# My Take On TX Jalapeno Cheddar Sausage



## tx smoker (Mar 4, 2018)

I recently read a post from one of the members here on a  sausage he was trying to duplicate. I believe he said he'd tried it in Houston and really loved it so put together his own recipe. I read his recipe and decided that there was no way I could NOT make this sausage so copied and pasted the recipe into a Word document. After reading more responses to that thread from folks here who really know their sausage, I made a couple of tweaks, the major one was upping the beef content. Hey....this is Texas and beef rules!! :-) The other was using fresh garlic (and more of it) than granulated garlic. I made the sausage, served it with an epic dinner, and it was featured in a thread in the General Discussion forum. I was asked to post the recipe and process by someone who read my other post. A few pics and the procedure first, then the recipe to follow.

Ingredients: ground meat, diced Jalapenos, extra sharp cheddar, and spices mixed with ice water







Sausage made and stuffed into casings






The next day after hanging in the fridge overnight. Notice the color difference between this picture and when it was first stuffed yesterday. This should answer the question of "cook/freeze immediately or let rest?" The difference is profound.






Vac sealed for the freezer. These are not cooked. Being frozen to cook later






These were smoked in a vertical smoker at 220* to an IT of 155* with light hickory smoke and served with dinner.






Cross section of the smoked sausage






Sliced and ready to serve






This sausage was amazing!! I'd put it up against the best sausage I've ever had in my life any day. Now here is the recipe:

2 lbs pork shoulder
2 1/4 lbs beef
3/4 lb fatback or cheap fatty bacon
6 diced jalapenos
4 oz extra sharp cheddar (could not readily find high temperature cheddar)
5 tsp salt
4 tsp brown sugar
2.5 tsp black pepper
1 T paprika
1/4 cup fresh minced garlic
1 tsp cure #1
1.5 tsp oregano
½ cup ice water

Cut meat into 1" cubes, place on a sheet pan, and put in the freezer until starting to crust up on the outside then grind through medium plate. Put ground meat back into freezer until starting to get crusty gain. While meat is chilling, mix all dry spices and water together, chop cheese and Jalapenos. Layer ground meat, spice mix, peppers, and cheese into mixing bowl. Layering it makes incorporating everything far easier. Mix thoroughly so all ingredients are well incorporated and farce is starting to get sticky, then stuff into casings. Rest in fridge overnight. If you aren't able to hang the sausage and have to put it on a sheet pan in the fridge, turn it over at some point. The part that's on the bottom will not "bloom" like the areas that are exposed to air.

Well, that's it....and I'll say that this is one amazing sausage. I can't thank the person who posted the original recipe enough. After one bite, everybody that was at the party was raving about it and the wife is insistent that this one WILL be a staple in the freezer at all times :-)

Taking up more bandwidth,
Robert


----------



## indaswamp (Mar 4, 2018)

<thumbs up>
Looks like a great recipe!


----------



## motocrash (Mar 4, 2018)

Dang that looks good ! More pork,Texas Cowboy... says Virginia Pigboy:D


----------



## weev (Mar 4, 2018)

Dang that sounds good. I'm definitely going to have to put this on the list to try


----------



## radio (Mar 4, 2018)

Thanks for posting the recipe!  This is one I am going to have to try one day real soon!

What type of casings did you use?  How lean/fatty was the beef?

Thanks


----------



## SmokinAl (Mar 5, 2018)

Excellent looking sausage!
Nice job!
They look delicious!
Al


----------



## tx smoker (Mar 8, 2018)

_"Thanks for posting the recipe!  This is one I am going to have to try one day real soon!"

"What type of casings did you use?  How lean/fatty was the beef?"
_
 I used 29-32 mm hog casings. Next time I'm going to get casings a bit bigger.

The beef was good quality and very lean. I believe it was either top round or eye of round. There was a small, thin fat cap on the roast and that was it, hence the use of pork to get the fat content up. I wanted a deeper flavor from good quality beef and the pork was used to attain the necessary fat content as well as adding to complexity and texture.

