In this post I’ll show you how you can make Schinkenwurst yourself. It is a delicious classic Bavarian cold cut.
The literal translation would be “ham sausage” and it is the base for lots of different types of cold cuts. Among other things, also paprika sausage, mushroom sausage or Bierschinken “beer ham sausage”.
In my recipe, I use beef as well as pork. But you can also make the Schinkenwurst with 100% pork. I have written down both variations for you.
I also added 3 spiced up variations for you at the end of this post.
You can watch the Schinkenwurst recipe as video or read it. Let’s start.
Table of Contents
Making Schinkenwurst at home – What do you need
Ingredients for a classic Schinkenwurst:
For 1000 g Schinkenwurst (my version with beef):
- 40 % lean pork (400 g)
- 30 % pork backfat (300 g)
- 20 % lean beef e.g. shoulder (200 g)
- 10 % crushed ice (100 g)
For 1000 g Schinkenwurst (solo pork):
- 40 % pork shoulder (400g)
- 25 % pork belly (250g)
- 10 % pork cheek (100g)
- 10 % pork back fat (100g)
- 15 % crushed ice (150g)
Spices per 1000 g:
- 16.5 g salt
- 2.5 g Cure #1
- 2 g white pepper
- 1 g onion powder
- 0.5 g coriander
- 0.5 g ginger
- 0.5 g garlic powder
- 0.5 g mace
- 3 g cutter phosphate (e.g BRIFISOL 414, PhosThis!, Ames Phos)
Equipment needed to make Schinkenwurst
You need a meat grinder to “grind” the meat. The meat is chopped into small chunks with it.
Food processor / Thermomix
In a food processor, the minced meat and ingredients are mixed into a very fine mass. If you have a Thermomix, you can also use it for this process.
Artificial casings / Jars
To fill your sausage you need either 45 caliber artificial casing or jars to boil it down.
Homemade Schinkenwurst – Step-By-Step Instruction
1. Cut your meat and back fat 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.
2. Put the meat in the freezer for 1-2 hours. This will help later on with the grinding process and the temperature.
3. Grind your spices (except for the cutter phosphate) to a fine powder.
4. Now it’s time to grind the meat. Grind the meat through the finest perforated disc (2mm). Let the meat through the meat grinder twice.
5. Put the meat mixture into a sausage cutter or your food processor. If you want a super fine sausage I have a special version for you below.
6. Add the spices and cutter phosphate and let it mix.
7. Mix the meat and add some crushed ice from time to time. The crushed ice is used to make your mixture nice and creamy. Mix until it forms a nice cohesive mass. Measure the temperature in between. The meat should not be warmer than 12 C° (53,6 °F), otherwise your mass will lose its binding and the sausage will crumble later on.
8. When the mass has a nice firm bond it is ready for filling. You can fill it into artificial casings or jars. Make sure that not much air gets into the jars.
9. Now put the jars into a pot with water and at 100 °C / 212 °F for 120 minutes.
If you want to use a casing you need to poach your Schinkenwurst for about 1 minute per mm caliber in 80 C° hot water (176 °F). This means that if you use artificial casings caliber 45 -> You poach them for 45 minutes. The core temperature of the sausage should then be between 70 – 72 C° (158 – 161 °F).
10. There it is, your Schinkenwurst. Enjoy!
Extra tip especially fine sausage meat:
This variant is associated with a little more effort. For me personally, the grain size is not super important, and therefore I usually do the simple variant described above.
To get a perfectly fine sausage meat, you can cut and grind the lean meat separately from the fat. Then you first put the lean meat in your cutter / food processor and let it mix together with the spices and cutter phosphate to a really fine mass. Then gradually add the fat and the crushed ice.
How long does the Schinkenwurst keep?
The Schinkenwurst can be kept in the refrigerator for about 4 – 5 days when cut open. In an airtight casing it can be kept refrigerated for about 14 days. Cooked in jars, it can be kept for several months.
3 additional Schinkenwurst variations
Here I have a few more variations for you….
Paprika Schinkenwurst
Here I personally know two variants.
The first would be to add about 15 g paprika flakes to 1 kg of mass. This way you get a very fine scattering of red dots throughout the sausage.
The second variant is to cut about 25% – 30% of the mass of pickled peppers into small pieces and dab them dry. Here you can use a mixture of green and red peppers to get a nice visual effect. Add them after the sausage is mixed through.
Mushroom Schinkenwurst
20% – 25% canned mushrooms chopped finely are an easy way to enhance the sausage.
The thing is, though, that the pickled mushrooms don’t give your sausage any real mushroom flavor.
If you want to go the extra mile, I recommend quartering fresh mushrooms and sautéing them in a pan without oil until they have lost some liquid and are cooked through. You can also salt them a bit while frying.
Let cool and add to your Schinkenwurst. Then you get more mushroom flavor.
Delicious Cheese Variation
Add between 25% and 35% of your favorite cheese to your mixture. You can either cut it into larger pieces or grate it into small pieces. Depending on how you like it.
My recommendation is Gouda or Cheddar. But I can also imagine a really tangy version with a mountain cheese.
Maybe I’ll give that a try.