Homemade Sausage Seasoning Blend

A dry herb blend for giving any ground meat a "sausage" flavoring. Try this not only with ground pork, but also ground turkey, beef, or chicken. Adapted from a recipe that came with one of my pizza pans. Recipe can be doubled, tripled, etc as needed. Each batch is enough to season 1 pound of meat. Leave out the crushed red pepper flakes for milder sausage.

• Ready In: 5 mins
• Yields: 3 Tbsp

Ingredients

• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons salt
• 3 1⁄2 teaspoons paprika
• 2⁄3 teaspoon garlic granules or 2⁄3 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1⁄3 teaspoon fennel seed
• 1  teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1⁄4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, for spicy (optional)

Directions

1. Blend all ingredients together in a spice grinder or mini-food processor (or you may also just stir together if you like some chunkier bits of fennel in your sausage).
2. Store in an airtight container until ready to use.
3. To use, mix with 1 pound ground meat.
4. Chill seasoned meat 3 hours before using.
5. Or you may also use this in any recipe calling for sausage seasoning.