Easy Sausage Ball Recipe (with real food)

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Sausage balls without Bisquick are easy to make in bulk and even picky kids will gobble them up! It’s like having your biscuit and your sausage all in one!

I wanted to add some new menu items to my childcare menu and I thought of the idea of a sausage ball recipe. People serve them as hors d’oeuvres at parties, but they are really just cheese and sausage biscuits. I knew they were incredibly easy to make, but they use Bisquick baking mix and I don’t use boxed foods like that.

Pre-made foods are full of unnecessary chemicals, some of which I am allergic to, but all of which are unhealthy for our bodies. I wanted to come up with a plan to make these yummy flavor-packed sausage balls without the Bisquick.

I started out with Trisha Yearwood’s recipe for easy sausage balls. Click here to see it. Its super cinchy to make and she’s Southern so I already know I like her food! (Plus, I just like her anyways)

Next, I pulled out an old recipe for homemade “master mix” from an old cookbook, Make a Mix Cookery that I refer to often to replace processed ingredients.

Sausage balls without Bisquick

Bisquick-free sausage ball ingredients are 

• 1 cup flour
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 3/4 cup butter cut into cubes
• 1 pound sausage
• 1 pound grated cheddar cheese

In large bowl of stand mixer, add flours, baking powder and soda, cream of tartar, salt and pepper. 
Mix well.
Add butter.
Mix in stand mixer until butter is pea sized.
Add sausage and cheese. 
Mix with mixer until combined.
Form into 1 inch balls. 
Place on a sheet tray and bake at 375 for 20 minutes

Healthy sausage balls

For our new meal plan requirements, we must serve at least one whole grain per day, so I wanted to make my sausage balls with whole grains. Click here to see the new meal plan requirements. You could use these sausage balls for breakfast, lunch or even snack. 

Once I decided what I was going to use, I divided up the recipe so I wouldn’t have any leftover baking mix to deal with, I could just dump it in the mixer and mix. The mixer mixes the sausage and cheese right in for you. It easy peasy to make these sausage balls without Bisquick.

You can even use spicy hot sausage if you like. For the kids, we went with mild blue and gold breakfast sausage. 

You can also add grated vegetables at this point to make your sausage balls even healthier. I like to add green powder to get the kids an un-detectable serving of greens. You could also add a cup or two of grated carrots, broccoli or another vegetable. If you use something with lots of moisture like zucchini, you’ll have to add more dry ingredients because they will make your dough too wet.

After you dump everything in a large bowl and whisk. Let the mixer do the work. Scoop your easy sausage balls into one inch balls onto a baking sheet pan one inch apart. You can even line them with parchment paper or aluminum foil for easier cleanup. Then bake them off.

How to freeze sausage balls

These Bisquick-free sausage balls are great for the freezer. I love cooking easy freezer foods for a faster meal later. You can freeze them raw and bake them as needed or bake the sausage balls and freeze them cooked. Either way, they turn out great. I am planning to lay my frozen sausage balls out on a baking sheet and let them thaw before I bake them.

This easy sausage ball recipe without Bisquick is so fast and simple. It’s not any harder to make it homemade with individual ingredients than it is to use Bisquick. Just toss it in the mixer and turn it on. I got a hearty thumbs up on them from all the kids and my husband. He was super excited to come home and tell me he loved them after I sent them in his lunch.

I plan to keep making two batches at a time. Since I already have to get a bowl dirty, I might as well use it twice in a row. Check out the blog for lots of other healthy recipes for kids.

For even more make-ahead freezer meals that you can prepare ahead, check out this post.

I hope you try these super easy sausage balls and keep this recipe to use with your family. Let me know what you think!

For more quick and easy freezer meals, check these out.