Easter Brunch Idea: Jim’s Hot Sausage Balls

Well, this is an Easter like we have never experienced in our lifetime. We are socially distancing from our extended family and friends and will be celebrating just as our little family unit. However, I still want to recognize the holiday and celebrate it as special, not just another “What Day Is It” kind of day. I hope you feel the same and are considering brunch ideas for your social circle. If you need an idea, I have one for you! Jim’s Hot Sausage Balls

Do you have an event in your life where you do things that you maybe would not the rest of the year? We do! Drag Race Weekend. We spend 3 days hosting friends, family, and colleagues to amazing food, many beverages and great fun all trackside for a national drag race event. This is a weekend where we cook outside for all of our meals and eat things we typically would not eat. Jim has a trackside RV spot a few spaces from ours. We see him once a year. Without fail he makes sausage balls and shares them with us. I really know nothing about Jim, we have never been to his house and have no idea what his hygiene habits might be, but I cannot resist partaking in his balls. (Ha! Pun intended) Gosh, I am glad I broke the “don’t take treats from strangers” rule! His hot sausage balls are super tasty!

Luckily the 2020 event in Phoenix was prior to the COVID-19 outbreak so I got to chat with Jim about his sausage balls again this year to figure out to make them myself. Luckily, it is a Betty Crocker recipe that is modified slightly. Super easy and a total crowd pleaser. When we cooked these to photograph for the blog we had a ton! We could have frozen the extras, but why not share them with friends. Well, it was unanimous…everyone loved them! It even took one friend back to her younger years when her mom would make something similar for Christmas.

So…here is how you can make your own Hot Sausage Balls. We typically use residual heat when we are making meals other than pizza. Residual heat just means we make pizza a day or two before and then use remaining coals and additional logs to achieve the necessary baking or roasting temperature. For this recipe you want your oven between 400 and 450 degrees. Note: There is a picture toward the end of this post that shows our coals and one lone log with a small flame to achieve this temperature.

Choose your breakfast sausage. We prefer things spicy so I chose Jimmy Dean HOT sausage. You could also go with regular or even sage and they would still be great. Just in case the hot sausage wasn’t enough, Jim adds peppers. He used jalapeño, but I had fresno chili on hand so I used that.

Next, THE best pantry ingredient…Bisquick! I am not exactly sure what is in Bisquick, but it can be savory or it can be sweet (like our wood fired Apple Crisp), it is just magical.

SQUIRREL! Do you have a food processor? It is seriously the best invention and one that I had never fully utilized until the last few years. Just as I embraced its magic…it broke. Holy smokes the new one is awesome!!! It is now my best friend when grating large amounts of anything, chopping, etc. I dread hand grating cheese and the 16 ounces of cheese for these balls is NO fun to grate by hand. I should also say, I prefer not to use the pre-shredded stuff because of the anti-caking agents that cause it to melt differently than freshly grated. I tossed it in the food processor and in literally 5 seconds I had all this cheese! Ok, back to the real reason we are here.

Add that gloriously grated cheddar cheese and the milk to act as the binder. Combine everything and roll like meatballs.

Place the sausage balls on a lightly greased baking sheet and slide them into the wood fired oven. You are looking for them to brown and cook all the way through. No need to roll or turn them over just bake to delicious perfection. Depending on the temperature in your oven this should take about 15 minutes, give or take.

For variation, you could add herbs or different cheeses, but in my mind these are perfect as is. They take me right back to the trackside RV and my once a year friend, Jim. So if you are looking for something easy, SOOO tasty and a total crowd pleaser, make and share Jim’s Sausage Balls for your Easter brunch this year.

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