Antelope Summer Sausage
By Cecil Cherry
One of my favorite big game animals to hunt is the pronghorn antelope. The antelope is native only to North America and makes a challenging three-day hunt. I took my third antelope in Southeastern Wyoming in October 2024. I brought back larger, primal cuts for steaks and roasts. There was also plenty of grind meat left over. The dilemma was how to prepare it. I wanted to choose something other than burger for such a fantastic animal. That set me to thinking…what could be done with the venison scraps?
My wife and I enjoy Charcuterie boards with summer sausage, smoked cheese, and crackers. We serve this as appetizers for parties, when our favorite college team is playing on tv, or an easy, light meal. I thought, why not try my hand at making my own summer sausage from the antelope meat? I went with the smoky, peppery, cheesy flavor of jalapeño cheddar summer sausage. We also decided to try our hand at smoking our own cheese. We prepare the summer sausage and smoked cheese on our Weber Kamado smoker at home on our deck.
The highest expense for making my own summer sausage was purchasing a meat grinder. The commercial jalapeño cheddar cure, high heat cheddar cheese, and non-edible fibrous casings are all available to order online. You can buy the ingredients for the seasoning and cure for a true DIY experience, but I found the process to be easier with a pre-made mix that was pre-measured for five pounds of summer sausage and delivered to the front door. I purchased Backwoods cured sausage seasonings jalapeño cheddar mix, Backwoods high temperature cheddar cheese, and the non-edible, unmarked casings online from LEM. I chose LEM because I like their products and the customer service is great to work with.
Antelope Jalapeño Cheddar Summer Sausage
- 5 pounds cubed antelope meat (or any big game/venison)
- 2 pounds salted fat back (this can be bought in the meat section of your grocery store)
- 1 package of Jalapeño Cheddar Summer Sausage Mix
- ½ to ¾ pound of High Temperature Cheddar Cheese
- 1 cup of water
- 5 or 6 jumbo jalapeño peppers, seeded, veined, and diced
- Charcoal grill/smoker
- 7 or 8 charcoal briquettes
- 1 chunk of hickory or oak wood for smoking
- Kitchen Twine
- 1 ½ x 12-inch Unprinted Fibrous Casings
Directions:
Begin the process of making the summer sausage with cold meat and fat. Cube the meat and fat into 1-inch cubes. Grind the meat and fat together using a 3/8” plate. Then grind the meat mixture a second time using a 1/8” plate. Add ice to the ground meat mixture to keep it cold. (It is important to keep the ground meat and fat cold so the fat will not melt into the mixture. If this happens, the fat could render during the cooking process, it could get sticky, and it could become too mealy, thus ruining your mix.) Next, thoroughly mix one packet of seasoning and cure in a cup of water, and dissolve and then mix into the ground meat. And last, add the diced jalapeño peppers and high temperature cheese to the mixture.
Soak the casings in warm water until pliable. Change the grind plate to a #5 stuffing plate and remove the grinding blade from the grinder. Add the meat mixture to the grinder to start stuffing the casings. Make sure there is no air in the stuffer. Place the casing on the stuffing tube and begin stuffing the casing. When the casing is nearly stuffed, pull the sausage off the grinder and tie the open end with kitchen twine. Continue this process until you have stuffed all the casings. Place the summer sausage in the refrigerator overnight so the casings can dry out.
Later….
The next day, place six charcoal briquettes in the bottom of your charcoal grill. Light a seventh briquette and let it ash over. Place the lit briquette on the other two briquettes and add a chunk of hickory or oak. Add the summer sausage and smoke over indirect heat for approximately an hour and a half or until the sausage reaches an internal temperature of 150 degrees.
Take the summer sausage off the grill and let cool inside. Return to the refrigerator until the summer sausage is completely cool. The summer sausage is then ready to eat or put in freezer bags to freeze for later enjoyment. (I prefer to vacuum seal the sausage before freezing it.)
Smoked Cheddar Cheese
- 3 medium sized blocks of cheddar cheese
- Charcoal smoker/grill
- 3 charcoal briquettes
- 1 chunk of apple wood for smoking
- Parchment paper
When you are ready to smoke your cheese, it is important to remember to factor in ambient temperature. It is preferable to smoke cheese when the temperature is no more than 60 degrees. When the weather is right for this type of smoking, add two pieces of unlit charcoal and a chunk of apple wood to the charcoal. Add a pre-lit, ashed over briquette to the charcoal. Place cheese on the grill grate for indirect smoking.
Smoke the cheese for approximately an hour and a half to two hours. Remove the cheese and let cool in the refrigerator before packaging it. When the cheese has cooled completely, wrap it in parchment paper, then put it in a Ziploc bag, Press and Seal plastic wrap, or vacuum seal it. Allow the cheese to rest in the refrigerator for a month to allow for the smoke to absorb into the cheese and mellow. (Otherwise, the smoky flavor of the cheese will be too harsh.)
Serving:
Serve the summer sausage and smoked cheese with gourmet crackers, which can usually be found in the deli section of your grocery store. We like to serve stone ground mustard or a spicy brown mustard with this gastronomic feast. A nice Kolsch beer or Weissbier is always a favorite with summer sausage. The hops, spices, and malt tend to go along with the saltiness and spiciness of the summer sausage. If you like wine, a nice Cabernet Sauvignon will work well with the summer sausage. The Cab has fruity flavors of dark currant, black cherry, wood, and tobacco that bring out the spicy, peppery, cheese flavors of the summer sausage.
The summer sausage and smoked cheese is great to serve as an appetizer for parties, for tailgating, and in the field as a quick and tasty snack. It also makes wonderful Christmas or birthday gifts for family and friends.
Get Cooking:
As always, Good luck this spring and remember to send any success pictures or stories from the field to [email protected] and you could be featured on our website or in our magazine. If this article or any of our articles have helped you become a better hunter or conservation steward, consider becoming a member of the Mule Deer Foundation or the Blacktail Deer Foundation or both. Click here to join: https://muledeer.org/product-category/membership/ or https://www.blacktaildeer.org/
About Cecil Cherry
Cecil Cherry grew up on a farm in Eastern North Carolina, and began hunting at an early age. He is a retired law enforcement officer who now lives in Central North Carolina with his wife. In his spare time, he enjoys hunting and cooking wild game, and traveling the Old North State, enjoying wine tastings at local wineries with his wife. He enjoys learning which wine pairs best with wild game he has harvested.
