Chicken Apple Sausage

CHICKEN APPLE SAUSAGE

This sausage is a frequent request at my house. I haven't made it in a long time due to my sausage stuffing horn for my Kitchen Aid attachment broke! For my birthday my wife was nice enough to buy me a brand new LEM meat grinder/sausage stuffer! So to break my new toy in, I made some chicken apple sausage to test out!

INGREDIENTS:

20lbs. Boneless chicken breast (ground)

10 green apples (peeled cored and diced)

2 large yellow onions (chopped)

7 tbs kosher salt

1/2 gallon bottle apple cider

3 tbs black pepper

3 tbs dried thyme

3 tbs smoked paprika 

3 tbs allspice

Poor apple cider in a sauce pan and bring to a boil to reduce to a syrup. Then remove from heat and allow to cool.

While cider is reducing, sauté onions in a large skillet until soft. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Then sauté apples until soft and also remove from heat and allow to cool. Once onions are cool run them through the meat grinder or food processor. 

Mix in a large bowl the chicken, apples, reduced cider, onions, kosher salt, black pepper, smoked paprika, thyme, and allspice.

At this point it's time to case the sausages! Or if you want you can keep the sausage in bulk to make patties! If you choose to case the sausages you have a few options. 1. you can keep them as fresh sausage, 2. I prefer to steam the sausage over boiling water to fully cook them and save for later to brown and serve, 3. smoke them! Smoking the sausage gives them an added depth of flavor!

If you choose to smoke the chicken apple sausage, allow the cased sausage to air dry for 45 mins. This step allows for maximum smoke absorption. Prepare your smoker and arrange sausage so the smoke can work its way around all the links. Smoke at 

200F. for 2 hours (or until fully cooked).

Once you remove the sausage from the smoker immediately place them in an ice bath. This will keep the plump shape and prevent sausages from shriveling. Once the sausage is cooled, you vacuum pack and freeze, or grill them up and eat!! 

Enjoy!