Homemade Beef Breakfast Sausage

Thinking about making homemade breakfast sausages? These beef breakfast patties are perfect and easy to make!

Video: Making Beef Sausage Patties

Why Make Beef Breakfast Sausage?

For people who don’t eat pork, this is ideal. Often though, if you just have some ground beef, this is a nice thing to do for an easy breakfast or brunch. You probably have the seasonings you need already, plus these small breakfast patties cook quickly.

What’s in Beef Breakfast Sausage?

For this recipe, I’ve used the exact same seasoning blend as I use for my breakfast sausage seasoning blend and in my pork sausage and turkey breakfast sausage recipes. It has brown sugar and ground sage which really brings that classic taste. There’s also salt, pepper, garlic powder, thyme, and a touch of cayenne and cloves.

I tried using different seasonings that go better with beef, but in the end, it really was the case that the beef ends up tasting like true breakfast sausage when you use breakfast sausage seasoning. If you’d like to play around with the flavors for your spice blend you could include a little onion powder or increase the heat with red pepper flakes.

There’s also a little bit of water in the mixture. That’s there fore extra moisture and to get a slightly softer texture, like traditional breakfast sausage patties.

Type of Ground Beef To Use

The mixture in the recipe card is for 1 pound of ground beef. I prefer to use lean ground beef so that there isn’t much fat in the pan as they cook. But it will work with whatever kind of ground beef you have.

You can also use a mixture of ground meats. Half ground beef and half ground pork is great for these breakfast sausages. Half beef and half ground turkey is also a great choice if that’s what you have.

Cutting the Sausage Patties

To create the sausage patties, spread the meat out on a sheet pan about 1/2 inch thick. You can put the pan in the freezer until it’s really really cold and starting to freeze, but not frozen fully, to make cutting easier, but it’s not super-necessary.

Transfer cut rounds of sausage to a plate. Gather up remaining meat. Spread it out 1/2 inch thick and cut that as well. Continue until all meat has been cut, doing your best not to overwork the meat.

This breakfast sausage meat can also be put in casings and therefore made into breakfast sausage links if you prefer.

How To Store Sausage Patties

The beef breakfast sausage patties are best served right after cooking them. I therefore don’t recommend that you pre-cook them and freeze them or refrigerate them. But you certainly can do that. Store cooked sausage patties in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days or in the freezer for a month.

Since the patties are small and quick-cooking, if you want them for later it’s best to mix them up and cut them and then freeze the uncooked patties. Line a baking sheet with wax paper and arrange the patties on there in a single non-touching layer. Put baking sheet in the freezer until patties are frozen solid. Then transfer them to an airtight container or freezer bag and freeze for up to 2 months.

Cooking Frozen Sausage Patties

You can then thaw the patties or cook them straight from frozen in a skillet or air fryer. To thaw, arrange them on a plate in the fridge until thawed. Then cook as instructed below.

To cook from frozen, cook as instructed in the recipe below or in the air fryer, but add an extra couple of minutes. So in the skillet, it will be 5-6 minutes per side. In the air fryer, it will be 11-15 minutes total.

How To Cook Beef Sausage Patties

The traditional way to cook sausage patties is in a skillet. Heat a cast iron or non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sausage patties in a single non-overlapping layer. No need to add oil since there’s plenty even in lean ground beef. 

Cook until well-browned underneath, 3-4 minutes. Flip and cook until well-browned on the other side, 3-4 minutes more. Because they’re reasonably thin, in general if they’re browned on both sides, they’re cooked through. But it’s best to cut into one and make sure it’s no longer pink inside.

I know some people like their burgers cooked only to medium or less, this is typically not recommended for ground meat though. It’s safest to make sure it’s no longer pink inside so it’s likely cooked to 160°F, which is the safe temperature for ground beef. If you like yours pinker, that’s up to you but not recommended.

Breakfast Sausage Patties In The Air Fryer

Spray the tops lightly with cooking spray. This helps them brown and to not dry out from the fan in the air fryer. Cook at 400°F until well-browned and no longer pink inside, 7-9 minutes.