Sausages are a beloved staple in cuisines around the world. From breakfast sandwiches to pasta dishes, these seasoned meat products add delicious flavor to many foods. But when it comes to classifying sausage, there is often debate around one key question – is sausage a cured meat?
To answer this, we first have to understand what exactly cured meat is and how the curing process works. Let’s take a closer look.
What is Cured Meat?
Cured meat refers to any meat that has been preserved and flavored using a curing process. This process involves adding salts nitrates sugars or other preservatives to the meat to inhibit bacteria growth and extend shelf life.
Some of the most common cured meats include:
- Bacon
- Ham
- Salami
- Prosciutto
- Pepperoni
The curing agents change the meat’s texture and flavor while allowing it to be stored safely for much longer durations Meats can be cured through smoking, drying, pickling, or combinations of these techniques.
Cured vs Fresh Sausage
When it comes to sausage, the curing distinction falls between dry, cured sausages and fresh sausages.
Dry or cured sausages undergo a lengthy curing process. Some examples are:
- Salami
- Pepperoni
- Chorizo
- Saucisson sec
These sausages are fermented and air dried, which allows them to be shelf-stable without refrigeration. The use of curing salts and bacterial cultures gives them a characteristic tangy, spicy flavor.
Fresh sausages do not go through curing. Types of fresh sausage include:
- Breakfast sausage
- Bratwurst
- Italian sweet sausage
- Merguez
They contain higher moisture content, so they must be kept refrigerated and cooked before eating. The meat is simply ground, mixed with spices, and stuffed into casings rather than cured.
- Dry, fermented sausages = cured
- Fresh, uncured sausages ≠ cured
This brings us to our answer…
Are Sausages Cured Meat?
Some sausages can be classified as cured meats, while others cannot.
Traditional dry sausages that are preserved through fermenting, drying, and curing agents fall into the cured meat category.
Fresh sausages that do not undergo these preservation methods are not considered cured meats.
The curing distinction depends on the production method, not the type of meat product. And both cured and fresh sausages can be enjoyed for their unique textures and flavors!
Frequently Asked Questions
Still have some lingering questions about sausages and cured meats? Here are answers to some common FAQs.
What is the difference between cured and uncured sausage?
Cured sausage has been preserved using curing salts and fermentation while fresh uncured sausage does not go through this process.
Can you cure sausage at home?
Yes, you can cure sausage at home with some practice! Be sure to follow strict sanitation and precise measurements when using curing salts.
Are there health concerns with cured meats?
There are some studies linking high cured meat consumption to increased cancer and heart disease risk. Enjoy cured meats in moderation as part of a balanced diet.
What are some examples of cured sausages?
Some popular cured sausages include pepperoni, salami, chorizo, metworst, saucisson sec, soppressata, and linguica.
Can sausage be cured without nitrates?
Nitrate-free curing agents like celery juice powder can be used to cure sausage without nitrates.
How long does sausage curing take?
Curing times range from 2 days for quick-cured sausages up to 6 weeks for slow-cured salamis.
What ingredients are used in curing sausage?
Typical curing ingredients include salts, sugars, spices, starter cultures, and either nitrates or nitrate alternatives.
Can cured sausage be eaten without cooking?
Yes, most properly cured sausages are safe to eat without cooking, making them great for charcuterie boards.
What’s the difference between dry and fresh sausage?
Dry sausage is cured, while fresh sausage contains more moisture and requires refrigeration.
Are there health benefits to cured sausage?
Cured sausage can provide protein, iron, zinc and B vitamins. But enjoy in moderation due to high sodium content.
What is the traditional curing method?
Traditionally, meats were cured with salt and spices, then left to ferment at cool temperatures to preserve them.
What are some curing misconceptions?
Some think all sausages are cured, but fresh sausage does not go through curing. Nitrate-free options are also available.
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How to Make Cured Sausages:
Below, we’ve written up a general guide for making cured salamis. Just like our sausage making guide, this walks you through the process of making salami, start to finish. There may be slight differences depending on the recipe you use, but this is how the process usually goes.
1. Mix and grind ingredients
2. Add bacterial culture and mix
3. Stuff into casing
4. Weigh and record weights
8. Weigh to check for doneness
1. Grind and mix your sausage according to the recipe you’ve chosen. If you’ve never made sausage before, check out our basics guide.
2. As directed by the manufacturer, combine distilled water (avoid chlorinated water as it may stop the culture from growing) with the amount of culture called for in the recipe. Give it a light stir. It should be left at room temperature for the right amount of time before being mixed into the ground meat.
All of our dry cured sausages are inoculated with a bacterial culture. Most of our recipes use dextrose as the sugar, and this bacteria eats it and ferments the meat. This lowers the meat’s PH level enough to stop harmful bacteria from growing. This fermentation also gives the salamis the distinct tanginess in flavor, as well as texture and color. The natural cultures that come from making kimchi or sauerkraut could be used for this, but we haven’t tried it and can’t recommend it.
If you want to do a deep dive into bacterial cultures, check out this page. Specific cultures incubate, acidify and feed on different sugars at different optimal temperatures and different salt levels. They all also contribute varying flavor characteristics to the sausage. Generally, we advise you to stick with the culture indicated in the recipe you are following, but if you want to nerd out on charcuterie, this is a great topic to read up on.
3. Stuff the meat into casing. If you’ve never made sausage before, check out our basics guide.
4. Weigh and record the starting weight of your salami. This will be how you gauge doneness. I use freezer tape, masking tape, and a sharpie to write the date and weight of the first salami on each bunch.
5. Incubate the sausages. This is done before hanging the meat to dry. By hanging it somewhere warm, the added bacterial cultures can multiply and make sure the right growth happens. This creates a PH level that stops harmful bacteria from growing.
This step can be done in the curing chamber if it’s not being used to cure another batch of salami at the moment. Depending on the recipe, set the temperature to between 80F and 126F and hang the meat for the time suggested. After the incubation period, lower the temperature to the suggested drying temperature.
If you have more meat that needs to be dried, you will need to incubate it in a different room. Hang the salami in a warm area (80-90F) with high humidity away from light and drafts. A wet towel on top of a cardboard box with a hanger across the top is what I use. I put it next to a heater. The next project is to build a proper incubator that is collapsible.
6. Dry the sausages. Hang the sausages in the chamber and slowly allow them to dry. What the ideal temperature and humidity are depends on where you get your information, but we usually set our chamber at 55F and 70% humidity.
7. Monitor the drying process. Keep an eye on the temperature and humidity. Check the dryness of the sausage casing and look for mold growth.
If you can’t stand the sight of mold, you’re going to either need to get over it or give up on dry curing. Molds, both beneficial and non-beneficial, are a major part of dry curing. The temperature and humidity of a curing chamber are conducive to mold growth. There are good molds, bad molds, and somewhere in the middle molds. Good mold looks like white chalk- it’ll start covering parts of the cured meat and helps to retain moisture and prevent case hardening. You can inoculate the exterior of the sausage with a mold culture (MOLD 600). Once you have enough of the right kind of mold growing, it outcompetes the bad mold.
If you get fuzzy green, blue, or black mold growing, you potentially have a problem. From our research, fuzzy white mold is not bad but not great either. We wipe this stuff off the sausages with a clean towel dipped in vinegar. We take care of the green fuzzy stuff the same way we do the white stuff. It’s not the end of the world when it turns a little green. Black, blue, and dark green molds are a bad sign. You can try to wipe it off, but if it keeps coming back, you should throw away the sausage and clean the whole area where it was curing. Some of these molds will burrow into the meat. If you cut a salami and there is dark mold on the inside, toss it.
You also want to look for case hardening. This happens when the casing dries out too quickly (or not evenly) and doesn’t let the sausage’s moisture escape. This is usually due to low humidity, too much airflow, or too much direct heat. Every couple of days, we move the salami around to check on the ones in the back. This seems to help keep the case from getting too hard and all the salamis drying at the same rate.
8. Periodically weigh the meat. To find out if the sausage is done, you need to look at its texture and weight instead of its internal temperature, since the sausage is never cooked.
By general agreement, you want to lose 30 to 35 percent of your body weight. You can dry the meat even more if you want to. To do this, weigh the meat and write down its starting weight. Then, check the weight on a regular basis to see how much weight you’ve lost.
9. Equalize the sausages if you have any case hardening. If the sausage is otherwise good (the inside isn’t soft, it smells good, and it tastes good), we vacuum seal it and put it in the regular fridge for two weeks so that the moisture levels in the sausage are even.
Spices: Spices can and should be adjusted to your tastes once you are comfortable with the process. Since we both like to use local ingredients and highlight local flavors, some of these recipes will use things that you might not be able to find where you live. We recommend using similar ingredients that are locally available.
The meat: The quality of what you use will directly influence the end result. Proper field care and storage are a must. You will get iffy results from a dry cure project if you start with iffy meat. Wild game is what we use most of the time. The pork and pork fat we do use come from small farms near our butcher. If we ever get into some feral pigs, we’ll be using that.
We field a lot of questions about the sausage and charcuterie making process. One question that always comes up is what books we recommend to learn more about the processes. This fortunately, is an easy question. Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn has all the fundamentals you need to cure meats and develop your own sausage recipes. It’s the first book we bought on the subject matter, and it’s still the one we go to the most when we want to cross reference an idea.
The Art of Making Fermented Sausages by the Marianski brothers is a deep dive into the process of making salami. This book gives you the information you need to make salami safely, and a deeper understanding of how salami works.
We highly recommend both books, but if you are just starting out and could only purchase one, start with Charcuterie.
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Dry curing meat is an art and a science. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. At its core, the goal is to preserve uncooked meat by allowing it to slowly dry while preventing harmful bacteria from forming. You can dry cure a whole muscle cut (think prosciutto) or sausages (think salami). To do this, you need two things:
Salt creates an inhospitable environment for most food spoilage bacteria. This is the cornerstone for dry curing meats. We use coarse kosher salt in all our recipes. Don’t use salt that contains iodine. Nitrates, or curing salts, are also used in our recipes to further prevent harmful bacteria, namely botulism. We use Instacure #1 and Instacure #2. There are equivalents to Instacure #1 and #2 and they are fine to use, but sel rose and other “pink salts” are not the same thing. If you want to use a different curing salt instead of the ones we list in our recipes, do your homework and be careful. Never put nitrates in your dry-cured meats. Instead, use someone else’s recipe. We don’t want to send anyone down a path that could make them sick or worse. All of our dry cured recipes call for the use of salt and nitrates. Do not change the proportion of these ingredients.
Being about 55F, having a relative humidity of 70%, and having little to no light is what makes an ideal environment for curing. This can be as simple as a dark corner in your basement or a closet that stays cool. An unplugged refrigerator with a pan of salt and water could be used and is suggested by Ruhlman. If you want to be sure that your space is good for dry curing, you need to use a thermometer and hygrometer to check it. They are inexpensive and will give you an idea of what you are working with.
Before we built the curing chamber, we attempted a handful of dry cured charcuteries. Because our house stays warm and dry, it wasn’t the best place to cure meats, so it was a bit of a crap shoot. We rigged up a small dorm fridge with a temperature controller, but we couldn’t control the humidity. The results were mixed- the duck and goose prosciutto were fantastic, albeit a bit dry. The duck was the best tasting, but the first whitetail bresaola had a much rougher texture. The beaver tail lardo could have been much better as well. We learned a lot.
From our own experience, we strongly suggest that you construct a curing chamber if you don’t have a nearly ideal setting for dry curing. The process is easy, and the whole thing can be put together in two hours if you can learn from our mistakes. We have the basic outline of how to build your own cure chamber here.