Julie Clark
Updated:
Italian Sausage Seasoning
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Make your own Italian sausage at home with this homemade Italian sausage seasoning recipe. Add these savory spices to turkey, pork or beef and have delicious Italian sausage ready for pizzas, meatballs, spaghetti or your favorite Italian dish.
Do you like making homemade spice mixes? It can be cost effective to whip up your own seasoning blends at home with spices that you may already have in your cupboard. Italian seasoning, fajita seasoning, taco seasoning and pasta salad seasoning are 4 of our favorites.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Reader Irene says, “Thank you for this recipe. I love it. I can’t have processed foods any more as I’m a dialysis patient, so this hit the spot for me. I make sausage rolls and it works great. I use ground pork. So yummy. Thank you.”
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Reader Sandy says, “I recently used this recipe to make homemade Italian sausage. I’m very picky and my favorite store bought brand is Dinos. It’s no longer sold in my area. I can say without a doubt this recipe rivals Dinos. I let it sit in the fridge 24 hours to let the ingredients meld into the pork sausage. You must try this recipe with confidence that the flavors are just right.”
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Reader Dina says, “I made this recipe and it was amazing and flavorful! I used ground turkey and I put it in a sausage mold and it was the perfect healthy sausage! I served it with peppers and had a healthy nutritious dinner without all of the sodium.”
Why make seasoning blends at home?
When we started watching our sugar intake, we realized that so many of our favorite foods had sugar in them. Sausage was one of those things.
Now let me tell you. I love my sugar. But if I’m going to make the decision to have sugar, I’ll take a donut, please. I don’t want sugar in my sausage.
This homemade Italian sausage seasoning solves that problem and lets you know exactly what you’re putting in to your food to season it.
What is the distinctive flavor in Italian Sausage?
Italian sausage has many herbs and spices, but fennel seed is what gives it its distinct flavor. Don’t skip it. I buy whole fennel seed and crush it slightly when making this seasoning mix.
- parsley
- Italian seasoning
- black pepper
- fennel seed
- paprika
- red pepper flakes
- salt
- onion
- garlic
Pro Tip
It may seem like we’re cheating by adding in pre-mixed Italian seasoning. We find that most people have this in their spice cupboard already. If you don’t, you can use our recipe to mix up some of your own.
Sweet Italian Sausage
If you really want a sweet Italian sausage, add a touch of brown sugar to this spice mix.
How much Italian sausage seasoning to add to meat?
This homemade Italian sausage seasoning makes enough to season two pounds of ground meat. You can use more or less, depending on how flavorful you like your food. We recommend starting by using this whole recipe in two pounds of meat and adjusting from there.
What meat do you use for sausage?
Use ground pork, ground beef, ground chicken or ground turkey, which is our preference. If you’re a hunter, even venison is a great option.
Italian Sausage Recipes
I use this Italian sausage in soup, meatballs, spaghetti sauce and lasagna. Anytime you have an Italian dish, you can substitute Italian sausage for the ground beef to give it an extra zip of flavor.
It’s also great as a rub for pork shoulder.
How to Store Bulk Sausage Seasoning
I often make up a big batch of this savory sausage. You form it into sausage patties or roll it into sausage links and freeze to cook later (I actually like having an Italian sausage patty for breakfast alongside some veggies), or you can cook them right away.
You can also brown the meat and freeze it. This makes it super easy to pull out and use in sauces and all of your savory Italian dishes!
Otherwise you can store the seasoning mix in an airtight container and keep it at room temperature.
pro tip
If we make up a big batch of this, we used dried onions and garlic (or onion powder and garlic powder). If we make up a single batch, we use fresh onion and garlic. Use it in our sausage breakfast pie!
Italian Sausage Seasoning Recipe
Make your own Italian sausage at home with this homemade italian sausage seasoning recipe. Add these savory spices to turkey, pork or beef.