Robert


----------



## radio (Mar 8, 2018)

tx smoker said:


> _"Thanks for posting the recipe!  This is one I am going to have to try one day real soon!"
> 
> "What type of casings did you use?  How lean/fatty was the beef?"
> _
> ...



Thanks for the info.  My grinder is out of commission, so been wondering if Boston burger would work.  Seems it's about 80/20 beef to pork, so should work ok.
Any of you ever use it for sausage?


----------



## worktogthr (Mar 8, 2018)

These look great man!  I have made something very similar using Len Poli's recipe and like you, added cheese to it!  People love them!  I was actually toying around with the idea of using ground chicken thighs and home cured Canadian bacon to make a leaner version of this.  Currently in a weight loss competition so it might be a fun experiment to try for a leaner/lower calorie sausage.


----------



## okie362 (Mar 8, 2018)

Going to have to try those


----------



## newbrian (Jan 7, 2020)

I am new to sausage making and wanted to try this recipe,  Do I need to use the #1 cure if i plan on grilling these and not smoking them?  if i don't have to use the cure how much salt should i add?


----------



## tx smoker (Jan 7, 2020)

newbrian said:


> I am new to sausage making and wanted to try this recipe,  Do I need to use the #1 cure if i plan on grilling these and not smoking them?  if i don't have to use the cure how much salt should i add?



You do not need to use Cure #1 if you're planning to cook very soon or freeze. At that point the salt is simply for flavor and added per your taste requirements. The recipe works out to 1 t of salt per pound of meat, which is about standard just for taste. If you're one that likes stuff on the saltier side, add as you wish. If you're not a fan of salt, it can be deleted all together if you want.

Robert


----------



## newbrian (Jan 7, 2020)

tx smoker said:


> You do not need to use Cure #1 if you're planning to cook very soon or freeze. At that point the salt is simply for flavor and added per your taste requirements. The recipe works out to 1 t of salt per pound of meat, which is about standard just for taste. If you're one that likes stuff on the saltier side, add as you wish. If you're not a fan of salt, it can be deleted all together if you want.
> 
> Robert


Great, thank you!


----------



## Smokie Foodie (Mar 8, 2020)

tx smoker said:


> I recently read a post from one of the members here on a  sausage he was trying to duplicate. I believe he said he'd tried it in Houston and really loved it so put together his own recipe. I read his recipe and decided that there was no way I could NOT make this sausage so copied and pasted the recipe into a Word document. After reading more responses to that thread from folks here who really know their sausage, I made a couple of tweaks, the major one was upping the beef content. Hey....this is Texas and beef rules!! :-) The other was using fresh garlic (and more of it) than granulated garlic. I made the sausage, served it with an epic dinner, and it was featured in a thread in the General Discussion forum. I was asked to post the recipe and process by someone who read my other post. A few pics and the procedure first, then the recipe to follow.
> 
> Ingredients: ground meat, diced Jalapenos, extra sharp cheddar, and spices mixed with ice water
> View attachment 356185
> ...


Wow a great recepie.  Look amazing.
Can you use only beef for this recipe and if not,  what else you can swap pork with. 
My sausages turn out bit grainy in texture. How did you make them so smooth.


----------



## tx smoker (Mar 8, 2020)

Smokie Foodie said:


> Wow a great recepie. Look amazing.
> Can you use only beef for this recipe and if not, what else you can swap pork with.
> My sausages turn out bit grainy in texture. How did you make them so smooth.



Thank you for the kind words...especially taking into account that this thread is 2 years old. I'm honored that you found it and are interested.

Certainly you can use all beef. The beauty of sausage making is that you can put anything into it that you want, kind of like a breakfast taco. The only three prerequisites for sausage are lean meat, fat, and liquid. After that, the door is wide open and entirely up to you what you want to use. You're only limited by your imagination.

If your sausage is grainy that could be one of a few things.  Not enough fat content. Not enough liquid. Not mixed well enough. When mixing you should get to the point that the fat and lean meat are starting to break a little bit and come together but not to the point of emulsifying like hot dogs or bologna. The consistency should be such that you can take a golf ball sized amount of meat, stick it to the palm of your hand, turn your hand over, and the meat stay stuck. If you don't have enough liquid to get the meat breaking down a bit and getting sticky, it's going to be like stuffing hamburger into casings. Fat content, in my experience should be about 20%. You can go higher with the fat, and a lot of folks do, but this is about the perfect balance I've found. If you want to go all beef, try using chuck roast, or save the fat trimmings from a brisket and add that to your mix of lean meat to get the ratio correct.

