Recipe: Wild Hog Sausage Tomatillo Chorizo Style

I got my hands on a couple of 80-pound wild hogs from East Texas, so I started experimenting with some new wild hog sausage recipes. I wanted to come up with something that could be executed with near gas-station-level provisions, but also create it with the flexibility to be made completely from scratch.

This recipe is based on the classic Mexican concept of a green chorizo. Not wanting to use green dyes or blast them with cilantro, I opted for a simplified version. When I tested the final product on a group of hunters at a summertime archery and BBQ meetup, I was told it was the best wild game sausage they’d ever consumed. But I’ll let you be the judge.

PREP TIME: 1 HR. 30 MIN. | COOK TIME: 20 MIN. | SERVINGS: 18-24 SAUSAGES

INGREDIENTS

Sausage:

• 3 lbs. wild hog, cubed
• 1-2 lbs. free-range pig fat
• 3 cups tomatillo salsa (24 fl. oz)
• 3-6 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 tbsp. dried garlic
• 6 pieces fresh garlic (optional)
• Approx. 10 ft. of casings
• Extra fresh and dried garlic

Tomatillo Salsa (optional):

• 2 lbs. tomatillos
• 1 lb. jalapeños
• 1 whole garlic
• 1 large onion
• 1 bunch cilantro
• Kosher salt

INSTRUCTIONS

First thing’s first—procure your wild pig and consider how many pounds of sausage you want to end up with. A boned out ham and some extra trim from butchering left me with around 3 pounds of wild hog. I wanted a fairly fatty sausage, so I purchased 2 pounds of free-range Berkshire pork from my local butcher along with sausage casings. Use less fat if you’d like, but going too low will result in a grainy sausage and require binders (a corn tortilla or two cut into strips works well for that). Keep your leftover bones and shanks for cooking in some salsa, covered in beer and water with salt. Make some beans with that, waste no flavor here.

For every pound of wild hog meat (not counting the fat), add in a cup of green tomatillo salsa. I opted to make my own over an open fire for sheer flavor, but in a hurry you could smoke some store-bought salsa on your pellet grill. I just tend to take the long road around making wild game food, giving me precious moments to truly honor my kills with a special final meal.

My salsa ratio is 1 onion:1 whole garlic:2 pounds tomatillos:1 pound jalapeños:1 batch cilantro and salt to taste. I roast all the ingredients in the oven or over a fire and blend. While the salsa might seem kinda spicy at first, once added to the pork it calms down significantly.

Grind your fat and meat while still frozen in 1-inch chunks on a coarse setting. I add salt to my meat, covering it in a solid sprinkle. Normally, I start with around a teaspoon per pound and go up from there, adding the final amount by taste after all the grinding is done. Once the ingredients have been ground together, add in the salsa and chill again in the freezer so the fat stays solid. If it starts to melt, it’ll spit out of your grinder, making a mess and maybe hitting you in the face. Don’t ask me how I know that. Your second grind can be a finer grind if you want a smoother product.

Now’s when you can make this your own. After the second pass of grinding and mixing the ingredients, this is the most important step: Cook a tiny patty of your sausage on the stovetop. From here, refine the sausage to your own taste. You could add some hot sauce if you need more heat, salt to your preference, or more garlic. I added a tablespoon of dry garlic and six pieces of fresh garlic, but the fresh garlic didn’t want to grind when whole so make sure it’s crushed and chopped really fine before tossing it in. Salt levels are a personal thing, but I feel like sausage can handle a strong salt flavor. I’ll also advocate here for kosher salt; it’s tastier and very consistent.

The final step is to simply stuff the sausages. My buddy, Steven, at the Sausage Foundry in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, shared a great tip when helping me learn the craft of sausage making. After you section your sausages by spinning them around like a clown making balloon animals, there are always a few air bubbles that make their way into the sausage. Get a sharp pin or needle and poke them lightly to let the air out. This will keep the air from bursting open your sausage over the grill.

I like to boil some sausages, such as brats, before cooking them on direct heat, but these chorizo sausages can go right on a grill or into a pan.

I served my wild hog chorizo sausages on tortillas with pickled veggies and salsa, but they’d be a fantastic sub for a hotdog in the classic Sonora dog (a soft bun with a sausage, mayo and mustard, green hatch chilies, beans, and maybe some cojita cheese). These also make for a great breakfast sausage served with eggs and hashbrowns. So, if you have some wild hog sausage, give this recipe a try.

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