Low Sodium Sausages - Are They Any Good?

[mcokevin]

The last couple of months I have had to keep a closer eye on my sodium intake. It has caused me to read labels a lot more closely. Docs want me to stay under 2,000 mg/day. For reference, the normal recommended max is 2,300 mg/day, which is very easy to exceed without even realizing it. A shockingly high amount of sodium is in virtually every processed or prepared food you pick up at the store, and in most restaurant meals. Even a cobb salad with grilled chicken ("healthy", right?) at Chik-Fil-A has ~1,400 mg of sodium - well over half the daily amount for a normal diet. Any breaded/fried chicken added to the salad will push the meal to 2,200+ mg - nearly the full recommended amount per day with one meal that most (including me) would assume is healthy.

It is also very present in sausages, which is not a surprise at all! I have checked the fresh sausages at BJs and every type of fresh and frozen sausage at Publix and everything seems to be in the 700-1,000 mg per sausage. I understand why, the amounts are just surprising as I have never read the labels before. Wild Fork has the lowest I've found so far at around 600 mg per sausage - getting into better territory.

I have done the math on some of the recipes I have at home for fresh sausage and they also calculate out to the 700-900 mg range per 4 oz serving. We have made fresh sausage before and love it, so I am considering just halving the amount of salt in the recipes we have at home which would take me into the 300 mg per sausage range - easy to stay within my limits at that amount (note: these are fresh sausages, not cured). My main question here though, is will they taste any good? Curious if anyone else has taken this approach and if you've enjoyed the results, or if I should just have one high sodium sausage with my dinners instead of two!

 

[normanaj]

The only "low sodium" store bought sausage I've found that is good is Davios.Their mild Italian chicken sausage has 490 per link,the hot chicken is 520.The House (pork) Italian is also 520 and the mild version at 530.There are other brands that are lower but they are awful to say the least.

 

[mcokevin]

The only "low sodium" store bought sausage I've found that is good is Davios.Their mild Italian chicken sausage has 490 per link,the hot chicken is 520.The House (pork) Italian is also 520 and the mild version at 530.There are other brands that are lower but they are awful to say the least.

Thanks - I don't think I would seek out a low sodium store-bought sausage, for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

My thinking is if I make it at home I can at least try and compensate for the lower sodium by adding some other flavors. But maybe I'm dreaming.

 

[chopsaw]

My main question here though, is will they taste any good? Curious if anyone else has taken this approach and if you've enjoyed the results, or if I should just have one high sodium sausage with my dinners instead of two!

SmokyMose Dan has been making lower sodium sausage lately . He'll have some input .

 

[normanaj]

Thanks - I don't think I would seek out a low sodium store-bought sausage, for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

Davios is actually a few higher end Italian restaraunts in Mass and I think there's one in Atlanta.Their sausage is excellent and sold locally here in some grocery stores.I generally don't like chicken sausage but Davios' is outstanding.

 

[DougE]

There is a little low sodium sausage discussion at the end of this thread:

Sausage making plunge | Page 3 | Smoking Meat Forums - The Best Smoking Meat Forum On Earth!

 

[Nefarious]

At our house we eat as little sodium as possible. I have been working with SmokinEdge and tallbm to first learn how to make sausage and second have as little sodium as is possible. I have made 2 batches of fresh sausage with 1.25% and they tasted great, but we are not used to eating that much sodium. If you start eating less, over time you don't miss it.

 

[mcokevin]

OK, there seems to be a decent amount of interest in this. And I did some googling and found this post from a couple of years back. Going to put together a worksheet that will calculate sodium per sausage (assuming a consistent weight per link) at varying ratios of salt per pound of meat.

Stay tuned :)

 

[SmokinEdge]

My mind is simple so keeping with that theme,

If sausage has 1% salt that would be 4.54g per pound of meat. Assuming a link weighed 1/4 pound or 113.5g the salt content would be 1.135g per link or 1135mg salt per link. At .5% salt that would be 567.5mg per link.

Salt contains about 40% sodium. Is that correct?

 

[mcokevin]

OK, here is what I put together. If anyone more experienced in sausage making and/or food science wants to check this math it would be appreciated, but I think I am correct. This would be using 10lb of meat, a 1.5% ratio of Morton Coarse Kosher Salt, 4oz finished portion size, and 2 cups of water. Water weighs 236g per cup so if you dissolve your salt/spices in a water mixture I don't think that weight is negligible.

1.50% would be around 608mg per sausage
1.25% would be around 508mg per sausage
1.00% would be around 407mg per sausage

 

[Nefarious]

My mind is simple so keeping with that theme,

If sausage has 1% salt that would be 4.54g per pound of meat. Assuming a link weighed 1/4 pound or 113.5g the salt content would be 1.135g per link or 1135mg salt per link. At .5% salt that would be 567.5mg per link.

Salt contains about 40% sodium. Is that correct?

The salt I use has .59g sodium / 1.5g or .393333 => .40

 

[mcokevin]

Salt contains about 40% sodium. Is that correct?

Depends on the salt. Morton Kosher Salt, yes -- 480mg sodium per serving, a serving size is 1.2g, so 480mg / 1.2g = 400mg sodium per gram i.e. 40%

 

[SmokyMose]

Salt contains about 40% sodium. Is that correct?

I don't know about the 40%, but according to the labels:
Morton Kosher; 480mg in 1/4tsp (1.2g)
Hain Sea Salt; 590mg in 1/4tsp (1.5g)
Morton Non-Iodized; 590mg in 1/4tsp (1.5g)
Accent; 120mg in 1/4tsp (1g)

mcokevin's numbers are about what I've been thinking....

 

[SmokyMose]

My main question here though, is will they taste any good?

Yes. After a while cutting back on the salt you notice you don't really miss it. After I started using Pop's lower salt brine for bacon I happened to thaw out a package from his original brine and it seemed all I tasted was salt.
When I started reading labels I was astounded how much Sodium is in almost everything!!
The Mrs. is supposed to stick to 2,000mg as well. It's tough but just getting rid of the salt shaker is a big changer....
She has been using the no salt alternatives in the shaker. I was never a big salter but she salts everything LOL!

 

[thirdeye]

The Marianski brothers have a book titled "Making Healthy Sausages. It has their typical chapters on technique and food safety, but the general focus is a more healthy product. The recipes call for lean meats, and instead of their signature amount of 18g (1.8%) of salt per kilogram of meat.... they shift to 15g (1.5%) of salt per kilogram of meat. Fillers might be non-fat dry milk, potato starch, soy or vegetable protein. I'm fine with salt in the 1.5% range, but I need to more exploring with leaner meats.

Here is a picture of the rear cover, which pretty much says it all.

 

[chopsaw]

Fillers might be non-fat dry milk, potato starch,

I just bought potato starch for this reason .

 

[indaswamp]

Speaking of salt and people that like to grab the salt shaker...

I have heard that if mom has a rough pregnancy and throws up a lot (dehydrated from the sickness) then the baby develops a higher tolerance for salt. I know of a lady that fits this to a T....

food for thought...

 

[cal1956]

after i had a heart attack 3 years ago , the Doc told me the salt had to go,
up until then i was a heavy salt user and could not see myself giving up salt but i found Mortons low soduim salt and after a month of using that i stopped even noticing it