Here is a pic of a batch of sausage I just finished. Please note that you can see that it's sticky (liquid) and the meat is slightly broken (mixing) but you can see the individual lean and fat aspects






On the smoker today






Smoked and out of the ice bath






Cross section






I tried to get to everything you asked. If there is more info you need, please don't hesitate to ask.

Robert


----------



## Smokie Foodie (Mar 8, 2020)

tx smoker said:


> Thank you for the kind words...especially taking into account that this thread is 2 years old. I'm honored that you found it and are interested.
> 
> Certainly you can use all beef. The beauty of sausage making is that you can put anything into it that you want, kind of like a breakfast taco. The only three prerequisites for sausage are lean meat, fat, and liquid. After that, the door is wide open and entirely up to you what you want to use. You're only limited by your imagination.
> 
> ...


Thanks a lot and especially for such a prompt response. The above ones look equally great.  Looks like my next weekend is sorted.  Take care and may God bless you!


----------



## Bogies BBQ (Jun 18, 2020)

At what temp did you smoke these at ? And they look good going to give them a try


----------



## tallbm (Jun 19, 2020)

-Any tips on adding the cheese?  I love sharp cheddar.  
-Would little cubes work better than shreded?
I think Lucerne (Tom Thumb and Albersons brand) makes a rustic extra sharp cheddar that is kinda big and bulkier.

-U think this would do well in the cellulose casings for skinless sausages?

This sausage is so what I'm looking to make as a TX sausage. Thx!


----------



## Steve H (Jun 19, 2020)

That does look great. I was thinking about making a batch of sausage when I get home. Still undecided on what though. This might be a starting point.


----------



## chef jimmyj (Jun 19, 2020)

I missed this on the first pass. Very nice mix. My middle Daughter and I are the only two that enjoy spicy food so Mild Anaheim Chiles would be substituted for the rest of my crew. 
I would give this a try...JJ


----------



## tx smoker (Jun 19, 2020)

Bogies BBQ said:


> At what temp did you smoke these at ? And they look good going to give them a try



Recently I've just been doing them on the Rec Tec at low temp / extreme smoke. You want to run in the 170* range for sausages and don't let the smoker go over 180* for any length of time or you'll get a fat out and the casings start to blow up...and the sausage gets all greasy.

Robert


----------



## tx smoker (Jun 19, 2020)

tallbm said:


> -Any tips on adding the cheese? I love sharp cheddar.
> -Would little cubes work better than shreded?
> I think Lucerne (Tom Thumb and Albersons brand) makes a rustic extra sharp cheddar that is kinda big and bulkier.



I've used cheese...many different flavors in many different sausages. You need to use high temp cheese though. The Sausage Maker has a variety of them, which is all I've used, and am very happy with them. Standard cheese will melt in the sausage and make a mess.



tallbm said:


> -U think this would do well in the cellulose casings for skinless sausages?



I see no reason why it wouldn't work fine. I do a lot of stuff: salami, Summer Sausage, and others in fibrous casings. Heck, you could even get a starter culture and make cured and dry aged sausages. Those are nothing but good!!

Robert


----------



## tallbm (Jun 19, 2020)

chef jimmyj said:


> I missed this on the first pass. Very nice mix. My middle Daughter and I are the only two that enjoy spicy food so Mild Anaheim Chiles would be substituted for the rest of my crew.
> I would give this a try...JJ



If u seed and de-vein jalapenos then that removes the heat.
U can do this if u like jalapeno flavor more than anaheim chilies or want to save a few pennies :)


----------



## chef jimmyj (Jun 19, 2020)

I agree but we are talking some No Heat Tolerance people, especially my Wife, and if Mom ain't  happy... I like the flavor of both Chiles so I don't mind the substitution....JJ


----------

