Cheese Grits with Venison Summer Sausage and Chocolate Red-Eye Gravy
You can substitute beef or other spicy summer sausage for the venison. This one has cheddar and jalapeno in the sausage, but use what you can get. You can use regular summer sausage to tone down the heat or cut back on the Cajun seasoning.
Ingredients
Cheese Grits
- 1 batch cheddar cheese grits
Summer Sausage + Chocolate Red Eye Gravy
- 8 oz venison or beef summer sausage cut into ½" dice
- 2 tbsp butter or bacon grease
- 1 cup strong black coffee (we use a moka pot. you can also use instant espresso powder and hot water)
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- to taste Old Bay
- to taste Cajun Seasoning (we use Tony C's or make our own)
- to taste Black Pepper fresh ground
Instructions
Cheddar Cheese Grits
- Prepare one batch of the grits from this recipe.
Chocolate Red-Eye Gravy with Venison Summer Sausage
- Heat the butter or bacon fat in a medium cast-iron skillet. Sear the summer sausage cubes on all sides- you want to build up a nice fond on the pan and get the outsides of the sausage nice and crispy.
- Remove the sausage, set aside, and keep hot.
- Deglaze the pan with the hot coffee, reduce the heat to a simmer, and reduce. Whisk in the cocoa powder and keep stirring until the gravy will just coat a spoon... it should be thin, not syrupy, but have some body to it and a balanced bitterness.
- Whisk in a tablespoon of cold butter, and season to taste with Old Bay, Cajun seasoning, salt, and black pepper.
- Spoon the grits into hot bowls, top with the summer sausage, and spoon the finished gravy around the edges of the bowls. Serve with hot sauce!
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
