Homemade Chorizo

chorizo and eggs I love chorizo, for breakfast, lunch, or supper. I have a number of recipes that utilize the spicy, vinegary stuff, and used to buy my chorizo, that is until my local grocery store changed the brand they carry.

I always check nutrition labels. I look at the serving size, fat and carb counts, and the ingredients. The new brand in my local store (the only one in a 15 mile radius!) listed the first ingredient as "Ground Pork Salivary Glands".

Now I'm not squeamish, (we butcher our own chickens and process my husband's hunted venison every fall) but somehow the idea of actually paying for a product that mainly consists of spices and salivary glands just didn't sit well with me. So I started experimenting and this is what I came up with. I don't claim it's authentic, but we think it's really good!

Total Time: About 40 minutes

Yield: Portion sizes vary but we get 3-5 servings per pound, depending

Ingredients:

1 lb ground turkey or pork (not sausage!)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper*
2 Tbsp chili powder
4 medium cloves garlic, finely minced
1 Tbsp smoked paprika
1 1/2 tsp Tony Chachere's or similar Creole seasoning*
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1-2 tsp red pepper flakes*
3 Tbsp cider vinegar

*Fair warning here: if you are not familiar with chorizo, make your first batch with half of the salt, pepper flakes, and Creole seasoning. You can always add more later, but you can't take any out.

Steps:

Mix all spices in a small bowl. Add to the ground meat along with the garlic and vinegar, and mix well with clean hands until well combined.
Cover tightly and let sit in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Remove from fridge and fry a small sample to see if it's spicy enough for you. If not adjust accordingly with some more Tony's or a little cayenne.
I like to make a triple or quadruple batch, and fry the entire thing up until nearly all of the juice is evaporated out. Then I let it cool and portion out into sandwich bags, and then freeze those bags in gallon freezer bags to take out and use when I please.

The dish in the wok is a stir-fry with Chorizo, leftover roasted chicken, cabbage, onion, celery, and my own sauce recipe, which I will share in another post. The other photo is my breakfast just before I cooked it this morning; Chorizo and a few eggs from our hens.

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Patty Hamburger

May 19, 20150 found this helpful

My son and I bought a grinder to make German sausage the day before I saw this recipe. We bought roasts and ground them for this recipe.

The chorizo is absolutely phenomenal and I have never liked restaurant or store-bought chorizo. You won't be sorry if you make this.

4TruLady

May 29, 20150 found this helpful

Thanks Patty! I'm so glad you liked it!

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