Easy Homemade Turkey Breakfast Sausage

Just grab a package of ground turkey next time you’re at the store and give this homemade ground turkey breakfast sausage recipe a try, it’s easy. From one breakfast lover to another, you’re going to love having a stash of these homemade sausage patties in the freezer. A perfect solution when you want a good old fashioned egg and sausage weekend breakfast.

Homemade Turkey Sausage patties with a fried egg and fried potatoes

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What You Can Expect From This Recipe
Ingredients You’ll Need
Step By Step Instructions
FAQ’s
Tips For Success
Serving Ideas
Homemade Ground Turkey Sausage

What You Can Expect From This Recipe

Homemade Ground Turkey Sausage is a breeze to make. All you need is a package of ground turkey from the grocery store and some spices from your pantry.

My favorite part of this recipe is that it makes a dozen or so patties. And with just the two of us, I package little freezer bags with two patties each (uncooked).

They’re easy to pull out and fry up for a quick weekend breakfast.

Tip: Double this recipe for an even larger stash of frozen breakfast sausage patties. Your future self will thank you.

Using a 93% lean mix makes a flavorful, juicy sausage patty with less calories and fat than ground pork.

Let’s talk about more of the benefits.

Making homemade ground turkey sausage patties allows you to control the fat content and the seasonings.

Most importantly, you can control the salt and the sugar content without compromising flavor. Yes, some our our favorite packaged sausages add corn syrup for flavor.

For this recipe, ground turkey is blended with dried herbs and spices, an egg and panko bread crumbs to easily be formed into patties.

Those patties only take a few minutes to fry up and you’re on your way to breakfast bliss.

Plus, these ground turkey sausage patties stay nice and moist and still retain a solid texture after cooking.

It’s fresh, it’s quick, healthy, full of flavor and tastes much better than store purchased.

Let’s take a look:

Ingredients You’ll Need

Ground Turkey: Purchase a mix labeled 93% lean. This mix contains both white and dark meat which means more flavor. If you purchase ground turkey breast you’ll be getting a 99% lean product, which isn’t enough fat to create a good sausage patty. The texture will be too dry.
Panko Bread Crumbs and an Egg: Will create the binder for the sausage patty and hold everything together for a perfect little ground turkey sausage paddy.
Onion and Garlic
Spices: Basil, thyme, ginger, chopped fresh parsley and some red pepper flakes for that little kick of heat that we all love. And of course, salt and pepper.

Ingredient Swaps and and Substitutions

The beauty of homemade sausage is the ability to season the meat to your liking. Tinker around with the spice blend by reducing the basil and adding:

Sage, if you’re a Jimmy Dean Sausage fan, you’ll want to add some sage.
Marjoram
Fennel seed to give the flavor of an Italian Turkey Sausage.
Meat: You can make this recipe using ground pork. Ground pork is usually sold as 80% lean, which means more fat than ground turkey.
Panko: Don’t have Panko in the pantry? You can substitute Progresso Bread Crumbs. Either plain or Italian will work.

Step By Step Instructions

Ingredients to make homemade turkey sausage in a bowl, ready to mix.

Step 1: Place all ingredients (minus the oil) into a large bowl. You’ll use the oil to fry the homemade turkey sausage patties later.

Sausage mixture for homemade sausage patties ready to form into patties.

Step 2: Using your hands, gently mix the ingredients together until well blended. TIP: We made lots of sausage in Culinary School. As soon as you’ve mixed the ingredients together, take a small pinch of the meat mixture and fry it up in a saucepan and test the seasonings. Adjust and make it perfect for your taste before proceeding.

Letting homemade turkey sausage covered with plastic wrap

Step 3: Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour, or preferably overnight. This will help marry the flavors.

Homemade turkey sausage patties ready to cook.

Step 4: Form the meat mixture into sausage patties and you’re ready to cook. Just fry them in a large skillet over medium heat, until browned and no longer pink inside.

FAQ’s

Can You Freeze Ground Turkey Sausage Patties?

Absolutely yes. That’s the beauty of this recipe. Freeze the patties in portions and pull out of the freezer for a quick weekend breakfast. I like to use a small freezer bag. Slide the sausages in a single layer into the bag. Close and lay flat in the freezer. You can also freeze cooked sausage patties for a quick re-heat in the microwave. To reheat frozen cooked sausage patties, use your 50% power feature and microwave in 15 second increments until heated through.

Can I Cook These Patties From Frozen?

Yes. Its wise to use an instant read meat thermometer to make sure the sausage is cooked through in the middle. 160 degrees.

Can I Make These Patties Ahead of Time?

Yes! And actually the instructions to this recipe advise to let the patties sit in the refrigerator overnight to “marry” the flavors. That way you’re ready to cook first thing the next morning. Easy!

How Long Does Ground Turkey Sausage Last In The Refrigerator?

