Maple Sausage

If you are looking for a wonderful side dish for a special-occasion breakfast or Christmas morning brunch, try this Maple Sausage recipe. It’s a fantastic brunch recipe that takes minutes to prepare and only needs 4 ingredients!

Adding maple syrup and rosemary to your sausage is such a simple thing to do, that transforms your breakfast sausage into something a bit more special and gourmet.

Ingredients:

• Breakfast Sausage You can use any type of breakfast sausage you like such as ground pork or ground chicken sausage. It also works with both sausage links and breakfast sausage patties.
• Oil You can use olive oil, vegetable oil, avocado oil, etc.
• Maple Syrup Use a good quality brand of real maple syrup, you’ll get the best flavor that way. It should say “pure maple syrup” on the bottle. As opposed to “imitation maple syrup”.
• Fresh Rosemary This recipe works best with fresh rosemary, but if dried rosemary is all you have you could use that too. Or a little fresh sage, finely chopped, is another great flavor against the maple syrup too.

Menu Pairing Ideas:

• Start off with coffee and juice along with either my Orange Pecan Muffins, Classic Crumb Cake Recipe or melt-in-your-mouth Blueberry Muffins.
• For a main dish try my Puffy Egg Bake Casserole and Foolproof Roasted Potatoes.

Step#1: Cook the Breakfast Sausage

• In a non-stick pan, large enough to cook the breakfast sausage in a single layer, sear the sausage.
• If using a non-stick pan you shouldn’t need to add much oil to the pan, because the fat from the sausage quickly renders out. I only add a drizzle.
• But if you find your sausage looks pretty lean, without a lot of fat you could add a full teaspoon of oil to the pan.
• Be sure to cook the sausage long enough so that it is browned on all sides and cooked through.

Step#2: Add the Maple Syrup + Rosemary

• Once the sausage is cooked through and nicely browned, add the maple syrup and rosemary.
• Toss the sausages in the syrup and rosemary until all they are well coated. The syrup will start to evaporate and become syrupy the longer they cook (2-3 minutes).
• The syrup will continue to dry and stick to the sausage as it stays warm in your oven.

Step#3: Keeping the Sausage Warm

• You can make the sausage ahead of time (up to 30 minutes) and keep it warm in a 200-degree Fahrenheit oven (100C).
• Meanwhile, you can prepare your scrambled eggs, pancakes, French toast or whatever you might be serving with the sausage.
• I transfer the sausage to a small cast-iron gratin pan which helps to keep the sausage warm once it’s placed on the table.