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I have mentioned this many times before in posts here and there, so I thought it was time to really highlight this savings tip because it is a lifesaver for me!
I just did this again yesterday, and I only have to do this 2-3 times per year!
First, you can get a good price on a sausage that I would approve of! As you may or may not know, I am a bit of a picky eater, I am not a pork fan myself, but my family does enjoy it. So I found a great option at Costco and Sam’s Club!
They both sell the Jimmy Dean Naturals sausage 3lb. rolls for $6.39 – $6.99 each. This is a GREAT price as the grocery stores sell the 1 lb. rolls for $2.99 – $4.99. This is a special sausage option with no nitrates (very important to me!) and no MSG.
Well, this is the only sausage I need to get and it is a great price with no fuss!
So this is EXACTLY what I do 2-3 times per year (and I have been doing this for a couple of years now!)
- I buy three 3-lb rolls of Jimmy Dean Naturals Sausage at Costco or Sam’s Club for under $7 each roll
- Then I take them home and brown up each of three rolls on the stove top. It takes about 15-20 minutes per roll.
- I then rinse it in the strainer to rinse off any remaining fats I can.
- I then let it all cool in a giant bowl.
- Once cooled, I then use a large soup ladle size scoop and put one scoop into a ziploc bag
- This ends up giving me around 23-26 bags of sausage breakfasts! This time I got 26!
- I mark the baggies with the date and freeze!
In the mornings, this is the best time saver for breakfast! I simply pull one of these out of the freezer and use it in so many recipes, or even just simply topped on scrambled eggs!
I cannot tell you how amazingly easy it is to make a breakfast with sausage! Yes, it isn’t a ton of sausage, in fact a little less than 1/2lb. But it is perfect for breakfast casseroles, my ham cups, breakfast quiche, grits casserole and so much more!
It also makes my kids and Alex happy that they get a little bit of pork when I don’t normally cook and serve it!
In the end, I spent around $19, 1-hour total and have
26 breakfasts (at least the biggest time sucker) completed!
Be sure to check out our Building Better Breakfasts page HERE for our many breakfast ideas to save time and money in the morning, many of which use the sausage idea shared here!
Alicia
I have been doing this for as long as I can remember. I also cook and freeze ground beef, ground turkey, and ground chicken. Any of these meats work in just about any meat dish I’m making and it cuts down on so much of my cooking time. It’s wonderful when you want to make spaghetti or other dish and on a tight time frame to get supper on the table. I raised 4 children that were very involved in sports and this was the perfect way for me to have something substantial and hot for supper before we had to rush out the door.
Di H.
My parents did this when I was growing up with hamburger. Then freeze it as plain hamburger, taco meat, sloppy joes, etc in individual portion sizes using the snack-size bags then put those in a freezer bag. I love doing this!
Didn’t know about the ” all natural” sausage and I didn’t notice it at Costco Thanks for sharing!! I want to try it out with some breakfast tacos.
Brenda
The only thing that I would do different from this, is use freezer paper instead. Why use all natural and then wrap it in plastic? Great idea by the way. I wonder if adding chili powder, cilantro, garlic and vinegar would give it a little chorizo flavor?
Cassie
Hi Brenda,
Great idea on the spices. I like to keep it plain so that I can have lots of versatility with it and then spice it up as wanted at the time of reheating and adding to a dish. But that spice combo sounds great!
Bobbi Kilbarger
If you have one of the big pasta pots with a built in strainer, you can do this even easier. Just put the sausage or beef in the strainer with about an inch of water in the bottom of the pot and let it steam the meat. The extra fat will drip into the water and you don’t have to stand there and watch it. I just stir it every once in a while to make it cook faster.
Judy
what a great idea I hate fat period and normally drain if off and use paper towels to blot but this is so much better I shop costco twice month and did not know about this sausage I heard there is bacon with no nitrates but have yet to try it but will soon.
Denise
The nitrite/nitrate free bacon from Costco is very good and I’ve been using it now for quite some time. I was buying my unprocessed bacon at Whole Foods and it was way too expensive. It comes as two 2 lb packages and is branded as DaBecca unprocessed apple wood smoked bacon.
Cassie
Thanks for that tip as I haven’t looked for nitrate free bacon – but my family will love you for this tip. 🙂 I am going to watch for it now.
Kat S
Buying breakfast sausage in bulk sure makes it more accessible – disabled college student on a low grocery budget, here – but I can’t stand the idea of making breakfast sausage and not saving the drippings for biscuits and gravy! At the same time, making that amount of gravy at once seems like more than I’d use in time. Would it work to strain off the drippings, save them in the freezer, then scoop out a bit to melt when it was needed? I’m sure that seems like a silly question, but I wanted to check before missing out on good gravy!
Susan P
Kat, it works fust fine. I save the drippings in a small glass jar kept on the refrigerator door. MIL is from the south; she gave me the idea. 🙂
Mike
Great idea. I also use the Costco sausage-which they don’t carry right now in my area 🙁 to make breakfast sandwiches. I weigh out 2 oz. balls of sausage, place them on parchment paper, then squish them really flat. I stack them on a sheet pan for quick freezing and place them in the freezer. Once solid wrap them up or put them in a large zipper bag and put them back in the freezer. In the morning it is really easy to through an english muffin in the toaster and a patty in the pan. If you squish them flat enough they will be cooked in about the same amount of time it takes to toast the muffin. I love to spread a little horseradish on mine but that’s no for everyone.