked. Just bake it in a separate baking dish.
posted by Weeping_angel at 4:09 PM on November 22, 2015 [5 favorites]

Brown the sausage before you put it on the stuffing.

We use Jimmy Dean's.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:40 PM on November 22, 2015

We treat most different kinds of sausage as interchangeable around here; it just adds variety and flavor and reduces repetitiveness. (This is a theme among my family's cooking style. The only real downside is when someone tells you days or weeks later that whatever dish was absolutely incredible and wants you to make it again... and you have no idea what exactly you put in it, let alone what made is so great!)
posted by stormyteal at 6:05 PM on November 22, 2015

That sounds fan-fucking-tastic.
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:31 AM on November 23, 2015