Servings 8
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 15 minutes
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons dried parsley
- 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon fennel seed (we use whole, but you can crush the ½ teaspoon of whole seeds or use ground fennel if you'd like)
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic (we use fresh if not making a big batch)
- 1 teaspoon minced onions (we use fresh if not making a big batch)
- 2 pounds ground beef (or turkey, chicken or pork)
Instructions
- In a small bowl, combine all of the seasonings. Add the seasonings to 2 pounds of ground beef. Brown or cook as desired in a large skillet.
- Store any leftovers in the refrigerator in an airtight container.
- The seasoning mix itself can be stored at room temperature, in an airtight container in the pantry.
Notes
*If you’d like, you can use all dried seasonings and make up a big batch of seasoning to store in your pantry. Be sure not to use fresh onion and garlic if you do this. Use all dried seasonings (same amounts).
Nutrition
Calories: 292kcal | Carbohydrates: 1g | Protein: 19g | Fat: 22g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Cholesterol: 80mg | Sodium: 662mg | Potassium: 322mg | Vitamin A: 145IU | Vitamin C: 0.3mg | Calcium: 32mg | Iron: 2.5mg
This is a really excellent spice mix that creates a delicious, spicy Italian sausage. When the hunters came back with several pounds of venison this year, we already had enough plain burger in the freezer and I wanted to add some Italian sausage to the supply. I measured out all the ingredients for several pounds and used my Kitchenaid mixer (with a dough hook) to really get the seasoning distributed. I used my first package last week to make a lasagna type dish, and it was excellent and flavorful! I will be using this spice mix over and over in… Read more »
Hi I just wanted to say that I love this recipe I dont use it to season meat I put it in a shaker and use it on vegetables that I put in my omelet or sprinkle it on eggs you get the sausage flavor with out the calories thanks so much !!!
I use this with ground turkey to make zuppa tuscana. DELICIOUS!! 🤩
Used this in a soup recipe that called for Italian sausage. I prefer not to use pork so used ground chicken (because husband accidentally bought that instead of turkey) with these seasonings. Worked great! Soup had the same flavor as the original recipe I had tried with sausage.
Absolutely wonderful. My husband can’t eat any thing but chicken and turkey so I cut up raw chicken breast and sprinkle this seasoning on it and let it set overnight. Then I use my kitchen aide grinder and grind it on the course grind then again on the smaller grind to make fresh ground Italian sausage. I used the sausage in lasagna and manicotti recently and everyone was amazed it was chicken sausage. Thank you for a great seasoning mix!!!
Used this seasoning for some premium minced beef from the market to make a special Croatian soup with the meat stuffed into light green peppers and it was amazing.
This sounds great! Sorry if this is a silly question, but if you make this in bulk how many Tbsp would you use per one pound of ground meat?
This is the best seasoning ever! Tastes just like sausage meat! I used it with ground turkey. Yum!!
My grocery store was out of sausage, but I had purchased all the other ingredients for a yummy dinner. Found this recipe and just made it for the first time, and it’s AMAZING! I’ll be making this one again and again! Thank you!
I use this recipe all the time. I just wanted to say thank you!!
Just mixed up half a recipe of the seasoning with the 1 lb. ground pork I had in the fridge. Planning on cooking up the sausage tomorrow to go on top of homemade pan pizza for my Mother’s Day dinner date with my husband, it smells absolutely delicious can’t wait to try it!
I made this with ground turkey for a home-made sausage and broccoli pizza. I love the mix! It’s too bad the video ads on this page are covering the comment box so I can’t see what I’m writing.
VERY SALTY! I love salt and eat way to much usually.start slowly. You can always add more. That said, my ground pork sausage came from a local farmer and may have been previously seasoned. I advise a liight hand to start.
I used this mix in tofu to make a veggie sausage. Raving reviews!
I actually used ground chicken and it turned out great!! Will definitely use this recipe again!! Thanks!