Easy recipe for sausage balls

The recipe I'm about to share is a favorite one in our home. There, of course, is a story behind this recipe. For many years ago I cooked Thanksgiving dinner. I want to say to all of you out there that brave making the Thanksgiving dinner...I salute you. I salute you because the Thanksgiving meal is a beast and takes a lot of time to create. For a few years I tried doing a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for Mr. Bourne and myself. I would wake up at some ungodly hour on that day to start my preparations. I would spend days prior to the day planning the correct time to start what parts of the meal so that everything was ready at a reasonable hour (usually around 4 or 5pm). Thanksgiving day was treated like a battle from the moment I woke up until the final forkful went into our mouths. Then there were the endless leftovers. I hated it. Yep, I hated Thanksgiving. I knew on that day that I was going to be on my feet cooking all day and not enjoying the holiday at all and then trying to figure out creative ways to use the leftovers.


Anyway, one of the biggest problems I had with the earlier Thanksgivings was that I was so focused on planning and preparing the dinner that I didn't think about breakfast or lunch. We would end up eating all of the sweet potato casserole before it even got a chance to hit the table because we hadn't planned breakfast or lunch. After two or three years of doing this, I decided that I needed to suck it up and cook yet another meal on Thanksgiving day. Then I had a brilliant idea. I would prepare or cook as much of the breakfast the night before and just heat up whatever the next morning. I needed something that would keep well in the fridge overnight and wouldn't be too complicated to prepare the next morning. I thought of the perfect Thanksgiving breakfast...sausage balls!!! I would prepare them the night before and store them in the fridge overnight. The next morning, I would just heat them in the microwave and we were all ready to eat.


Mr. Bourne and I have, thankfully, abandoned the Thanksgiving meal tradition in our home. Instead, I get to rest on Thanksgiving day and enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving buffet at one of our favorite restaurants (Wilkerson's Seafood Restaurant in Colonial Beach, VA). I have kept the sausage balls tradition on that morning because we still need breakfast since our buffet meal isn't until 4pm or so. You only need three ingredients for this recipe. The beauty of this recipe is that you can do so much with it. You can add additional spices, use different kinds of sausage, use different kinds of cheese, or add additional ingredients to your liking. If you like spicier foods, you can add chopped jalapenos to the mix. If you like a different kind of cheese, you can use it. If you like a certain type of sausage, go on and use it. If you use "country" sausage, you might want to add some sage or other spices. "Country" sausage doesn't have flavorings added. Most prepackaged sausages are already spiced and require no additional spices. 


Simple sausage balls
1 16 oz roll of sausage
2 cups of shredded cheese (I usually use mild or sharp cheddar, but a stronger cheese like asiago would be amazing in these)
3/4 cup of baking mix (such as Bisquick)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees
Pour shredded cheese into a mixing bowl

Pour the baking mix into the bowl with the shredded cheese and mix them together

Cut open the package of sausage and put into the bowl with the baking mix and cheese.

**Tip: I find that snipping off one end of the sausage packaging with kitchen shears and then cutting straight down one side of the roll helps to cleanly remove the sausage from the package.

With a fork, start to break up the sausage and mix with the baking mix and cheese

Once the sausage is somewhat broken up, get your hands into the mix and start to work the baking mix and cheese into the sausage. 

***There is nothing glamorous or pretty about this step. The ingredients tend to separate and you have to force the baking mix and cheese to stick to the sausage. Do not be alarmed when you see that there is still a great deal of the cheese and baking mix mixture still in the bowl after you've done this step. The next step will take care of this.

Now you are ready to start forming the sausage into balls. As you pinch off chunks of the sausage, you will notice that it feels "sticky" which means that it is not covered in the baking mix and cheese. Take each chunk and flatten it out into the mixture and roll it around in the mixture to pick up as much of the mixture as you can into each ball. Once you have picked up as much of the mixture into the sausage, roll it between your palms to form balls.

                       Notice that with each ball being rolled individually in the mixture, the baking mix gets used up

***At this point, you can store the sausage balls in a container and put them in the fridge if you don't want to cook them right away (for instance, if you form them at night to cook the next morning). If you choose to do this, you will cook the sausage balls at 375 degrees for 16-18 minutes.

Once you have formed all of the sausage balls, set them aside while you put aluminum foil on a baking sheet and spray with cooking spray.

Place the sausage balls into the 375 degree oven for 15 minutes. If you made them smaller and have more of them, cook for 13 minutes. 

Place the cooked sausage balls on a paper towel to soak up some of the oil. 

The sausage balls are either ready to be cooled slightly and eaten or they can be refrigerated and heated up when you are ready to eat them.

***Mr. Bourne loves putting hot sauce on the sausage balls and he says they're "yummy and spicy". 

Note: Please excuse the green frog nightgown. I actually made this one morning right out of bed and wanted to catch the action for my blog. :-)