Make your own potato sausage – Extremely tasty whether hot or cold

In this post I’ll show you how to make potato sausage yourself.

Meat was very expensive in the past. For this reason, the potato sausage was born. The potatoes were used to stretch out the meat people had here in Germany. So the sausage / Bratwurst became cheaper.

There are two variants of this type of sausage. A potato sausage and potato bratwurst.

This article is about the cooked sausage variant made of meat, pork belly, potato and onions.

It is especially well known in southwestern Germany. The potato sausage has a mushy consistency. You can fry it in the pan or use it as a spread. I will also try a potato Bratwurst in the future.

Here you can find the complete potato sausage recipe as a video or to read through.

Table of Contents

Making your own potato sausage– What do you need?

INGREDIENTS PER 1 KG

45 % pork belly (450g)
30 % boiled potatoes (300g)
25 % pork shoulder (250g)

SPICES PER KG OF MEAT

20 g Salt
1.5 g marjoram
1.5 g black pepper
1 g white pepper
0.5 g garlic powder
0.5 g mace
50 g caramellized onions

Equipment for making potato sausage

Meat Grinder

You need a meat grinder to “grind” the meat. The meat is chopped into small chunks with it.

Spice grinder / mortar

To grind your spices, it is best to use a spice mill. Alternatively, a mortar is also suitable. Or you can use already ground spices. I recommend grinding them yourself.

Sausage filler / attachment for the meat grinder / hand filling funnel

You need this to get your meat mass into the casing. For starters, a filler attachment for your meat grinder or a hand filler funnel will work for this.

Natural casings

You need casings for the potato sausage. The size is up to you. I recommend pork casings caliber 28/30.

Alternatively, you can also fill the potato sausage in jars and boil down.

Making potato sausage – Step-By-Step Instructions

1. Peel your potatoes and cut them into quarters. This way they will cook faster.

2. Boil the potatoes in unsalted water until they are cooked but firm to the bite. You can also boil them in salted water. But then you have to adjust the amount of salt in the sausage production accordingly. I have not noticed any differences here, and therefore I always cook them without salt.

3. Cut your meat into strips. The size varies depending on how big your meat grinder is. The bigger the grinder, the bigger your pieces of meat can be.

4. If you use a sous vide cooker, like I do, put your meat in a bag or zip lock bag now. Alternatively, you can vacuum seal it. Make sure that there is as little air as possible in the bag.

5. Now cook the meat at 76 °C (168,8 °F) for approx. 70 – 80 minutes.

Alternative without a sous vide cooker: Cook the meat directly in water bath. However especially with small quantities you lose some taste. If you cook the meat directly in water, you must weigh it before and after cooking and add the lost weight later as broth to the ground meat.

6. Meanwhile, finely grind your spices.

7. Now separate the broth from the meat pieces. You can put the broth immediately into the bowl in which you will grind the cooked pieces of meat.

8. Now grind the meat together with the onion and the potatoes. I used the medium perforated disc (4.5 mm). Depending on how coarse you want your final sausage meat, you can, of course, use a different perforated disc.

9. Add the spices to the minced meat and mix everything together. If the mixture is too solid, you can add a little more water. The mass should have a pulpy consistency.