These chicken breakfast sausage patties have all the same sausage flavor you love with a fraction of the fat and calories. Now you can have peppery, smoky breakfast sausage for just 60 calories a piece.
And if you think making your own sausage might be complicated, think again. Mix a few spices together, add to ground chicken, form patties like you’re making burgers, and throw ’em in a pan. That’s it!
Chicken Breakfast Sausage Ingredients and Substitutions
If you’re familiar with my recipes, you know I love using reduced fat pork sausage. While it’s a great ingredient, it’s still rather high in fat and calories—even for a reduced fat version.
These chicken sausage patties use a leaner source of meat in ground chicken. Not only is ground chicken much leaner, it takes on the breakfast sausage flavors really well.
In case you have trouble finding ground chicken, you’re welcome to use ground turkey or even ground pork. You may also be able to have chicken breast ground for you in the butcher section of your grocery store.
Chicken Breakfast Sausage Seasoning Recipe
After testing SO many spice blends, I think I finally nailed the classic breakfast sausage flavor. Here’s everything you’ll need:
- salt
- black pepper
- crushed red pepper
- smoked paprika
- allspice
- sage
- brown sugar
With all the testing, I’ll say that there’s plenty of wiggle room with the ingredients. I tried adding a bit of thyme, ground cloves, and sweet paprika without any failures. So, if you’re missing an ingredient, you can probably substitute something else and get pretty close.
The only ingredients I’d try to nail 100% would be the salt, black and red pepper, and brown sugar.
Side note: For another fun seasoning blend, check out my ground chicken chorizo (seasoning from scratch) or lean pork Mexican chorizo (pre-mixed chorizo seasoning option) recipes.
Tips for Cooking the Chicken Sausage
As I mention in the recipe notes below, stainless steel or cast iron will work best for creating a sear and crispy crust. A nonstick skillet should work just fine but if you’re lacking that fatty-like sausage exterior, this could be the culprit.
And in case you’re wondering if the oil is necessary, it’s not, but I highly recommend using it. The olive oil provides a ton of flavor and, once again, helps create the crust on the chicken breakfast sausage. You can, however, use another type of oil if you don’t have olive oil on hand.
Freezer Storage and Bulk Meal Prep Tips
I think making an even bigger batch is smart since this a more labor intensive breakfast recipe to begin with. It’s not much more effort to mix an extra pound or two of ground chicken with the seasoning blend and get a second pan going.
The sausage patties should refrigerate well for 3-4 days, and you can freeze them in an airtight container or bag for later. I would recommend placing small sheets of parchment paper between them inside whatever freezer container you use. That way they’re easy to separate and pop in an air fryer or microwave to reheat.
I always like to thaw proteins before reheating instead of reheating from frozen, if possible. So you might freeze the chicken sausage patties in smaller portions to easily transfer from the freezer to refrigerator the night before. This also makes it easier to submerge the bag or container in water for 30 minutes to thaw on the day of.
Healthy Breakfast Sandwiches and Other Ways to Serve Your Homemade Breakfast Sausage
These sausages make the perfect breakfast sandwich. Try my Greek yogurt biscuits or pair them with folded eggs to make Homemade McGriddles. Or feel free to keep it simple and serve this recipe up with a fried egg on toast or biscuits, or with a side of my air fried breakfast potatoes and peppers.
That should be plenty of inspiration. If you have any recipe questions, drop a comment below. And don’t forget to snap a pic of your healthy breakfast sausage and tag me on Instagram!
Chicken Breakfast Sausage Patties
Ingredients
- 1 lb Ground Chicken, I used 97/3
- 2 tsp Black Pepper
- 1 tsp Smoked Paprika
- 1/2-1 tsp Crushed Red Pepper
- 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt, or 1/4 tsp table salt
- 1/2 tsp Rubbed Sage
- 1/4 tsp Allspice
- 2 Tbsp 24g Swerve Brown Sugar (or dark brown sugar)*
- 1 Tbsp 16g Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Instructions
Making the Sausage Patties
- Mix the dry spices and brown sugar in a small bowl before adding to the ground chicken. Work the chicken and spices together until evenly mixed.
- Divide the ground chicken into 10 pieces (about 48 grams or 1.8 ounces each) and press between your palms to flatten.
Cooking the Chicken Breakfast Sausage
- Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat with the olive oil. (I used a 12" cast iron skillet. If you’re using a smaller skillet, you may need to cook in batches.)
- Once the oil is hot, carefully add the sausage patties to the skillet. Cook for 3-4 minutes or until the bottoms are a crispy brown. Flip each patty and cook for an additional 3-4 minutes or until the patties are cooked through and reach an internal temp of 165ºF. Transfer to a plate and let the sausage patties rest for a few minutes before serving.
Notes
- Each sausage patty has 0 WW SmartPoints (blue).
- With 92/8 ground chicken, each chicken breakfast sausage patty has 80 calories, 9g protein, 0g carbs, and 5g fat
- Check out my sausage gravy and sausage egg and cheese breakfast skillet casserole if you love the flavor of this breakfast sausage and want more ways to use it.
I made these with the purpose of crumbling them up and adding them to my weekly egg muffins. It worked so well. Perfectly crumbly and packed a ton of flavor. I used light brown sugar because I don’t have swerve and it didn’t add many calories. Next time I want to try them with the Greek yogurt biscuits. Definitely worth making!
Easy for me to make at home. I use 94/6 chicken since I can never find the 97/3 where I live but it only adds a few calories and fat grams. I make them every other week and thrown 1 into my eggs daily!
I love sausage but I don’t love the amount of fat. These are so good without having to consume an insane amount of fat. I made these for breakfast at dinner and also added to a homemade gravy and it was SO good!! I use my cast iron skillet and it gets so crispy. Read the tips and tricks before trying the recipes and it works perfect every time!
Taste is great. We keep it as ground meat usually (the patties were difficult to form and work with for us). We find it a little sweet so I do half the brown sugar – but overall a win!
I find this to be too sweet for my liking. I used monk fruit sweeter when I made it. I liked the texture of the sausage, and flavor of the spices. The next time I make this I will leave out the sweetener.
Yeah, I’d go with brown sugar or a close replacement or nothing at all on the next go!
This was the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted in my life. It was so revolting it made my son cry because he likes meat so much and it was totally gross.
I am trying to lower my sodium for blood pressure and kidney health and breakfast meats are one of the highest sodium meats out there. NOTHING on the market that I could find. I’m taking your recipe and omitting the salt. Only 55mg of sodium in 4oz of ground chicken!
I’m curious to know how they turned out with the salt reduction. Worth repeating?
We started making these chicken breakfast sausages several months ago. The entire family loves them. Much healthier than the regular sausage patties we used to purchase. These taste great and the seasoning is on point. My husband sometimes brushes a small amount of maple on his. They freeze great. I often triple the batch so we have these available for breakfast sandwiches.
I have made these twice and I can honestly say they are amazing. After cutting out pork, I can eat sausage again and without all the preservatives and extra salt. I can tweak this and it still tastes good. I usually lower the salt and I added some maple flavoring. Sweet, spicy and breakfasty all at the same time! I let my brother sample, he loved it. My husband wanted mine instead of his Bob evans breakfast sausage. Easy too. Great recipe I will use forever.
Just came across this recipe and excited to try it! Would this work with Granny Smith apple added to it?
That’s an interesting idea! Looks like this recipe for pork and apple breakfast sausage uses half a cup of shredded apple for a pound of pork.