Ingredients
- 4 lbs. ground pork
- 2 lb. ground beef
- 4 oz. Pepperoni Seasoning*
- 0.25 oz. cure (comes with the seasoning)*
- 3/4 cup water, plus more as needed
- 1–3 drops liquid smoke (optional)
- 2–3 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
Instructions
- Place meat in a mixing bowl.
- Add pepperoni seasoning and mix.
- Dissolve cure in ¾ cup water. Add liquid smoke and red pepper flakes to water as well, if using.
- Add cure mixture to meat.
- Mix by hand, adding more water 1 teaspoon at a time, until the mixture is sticky enough to stick to inverted hand.
- Place the mixture into a sausage stuffer (like this one or this one) and stuff into casings following the sausage stuffer’s instructions. Or, follow the instructions above or here for making sausage without special equipment. You’ll want to make your cylindrical meat shapes about 1 and ½ inch in diameter and about 12 inches long.
- Refrigerate the sausages (whether in casings or in plastic wrap+foil) in a single layer for 24 hours to allow the cure to properly penetrate and for the shape of the sausage to set.
- Preheat oven to 325°F.
- Carefully remove foil and plastic wrap from tubes of meat if you used them instead of casings. Carefully lay the cylinders of meat, or your casings stuffed with meat, on an oven-safe rack placed over a baking sheet.
- Put into the oven and bake until meat reached an internal temperature of 160°F on an instant read thermometer (like this), 45-60 minutes.
- Take out of oven and let cool.
- Slice and enjoy.
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Notes
*If you want to make your own homemade pepperoni seasoning, you’ll find information about that above the recipe. As to store-bought pepperoni seasoning, note that all pepperoni seasoning and all cure are the same. For instance, some pepperoni seasoning already contains cure. The amounts given above are for the product that we have recommended. It is a packet of pepperoni seasoning that comes with a packet of cure. If you have different brands, please read the instructions on yours to see how much to add per pound of meat. Also, check your pepperoni seasoning to see if it contains cure already. If it has sodium nitrate in it, and if the instructions for its use don’t say to add cure, it probably contains cure. For instance, this alternate pepperoni seasoning already contains cure, and the amount to use listed on the instructions is different to the amounts in our recipe. Please read the instructions on your packets of seasoning and cure to make sure that you end up with a flavorful and properly cured sausage.