I have used sous vide for bacon so I wondered if breakfast sausage would benefit from the same process. I found a Reddit post about sous vide sausage so I had to try it.
This process makes the sausage very tender and removes a lot of the grease. After removing the sausage from the sous vide, I drained off an average of 3 ounces of juice from each 1 lb. package.
It also makes it easy to slice the sausage into patties. I laid them flat, 6 to a package, and froze them for future use.
INSTRUCTIONS:
- There is no need to thaw the meat prior to cooking.
- Leave the sausage in the original packaging.
- Slice the package on one side both vertically an horizontally. This will make it easier to open.
- Seal the package in a vacuum bag.
- Sous vide for 24 hours at 147 degrees.
- Pork fat begins to render at about 130 – 140 degrees.
- If you don’t need to tenderize the meat, you can actually stop the cooking after about 2 hours.
- Remove the cooked sausage from the packaging and drain off the liquid. You should have about 13 ounces left from a 1 lb. chub.
- Slice the chub into 12 or 13 slices or chop it into smaller pieces.
- Freeze or Refrigerate and use within 4 days.
Why not 148 degrees?
140 or about gives meat firmness and is well cooked but still juicy. 148 is probably the authors preference. I’d just do it at 140-142. Cooking over 137 degrees F kills the bacteria and makes the meat safe to eat. If you want to see how sous viding at different temperatures affects the food read this website https://www.seriouseats.com/sous-vide-recipes-5117306. I learned a lot from kenji lopez