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.
This is a great chicken sausage recipe! I process my own meat chickens and always a ton a breasts to use up, and I so glad I found this recipe because it was delicious. I did make mine bigger and used almost 2 lbs but the macros were still awesome and I it is way higher protein with less fat! thanks for sharing.
WOW! I have a lot of ground chicken in my freezer because it is a cheaper meat. My little tribe of grandchildren love sausage but I worry about too much fat in their diet. This recipe is wonderful! The kids love a breakfast for dinner and I love easy country cooking. Tonight we had the sausage patties, scrambled eggs with homemade biscuits and marmalade. There is not a crumb left of anything and all agreed this was the breakfast for this coming Sunday. You knocked this one out of the park. THANKS!!!!
This recipe was great! It was flavorful and tasted just like breakfast sausage, will definitely be making this and the biscuits and gravy recipe. It is so hard to find sausage without pork in the store other than Applegate, so thanks!!
I really loved these for my first try however (and it seems I’m alone here) they were SPICY🔥for me and a bit too sweet (AND I omitted the crushed pepper and reduced the black pepper and the brown sugar a bit). Not sure if to reduce the black pepper more or reduce the paprika next time to tone down the zing. I’ll also reduce the brown sugar a bit more and add a smidge more salt. All in all though great simple recipe. Can’t wait to peruse your site for some more great stuff.
Dude, this recipe was spectacular! Thank you so much for sharing
I really wanted to like this based on the high rating but it was just not good. I made it exactly as the recipe calls, which any reviewer should do. I had my doubts when I saw allspice and sage. That’s all I tasted. Like someone was trying to cleanse the spirits in my mouth. I think I’ll do again, omitting the sage and allspice, and adding garlic and onion powder. Sorry, I really was hopeful.
Delicious! I haven’t used the recipe for sausage patties yet, but use it to make spaghetti sauce and it’s perfect! Thank you for sharing!
Absolutely fantastic. I substituted four medium sage leaves for the powder and used ground up chicken breast, but basically as you suggested. I really like not needing filler (breadcrumbs) or binding (eggs). Thank you.
I know I’m late to the game here, but this recipe is fantastic! I cut the sugar in half and used 1/8t salt for dietary reasons to no ill effect. I also added some fennel seeds, as I love them in sausage. Making my second batch (after I just cleaned up from first round!) now!
Thank you for this keeper!
Seems like I’m the odd one out. Made this recipe and boy it was too spicy. Almost inedible. Is it the black pepper or the red crushed pepper? Not sure, but toning them down next time. I’ll prolly just crush up this batch and make an omelette because the spice need to be tamed. Flavor is there though. PS I’m Asian and used to “spice” this one hits differently.