Depending on the “use by” or “sell by” date on the package of ground turkey, this turkey sausage will last a couple of days in the refrigerator. I usually freeze uncooked sausage patties as soon as I can.

Tips For Success

On Dicing Onion: Dice the onion as small as you can. With any mixture such as sausage, or meatballs, the smaller the pieces of onion, the better the mixture will stay formed. Large pieces of onion can cause the patties to fall apart.
Use Your Hands: Use your hands to mix the ingredients together. The light touch of your hands is a perfect tool for this job. Using a spoon will crush ingredients together rather than combine, and you risk mashing the ingredients into a paste. And that will affect the texture.
Adjust Seasonings: As soon as you’re done mixing the ingredients together, take a pinch of the ground turkey sausage and form it into a very small sausage paddy. Fry it up in a small fry pan (I use my omelette pan) and taste. Adjust seasonings to your liking before forming the larger patties.

Serving Ideas

Our favorite way to use this Turkey Breakfast Sausage recipe is to make homemade McDonald’s Sausage Egg McMuffin. And it’s so easy, as long as you have a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup. Let’s take a look:

Spray a 2-cup pyrex measuring cup with non-stick spray, such as PAM
Break an egg into the measuring cup and mix well using a fork.
Microwave for 1 minute.
Place the cooked egg on a toasted English Muffin, along with a cooked turkey sausage, and a slice of American Cheese.
The heat from the English Muffin, the egg and the sausage may be enough to melt the cheese. But, you can place the assembled sandwich in microwave for 15 seconds to melt the cheese more.

If you don’t have a pyrex measuring cup, find a small microwave safe bowl that’s about 3 inches in diameter (the size of the muffin).

I’ve also used left over cooked turkey breakfast sausage to make turkey sausage breakfast burritos. Just scramble two eggs, and when the eggs are about half way cooked, crumble in a paddy of cooked turkey sausage and stir to heat the sausage.

Grate the cheese of your choice over the slightly undercooked eggs and then transfer the mix to a soft flour tortilla. Roll up and microwave for about a minute to soften the tortilla and steam the contents.

Ground turkey sausage patties with fried potatoes and a fried egg.

I hope you give this easy homemade ground turkey sausage recipe a try, and if you do, please come back and give the recipe a star rating, and leave a comment about your experience with the recipe.

And if you love a good breakfast like us, don’t miss my Breakfast Category, you’ll find lots of eye opening recipes, including the most popular breakfast recipe on my site for Country Potatoes with Ham.

If you liked this recipe, please leave a star ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in the recipe card below and leave a comment. I always appreciate your feedback and hearing how everything went.

And, don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter for more delicious recipes and cooking tips. Make it a delicious day … every day.

Homemade Ground Turkey Sausage

Lea Ann Brown

Homemade Ground Turkey Sausage is a breeze to make using ground turkey and a stellar line up of spices. Made with a combination of ground turkey breast and ground turkey thighs makes a flavorful, juicy sausage patty with less calories and fat than ground pork.

4.50 from 4 votes

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Prep Time 20

Cook Time 5

Course Breakfast Recipes

Cuisine American

Servings 8

Calories 134 kcal

Ingredients

1 ¼ pounds ground turkey Mixture of ground white meat and dark meat.
½ Cup sweet onion minced
¼ Cup fresh basil leaves chopped
¼ Cup fresh parsley chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon dried thyme leaves
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon dried red pepper flakes crushed
Fresh ground pepper to taste
2 Tablespoon panko bread crumbs
1 egg slightly beaten
2 Tablespoon olive oil

Instructions

Mix all ingredients together, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour, or overnight.
Shape the turkey mixture into 12 patties, about 2 ½ inches in diameter.
Heat the oil in a large skillet, and brown the patties, over medium heat, on both sides, about 2 minutes per side. Reduce the heat to medium, cover the skillet and cook turning occasionally until they are crisp and cooked through and no longer pink on the inside. About 6 minutes.

Notes

Dice the onion as small as you can. With any mixture such as sausage, or meatballs, the smaller the pieces of onion, the better the mixture will stay formed. Large pieces of onion can cause the patties to fall apart.

Use your hands to mix the ingredients together. The light touch of your hands is a perfect tool for this job. Using a spoon will crush ingredients together rather than combine, and you risk mashing the ingredients into a paste.

As soon as you’re done mixing the ingredients together, take a pinch of the ground turkey sausage and form it into a very small sausage paddy. Fry it up in a small fry pan (I use my omelette pan) and taste. Adjust seasonings to your liking before forming the larger patties.

Will these sausage patties freeze well? Absolutely yes. That’s the beauty of this recipe. Freeze the patties in portions and pull out of the freezer for a quick weekend breakfast. You can also freeze cooked sausage patties for a quick re-heat in the microwave.

Keyword ground turkey, homemade, sausage, turkey

Homemade Ground Turkey Breakfast Sausage …It’s what’s for Breakfast.