How to Make Kielbasa - Polish Sausage Recipe

Kielbasa Polish Sausage picture by Dietrich Ayala

Kielbasa is a polish sausage made from pork, herbs and spices.  In some parts of the world like the USA and, of course, Poland, you may be able to find Kielbasa in general stores.  In other countries it may be much harder to find however, and you may need to visit a specialist Polish shop to get it.  

Rather than go hunting for it in a shop though,  you may want to know how to make your own homemade kielbasa yourself.  As long as you have a meat grinder it's quite simple to prepare and doesn't take a huge amout of time.  You'll benefit too by knowing exactly what's in your Kielbasa, and you can adjust the spices and herbs to your own liking.  Here's a great Kielbasa recipe for you to try.

Kielbasa Ingredients

• 1800 grams (4 pounds) of pork
• 2 teaspoons of chopped oregano
• 2 teaspoons of black pepper
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 2 teaspoons of marjoram
• 2 teaspoons of raw sugar
• 2 and a half teaspoons of salt
• 1 teaspoon of coriander

Crush your garlic through a garlic press into a small bowl, then add the oregano, black pepper, marjoram, sugar, salt, coriander and powdered milk.  Mix these all together nicely.

Trim any fat off of your pork and grind it through a meat grinder using a medium cut, catching your ground meat in a separate bowl to the one that you mixed your spices in.  Sprinkle the mixed spices from your first bowl over the ground meat.  Mix and knead the spices into the pork.  It's best to use your hands for this, squeezing the spices into the meat as you go.  Take about 5 minutes doing this.

Then get your sausage casing ready.  Attach your meat grinder's sausage stuffing tube to the outlet of the grinder  and place the casing over the tube so that when the meat comes out of the tube it will go staright into the casing.  Now it's time to give the the meat a second trip through the grinder.  

It's useful at this stage if you've got someone to help you in the kitchen.  One person can push the meat through the top of the grinder, and the other can keep the sausage casing on the stuffing tube.  As the meat exits into the tube creating your kielbasa sausages, stop every now and then once your sausage reaches the required length, then twist the entire sausage around so that the casing teies off one sausage. You can then keep stuffing, then twisting to tie off each sausage as you go so that you have a long lenght of individual sausages at the end.   Once you've used up all your meat, twist to tie off the end of the final sausage.

Immediately place your sausages in a refrigerator where they should stay overnight for the spices to bind thoroughly with the pork.  You can then cook and serve your delicious kielbasa sausages.  If you want to keep them longer before using them they should keep for about 2 to 3 days in a standard fridge or up to 3 monts in a freezer.