skinny homemade turkey sausage

It’s easy and healthy to make your own sausage at home. Begin with lean ground turkey and you’re halfway there. You’ll yield about a dozen sausage patties with this recipe, and you only need 4 for the salad. Save the rest for another couple of meals… maybe to accompany your eggs the next morning.

Italian Turkey Sausage Salad

Turkey Sausage
1 pound ground turkey
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 teaspoon ground sage
3/4 teaspoon dry thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/4 teaspoon dry oregano
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
10 to 12 large basil leaves

Salad
3 cups mixed greens
10 cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
Ken’s Steak House Lite Balsamic Vinaigrette, or your favorite lite dressing

Sausage:  Place ground turkey in a medium bowl. Add the garlic, salt, pepper, sage thyme, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Use your hands to mix the spices into the meat until well combined.

Stack the basil leaves on a cutting board.

Roll leaves lengthwise into a tight tube.

Thinly slice the leaves as shown. This style of cut is called a chiffonade. “Chiffon” is French for “little rag” referring to the fabric-like strips that result from this technique.

Cut the basil chiffonade crosswise to mince. Mincing basil with this technique is more gentle than just going to town on the whole leaves and prevents the basil from bruising and turning black.

Mix the basil into the sausage mixture. Form the sausage into thin patties.

Spray a large skillet with Pam and cook the patties on both sides until browned and cooked through.  Set aside to cool.

Salad:  Place the greens in a bowl, add the tomatoes and toss lightly with dressing.

Divide between two large plates and crumbled 2 sausage patties atop each salad.

Serves 2