I’m sure you will love this easy all beef 3 alarm summer sausage recipe, just as much as we do. We started doing a low carb diet, at the beginning of the year. We’ve all done fairly well on it. The main goal is to get Mr. Clucking It Up’s A1C down into a normal range. Most of you already know he’s a Type 1 diabetic, so we need to watch carbs pretty close. One of our favorite low carb snacks is summer sausage and cheese!
I was amazed at how easy summer sausage is to make. I always thought it was this long drawn our process and you had to have all of this special equipment. The reality of it is, if you have a large bowl, a refrigerator, an oven, a broiler pan and some plastic wrap, your good to go. Pretty basic stuff! No meat grinders, no casings to stuff. Like seriously, it’s that easy! We use mostly stainless steel bowls when mixing meat, less probability of anything weird happening. If you don’t have a broiler pan, I recommend looking at a thrift store for one, or get one here.
Start with ground beef the 80/20 stuff is fine, you want some fat for flavor. Mix in your spices and seasonings. Cover with plastic wrap and place in fridge for 48 hours mixing only a few times. Be careful not to over mix (it makes your sausage crumbly).
Divide this mixture into 3 pieces. We actually weigh ours out to make sure they are all the same size.
From here, you will shape each piece into 3 logs. I like to shape them and get them as “tight” as I can then roll them in plastic wrap to help hold the intended shape. 
Back in the fridge they go for another 24 hours. Yes, this is a 3 day process. But, it isn’t labor intensive. After the final resting period in the plastic wrap. Carefully remove the wrap and place each log on your broiler pan.
In the oven they for for 12 hours! Uggg the waiting… Preheat your oven to 175*. My particular oven the lowest marked temperature is 200*, so I put it just below that 200* mark and check it with my oven thermometer (if you don’t have, get one, they’re pretty inexpensive!) After about 6ish hours or so, turn your logs over. They will have started to develop that nice red outer layer that is so predictive of summer sausage.
There are so many options for flavoring summer sausage. Roasted garlic, jalapeno and cheese, 3 alarm, basic, you could give it an Asian flavor pretty easily. Have fun with it, experiment with it. You never know until you try anyway.
- 2 lbs ground beef (the 80/20 stuff is fine)
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 2 TBS curing salt (Morton's Quich Cure is what we use)
- 1 TBS Liquid Smoke
- 1 TBS Mustard seed
- 1 TBS Crushed Red Pepper
- 1 TSP Cayenne Pepper
- 1 TBS Jalapeno Pepper (chopped)
- 1 TBS Serrano Pepper (chopped)
- 1 TBS Habanero Pepper (chopped)
- 3/4 cup water
- Mix all ingredients together in a bowl with a lid. Once mixed store in fridge for the next 48 hours mixing a few times here and there - DO NOT OVERMIX.
- Shape into 3 logs (I like to form them and then wrap in saran wrap to make sure you roll them tightly) Place back in fridge for another day.
- On the 4th day, get ready to bake. Preheat oven to 175* my oven has warm and then 200* I put it just below the 200* mark and monitor it with an oven thermometer. Place logs on broiler pan (to catch any dripping) bake for 12 hours. Turning occasionally.
- Let cool, slice and enjoy! Keep sausage refrigerated.
What’s stopping you from making our easy all beef 3 alarm summer sausage recipe?
