Adding Cheese to Summer Sausage

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bones1948

Fire Starter
Original poster
Feb 10, 2010
73
10
Winter Springs, Florida
I have made a lot of summer sausage but have never added cheese to it. I am considering adding cheese to my next batch of summer sausage to give as gifts for Christmas. I now do a first grind through the large plate then add the spices, cure and water, mix and then do a second grind through the 3/16 plate and stuff. I like the texture I get from the 3/16th plate. If I was going to add cheese I could not put it in with the spice and run through the 3/16th plate I would have to mix again after the grind. I guess I am asking when to mix the cheese to the sausage? If the highest temperature the smoker will get is 170 degrees will I still have to use high temperature cheese?

Steve
 
Mix into the meat after grinding. It wont take much of a mix to get the cheese mixed into the meat
 
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Been a number of comments here on regular vs high temp cheese. I don’t have enough experience to answer your question, but I recently tried some high temp cheese and it exceeded my expectations for taste and convenience. It comes ina bag of uniform pellets that mix very easily and provide a consistent result. Got it on Amazon and it was expensive. Next I’m checking with a sausage place to see if I can buy some of their bulk cheese.
 
I made two batches of summer sausage last fall with pepper jack cheese in them I purchased from Costco as I wasn't going to pay the asking price for high temp cheese. The first batch I didn't cut the cheese small enough, sausage came out great but there are big chucks of cheese in it, you almost don't need to add a slice of cheese to the meat. Second batch the cheese was cubed a lot smaller which made for a more uniform spread of cheese. There was very little melting of the cheese both times and from what I experienced I will never purchase high temp cheese for summer sausage. Only word of warning I have about regular cheese is it takes a while to cut a 2.5 pound block up into little cubes.
 
I've used both . For me , the high temp gives a way better end result . For the effort involved , I'll pay the extra money .
 
I've yet to do a sausage with cheese BUT I recall reading how a guy tried and then highly recommended the use of Kraft Crumbles cheese:
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According to him it is the right size, way cheaper then high temp, worked great, and tasted very good.

This is the approach I decided to take when the day comes that I make a sausage with cheese in it :)
 
I have always used high temp cheese, but would like to try regular cheese just to see if it will work the same.
It sure would be a lot cheaper!
Al
 
I use store bought ... I mix mine in right before stuffing... I mix all seasoning, cure, and water and then fridge overnight... I then remix (with or without cheese) right before stuffing... this is when I add the cheese... so If you did it this way you could still regrind after mixing in seasonings and cure...
 
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