Right now I just take raw sausage and pull it apart and press it with my fingers then put it on the pizza… this takes a huge amount of time that I dont have.
I tried par-cooking it then chopping it but it just dosent look right at all.
Any idea’s on what to do?
Thanks all!
J
Buy it cooked from your food distributor.
They don’t cook it… they make it from scratch right there and only sell it raw.
Other thoughts?
This will either be great or just plain stupid… I’ll let you try it and see.
Cook it up in a covered pan in the oven. It doesn’t have to be completely cooked since you were using raw anyway, just enough to stiffen it up. Dump the sausage in either a food processor (smaller batch) and pulse it a few times. You may end up with very small chunks or pellets if you do it too much (or you may not get enough break-up if you don’t do it enough). I’ve done it once, and I had to go to the fine pellet version. It’s not bad if the people ordering it actually LIKE sausage, but if they’re planning to pick it off, it ain’t happening. The second choice would be to break it up by hand some, then put it in the mixer with the flat beater and let the mixer break it up into smaller chunks. Again, no guarantee of greatness here.
Another option would be to get it in patty form, cook it, and then cut it by hand into quarters or such.
You could try other forms of sausage, from other sources. You only use ONE food distributor?
Personally, I have a preference for actual slices of sausage. Even precooked presliced from my food distributor is pretty good compared to the flavor of what I call “turd-style”.
But I buy link, cook it, cool it, and then slice it (we use an automatic slicer).
I’ve got about 4 distributors but this perticular one has the best pizza sausage i’ve ever tasted… thats why i’m not switching to inferior sausage. It comes in a 5# plastic bag that i just cut open and use, i was trying to flatten it and piece it out but still had problems so i’ve got no idea. 
It really helps to get some sauce on the sausage. Put a ball of it in your left hand, dip your right fingers into some sauce and then rub it over the sausage. Then, use your left hand to squeeze it flat between your index finger and thumb in kind of a “rolling” fashion (like your snapping with your index finger.)
That will give you a nice flat piece. Pinch it off with your right hand so it’s stuck to your thumb. Then push it onto pizza and use your index and middle finger to push it off of your thumb. The sauce that was on it will help it release. Once the sausage in your hand starts getting dry, get some more sauce on it. Use a lot if you have to. My only suggestion there is to use the sauce that’s already on the pizza so you aren’t continually adding more sauce. Just rub your fingers over the sauced shell.
I know that’s probably really tough to understand in a text version, but it’s how I do it. When I first tried making a fresh sausage pizza, I almost scrapped my plans to open. It probably took me 7 minutes to put the sausage on a 16". After a few months, I was able to put in on in about 1 minute. Now I’m probably under a minute.
Don’t give up on it. Fresh sausage pizzerias are a dying breed and it could really set you apart. It just takes a lot of practice.
What’s so good about “fresh sausage”? I see it as a huge grease contributor. I’m not arguing “real sausage” vs “rabbit pellets” but uncooked vs pre-cooked.
The flavor that an uncooked, lean, Italian Sausage gives to a pizza is simply undeniable…and the same goes for uncooked, lean ground beef.
Yup, it takes more time…but the flavor is well worth it!!!
JOHN
I actually make my own sausage. I’d put it up against anyone’s. After 2 years and 5 months I can put it on relatively quickly.
I think it’s the same reason a steak house wouldn’t pre-cook your filet, refrigerate it for a week or so, and then throw it back on the grill when you order it. It would be a dry, shriveled, flavorless mess.
As far as grease, I can’t speak for any commercially available sausages. We make our own out of 1/4" trim pork butts. We cut the entire trim off, and remove the majority of the fat while we’re butchering the pork. We probably end up with less than 5% fat in the sausage.
Fresh sausage will still be crap if the manufacturer just drops the entire butt into a grinder with the fat, veins, arteries and all. It has to be lean and well butchered.