With its unexpected and delightful crunch of whole peppercorns and spicy beef flavor, this easy-to-make home-cured sausage will wow your party guests.
It Started with Mom
My Mom was my Kitchen Mentor and a wizard at finding great recipes from great cookbooks and then refining them to fit our family’s tastes. This one for Peppercorn Beef Sausage is a recipe she adapted and made fairly frequently, and I’ve taken it a step further.
Growing up, this “home-smoked” sausage from Terry Thompson-Anderson’s classic cookbook Cajun-Creole Cooking was always on offer at parties and for holiday meals, no matter the season. The “home” part comes from using curing salt, a great trick and something every home cook should know about. The “smoked” part came from the original recipe’s liquid smoke.
Mom’s update to the recipe for Home-Smoked Sausage with Horseradish Sauce—found on page 24 of the first edition of Cajun-Creole Cooking and page 27 of the second—was to add more peppercorns (a must!) and a teaspoon of dried sage to the sausage. She also simplified the accompanying sauce to amplify the horseradish flavor. Then she stopped making the horseradish sauce altogether and served the sausage with a marvelous blue cheese dip. Great idea!
I Picked Up the Tradition
I started making this sausage again after a 20-year hiatus and put the Glover Gardens Southwest spin on it. As with Mom, adding more peppercorns is a requirement. I also decided not to use liquid smoke because I don’t care for its artificial, chemical-y taste, so I replaced it with smoky chipotle powder. I tweaked the ingredient amounts and switched Sriracha for Tabasco. Mom’s addition of sage doesn’t fit with this flavor profile, but I think she would have really liked my version.
I’ve renamed it Peppercorn Beef Sausage because the peppercorns really are the star of this recipe, and I don’t serve it with the same sauce every time. It’s great without a condiment, too.
The Grill-Meister is a sausage connoisseur and he gives the Peppercorn Beef Sausage a big thumbs-up rating.
Peppercorn Beef Sausage is Party-Worthy
I’ve taken this sausage out to play several times, for three very different parties—a ladies’ luncheon baby shower, a Big 5-0 birthday party for a guy and a wine-and-cheese going-away party for close friends who were moving out of the big city. It was a hit with all three crowds. That’s when you know a recipe is a keeper!
Peppercorn Beef Sausage
Ingredients
Instructions
- Combine the 3 lbs. ground beef, 1½ cups water, 1½ tsp ground black pepper, 3 tbsp whole black peppercorns, 1 tsp chipotle or ancho chile powder, 1½ tbsp garlic powder, 1½ tbsp onion powder, 2 tbsp Morton Tender Quick and 1½ tbsp Sriracha in a large bowl. Mix thoroughly until the seasonings are evenly distributed.
- Divide the mixture into 6 equal portions. Shape each portion into a compact sausage log and wrap tightly in plastic wrap or wax paper, pressing out any air pockets.
- Refrigerate the wrapped sausage logs for at least 24 hours before cooking; longer is even better, with a max of 3 days.
- Preheat the oven to 300°F. Line a baking sheet with foil and place a wire rack on top. Spray the rack well with cooking spray.
- Unwrap the sausage logs and place them on the prepared rack. Bake for 30 minutes, turn the logs, then bake for about 30 minutes more, or until the centers reach 160°F.
- Remove from the oven and cool completely, then refrigerate.
- To serve, slice the chilled sausage into rounds about 3/8 inches wide.
- To freeze, wrap individual sausage logs in foil or plastic wrap and place them in a freezer bag.
Notes
- Curing salt: Use Morton Tender Quick curing mix, not ordinary salt or another curing salt, and measure it carefully.
- Peppercorns: The whole peppercorns are the star of this recipe and provide its distinctive crunch and peppery bite.
- Chile powder: Chipotle powder gives the sausage a smoky Southwestern flavor; ancho chile powder is a milder alternative.
- Make-ahead: The sausage benefits from a longer cure, so 24–36 hours in the refrigerator is ideal when your schedule allows.
- Serving ideas: Serve the sliced sausage on a charcuterie board, buffet platter or appetizer tray. It is excellent on its own or with a creamy savory dip, remoulade or chimichurri.
- Freezing: The cooked sausage freezes well, making it an especially useful party recipe to prepare ahead.
Join Me in the Kitchen
Party Pics
Peppercorn Beef Sausage is super-durable and easy to take to parties. If you make a big batch early in the holiday season and freeze it, you can grab a couple of logs from the freezer any time you need a throw-down party dish.
Accompaniments
The original recipe was served with a horseradish dip. Peppercorn Beef Sausage is great with any creamy, savory dip, like these from the Glover Gardens archives:
It is also nice with a fresh, herbaceous dip like Churrasco’s Chimichurri. But you don’t have to dress it up with a dip—one of the best things about this sausage is just grabbing a slice or two as a quick snack. And it is perfect on a charcuterie platter.
More Experimenting to Do — and Some Already Done
2026 Update: When I first posted this recipe in 2018, I said I wanted to experiment with ground pork, ground turkey and maybe venison, along with different spices and liquids. I finally made good on part of that promise in 2024.
The turkey version became Turkey Sausage with Fennel and Sun-Dried Tomatoes, with fewer peppercorns, whole fennel seed, white wine and sun-dried tomatoes for a completely different flavor profile. It turned out beautifully and earned its own place in the Glover Gardens party-food rotation.
The pork version still needs a little more tinkering, so that experiment continues. Thanksgiving might be just the excuse I need to get back to it.
Cooking the Past Forward
This recipe has traveled quite a distance—from Terry Thompson-Anderson’s original in 1986, through Mom’s adaptations, to my own Peppercorn Beef Sausage and its later variations. It’s a perfect example of how a good recipe can be preserved by continuing to evolve. I updated this recipe long before my vintage cookbook project began, but it has all the same DNA and belongs in the Cooking the Past Forward family.
© 2018 and 2026, Glover Gardens
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