Pickled Sausage

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

bigwheel

Master Chef
Joined
Jan 25, 2005
Messages
9,951
Location
Foat Wuth
Pickled Sausage This recipe comes from a fellow named Ottis over on anther chat forum. Looks reasonable but I would skip the water.

Ottis said all this stuff one time. (quote)

Penrose Hot Sausage Recipe.

This recipe makes a one quart jar of pickled sausage. Scale up or down as desired.

Brine:
*1/2 cup water
*2 cups white vinegar, For milder flavor use Apple Cider Vinegar.
*1 tbsp salt (Pickling or Non iodine if available)

In each 1 qt jar: (Mild) For HOT add 50% more to each jar, for WILD, double.
*1/2 tbsp Ground Cayenne Pepper.
*1/2 tsp coarse ground black pepper.
*1 tbsp red pepper flakes.
*1 tsp minced Garlic, or, 1 or 2 garlic cloves minced with a check faced framing hammer.
*1 tbsp dried minced onion, or a small diced white onion.
*1 tsp Paprika.
*A pinch all spice for mildly hot recipe, or for HOT recipe, add Ghost or your favorite HOT chili/pepper.

Sausage:
*28 oz pkg Hillshire Farms 'lil Smokies, or other precooked link sausage, cut in two. (MUST be precooked!) Kielbasa sliced about 1/2 inch thick works also. Hot dogs just don't work.
Or, use to pickle Boiled Eggs, just add a little sugar to the brine or they're SOUR!!


Directions

1* On medium-high heat, combine the water, salt, and vinegar.
2* Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover and simmer for a minute in a well ventilated area.
3* Place precooked sausage into a 1 qt sterile jar. Fill jar but don't pack tightly.
4* Place spices, onion, garlic etc., on top of the sausage in the jars.
5* Pour the hot vinegar mixture in with the sausage, If there isn't enough, mix a bit more brine. Secure the lid while brine is still HOT!!
6* Let cool, then place in the 'frige. keep Refrigerated after opening.
7* Ready to eat in 5 to 7 days.

When opened for the first time, there will be a layer of fat on top of the sausage and the underside of the lid, remove if you want too.

The last batch I made, I mixed in some sliced banana peppers that I had pickled, I was very pleased with the result! I'm sure jalapeno would work well also.

--------------------------------NOTES--------------------

Penrose Hot Sausage was discontinued by ConAgra foods in 2009 after the factory burned down. So if you're a fan, you're either SOL or you have to make them yourself. Pre ConAgra Foods the sausage was made from Beef and Chicken, once ConAgra bought the company they changed the recipe somewhat and the sausage was made from beef chicken and pork.

Great with crackers, chips, etc., and of course your favorite brewed adult beverage.
 
Think I about got Mama talked into letting me go buy the stuff to make it. She likes to pinch pennies on stuff I want to buy. Course the Shitzu gets a 50 buck poodle grooming each month. I may back hand the fire out of her. Still debating on the Little Smokies. Would be better size for snacking as opposed to a big full sized sausage I think.
 
Ok..yall have provoked me enough. Went to Wally World and grabbed a case of quart jars..a gallon of apple cider vinegar and 6 14 oz packs of Earl Campbells Beef Smoked Sausage. Trusting it wont taste like chicken feathers stuffed into a garden hose as do his crappy hot links. 2.47 per pack was not too bad. Also some red food coloring. Dang they are proud of that stuff. I will report back later if the deal appears survivable. Now I know what Ottis put water in it..to make the vinegar go farther. Took slightly more than half a gallon to top off five quart jars full of sausage chunks.
 

Attachments

  • picsausage2.jpg
    picsausage2.jpg
    29.4 KB · Views: 403
  • picsausage1.jpg
    picsausage1.jpg
    13.7 KB · Views: 403
Last edited:
The stuff in the pot is vinegar and various spices called for in the recipe. Relearned an old lesson on this. The vinegar will knock blobs of fat out of the sausage and turn it into white floaties in the jar. So..after five days rinsed all the chunks of fat and spices from the links rinsed the jars and double filtered the liquid through a reuseable coffee filter. Put it all back in the jars and topped off back to the full mark with filtered water which amounted to about 1/3 of the total liquid in each jar. Improved and mellowed out the flavor and now looks a lot more appetizing. Stll a little cloudy but think thats from the Apple Cider Vinegar. Will use white vinegar next time.
 
Would it save an extra step or three to cool and 'frigerator "age" them in a different container, like the Warden's Tupperware or something like that, so you don't need to re-do all that re-cleanin' stuff? Just axing 'cuz I kinda like the recipe and usta like pickled snausages.




(still waitin' by the mailbox...)
 
Yeppers..you is indeed a smart fellow to think of that angle. In fact..thats sorta how I used to do it back in the old sausage making hobby. I put all the goods in a big bucket..covered with white vinegar and let it chill out for a few days. Then..they would get the bath and end stage pickle. Which i done forgot what now. Seems like it was more vinegar and hot peppers or something. Vinegar must have been cheaper back in them days. Anyway I made up a good sized batch following that procedure and passed them out as Christmas gifts one year..with the sausage of choice being Cowtown Ring Baloney. Put that in pint jars. Nobody ever told me how good they were. Thats sorta odd huh? Woops..ok topped them over with about a 15 min water bath canning. Since I dont like to give folks tummy aches..not that any right minded bug could live in the stuff. That maybe knocked more fat out of the meat to make more unappetizing floaties. The lack of accolades might be a clue as to the root of the dilemma.
 
Last edited:
Yes I did..thanks for asking about that. It was muy bueno. Now I did get a bad caese of indigestion but the rat cheese was a bit moldy looking and the beer had been in the ice box all night with the lid off. Not sure the culprit on the deal. Surely not the "crackers" speaking Kroger Saltines of course. No aspersions to the Carolinas.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom