Classic Sausage Meat, Simple, Versatile and Full of Flavour
We use the same quality heritage breed pork for our Classic Sausage Meat as we do for our whole muscle cuts, choosing traditional breeds prized for their depth of flavour, natural marbling and succulent texture. Shoulder and belly provide the ideal balance of lean meat and fat, giving the sausage meat the richness and juiciness that proper sausage recipes demand.

Seasoned with a classic blend of nutmeg, mace and black pepper, it has the savoury, gently spiced flavour you want from traditional sausage meat. It is a deceptively simple recipe, but that simplicity is exactly the point. With well-reared pork and balanced seasoning, there is no need to hide behind fillers or overworked flavourings.

This is an exceptionally versatile ingredient to keep on hand. Use it for homemade sausage rolls, Scotch eggs and stuffing, whether for a whole chicken on a Sunday or the festive bird at Christmas. It is equally good at breakfast, shaped into patties for a sausage and egg muffin, or cooked and crumbled into a pan with eggs and hash browns.

Made using the same seasoned pork mixture as our Yorkshire Breakfast Sausages, Yorkshire Breakfast Chipolatas and Yorkshire Breakfast Sausage Patties, it delivers the same rich, properly meaty character in a more flexible format. However you use it, Classic Sausage Meat brings comfort, flavour and substance to the plate.

Chef Val Warner on Classic Sausage Meat
Chef Val Warner loves Swaledale’s Classic Sausage Meat, describing it as delicious, juicy, tender, well-fatted and ground to perfection. In his view, classic sausage meat often calls for classic treatment.

“Don’t forget toad in the hole with onion gravy. When was the last time you had that, eh? Cook the batter in dripping or lard.

With Christmas on the way and my cockerel in the oven, I’ll core some apples, then make a very light cut through the skin around the middle of each apple’s circumference. Mix the sausage meat with a few crushed ginger nut biscuits and plenty of black pepper. Stuff the mixture into the cored apples and roast until the fruit is soft. Sprinkle a little more biscuit on top to stop the jelly melting, then finish with a good spoonful of redcurrant jelly. Serve with the bird and all the trimmings.

Rolled into balls, browned, then cooked in tomato sauce, these meatballs are very easy to make and wonderful on spaghetti under a blizzard of Parmesan.

Made smaller, the same meatballs are excellent with gnocchi tossed in butter and crispy sage, with the obligatory grating of pecorino to follow. They are also delicious with slow-cooked chard, boiled, chopped and sautéed long and patiently with garlic and chillies in olive oil, then finished with lemon juice.

Mixed with a little smoked paprika and fried in small balls, they can be very pleasing skewered on a toothpick, a surprising accompaniment to raw oysters.

Or cook some onions and garlic in butter with a few fennel seeds, then deglaze with a little sweet sherry. Mix this with the sausage meat and some freshly chopped parsley. Take a medium-sized cleaned squid body and stuff it with the sausage mixture, securing it with a toothpick. Brown alongside the tentacles, then roast in the oven. Slice and serve with extra virgin olive oil and lemon wedges.”