Jalapeño Cheddar Sausage Recipe

Cut the meat and fat into pieces that fit your grinder. You can vary the size depending on how big your meat grinder is.

Put the meat pieces in the freezer for 1-2 hours. This will help you with the grinding process later and make sure the mixture doesn't get too warm.

Cut the cheese into small cubes. Dice the parsley and jalapenos finely. You could also grind them with the meat in the next step. This will change the distribution in your sausage. There is no right or wrong. Big cubes small cubes it is completely up to you.

Now you can grind the meat. Depending on how coarse or fine you want your sausage, you can use different perforated discs. To be honest, this is a matter of taste. Personally, I use the medium perforated disc. But as I said ... it must taste good to you!

Mix the meat with the spices, parsley, jalapenos and cheese. You can do this by hand or with a hand mixer. Make sure that you mix the sausage meat for 4-5 minutes so that it gets a good binding.

Next, put the casing onto the sausage stuffer. I use  28/30 caliber pork casing for this. In the end, it's your decision whether you prefer to make thinner or thicker sausages. As with the fineness, this is a matter of taste and can be decided by you.

Now fill the meat into the casing. Hold the casing tightly on the filling spout and let it slowly fill up more and more. This part needs some practice. Don't worry if it doesn't work 100% right away. Important: Do not fill the casing too tightly, otherwise it will burst later during frying.

Link the sausages. You can decide for yourself how big your sausage should be. To accomplish this, press the sausage to the desired length with two fingers on each hand and rotate it forward a few times. Then leave out one sausage length and repeat the process. You can prepare and eat the sausage now. Also, delicious: hot smoking - see next step.

Optional: Dry the bratwurst at 50 C° (122 °F) for about 1 hour. I then smoke the bratwurst at 70 C° (158 °F) for 2 hours. The core temperature should be at least 67 C° (152,6 °F) at the end. If this is not the case, you can poach them for a few minutes in a 70 C° (158 °F) water bath.

Your jalapeno cheddar sausage is now ready. Enjoy them.