Homemade Italian Sausage Recipe Recipe
Our homemade Italian Sausage Recipe is wholesome and savory with fragrant herbs and spices. An easy, freezer-friendly recipe that comes together in just 20 minutes.

How to Make the Best Homemade Italian Sausage Recipe
There’s something deeply satisfying about making your own Italian sausage from scratch. This homemade Italian sausage recipe combines fragrant herbs and spices like fennel, sage, and smoked paprika to create a savory, aromatic sausage that rivals anything you’d find at the butcher shop.
The beauty of making your own sausage is complete control over the ingredients and seasonings. You can adjust the heat level to your preference, choose your favorite ground meat, or even use a plant-based alternative. The blend of fennel seeds and sage gives this sausage its signature Italian flavor profile, while the smoked paprika adds a subtle depth that elevates every bite.
Best of all, this recipe comes together in just 20 minutes and is freezer-friendly, making it perfect for meal prep. Use it crumbled in pasta sauces, shaped into patties for breakfast, or as a topping for homemade pizza. Once you taste the difference of freshly made sausage, you’ll never go back to store-bought.

Homemade Italian Sausage Recipe
Our homemade Italian Sausage Recipe is wholesome and savory with fragrant herbs and spices. An easy, freezer-friendly recipe that comes together in just 20 minutes.
Ingredients
Italian Sausage
Instructions
Italian Sausage
- Mix the spices and grind them coarsely with a mortar and pestle. (Or add whole spices directly.)
- In a large bowl add the spice mix and ground meat mix together with your hands until the seasonings are well distributed.
- For the best flavor infusion refrigerate the sausage for 4 to 24 hours, but cooking it right away will still give good flavor. You can shape it into patties or cook it in crumbles.
- To cook, heat up a skillet to medium-high. Add the sausage in large chunks. Leave them be for a few minutes so they develop a brown crust. Turn over and brown on the other side. With the spatula chop in smaller chunks if desired.
Notes
- For a milder sausage, reduce the red pepper flakes to 1/8 teaspoon or omit entirely.
- Ground pork is traditional, but this recipe works well with any ground meat or plant-based alternative.
- The sausage mixture can be frozen for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator before cooking.