I made the decision to develop a simple at-home version of Merguez sausage as it is not frequently offered at supermarkets.
| Prep Time: | 10 mins |
| Cook Time: | 10 mins |
| Additional Time: | 8 hrs |
| Total Time: | 8 hrs 20 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground coriander
- ¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled
- 2 tablespoons harissa, or to taste (see Ingredient note)
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 pound lean ground lamb
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Instructions
- Combine salt and fennel seeds in a mortar and pestle and pound until fine. Stir cumin, cinnamon, coriander, turmeric, and garlic cloves into the salt mixture and continue grinding to form a thick paste. Stir in harissa sauce and tomato paste until combined.
- Combine ground lamb and the spice paste together with a fork in a large bowl. Cover and refrigerate 8 hours to overnight.
- Form sausage into patties. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook patties until no longer pink inside, 5 to 8 minutes per side, depending on the size of the patties.
- To serve as burgers, top with sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, and crumbled feta in a toasted bun.
- This recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of Chef’s John’s Harissa Sauce recipe.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 268 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 3 g |
| Cholesterol | 76 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 20 g |
| Saturated Fat | 7 g |
| Sodium | 718 mg |
| Sugars | 1 g |
| Fat | 19 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Phenomenal!! Spices are perfect. Had it with homemade hummus, yogurt sauce, couscous, and roasted veggies (zucchini, tomatoes, garlic, harissa), and flat bread.
Made as written, except cooked on grill and used 1/2 tsp harissa. Excellent. Served with Israeli tomato and cucumber salad and roasted Greek potatoes.
The mix is fine, but grilling it into large patties is a bad idea… real merguez are tiny, thinner than a hot dog sausage and half as long, so grilling them a couple minutes on each side over a hot fire does it. Grilling a thick patty, 5 minutes per side or so, would either require lower fire as to not burn the surface, or would dry too much. I say if you don’t have sheep casings just roll them into finger sized sausages and grill them for a short time over a really hot fire.
Wonderful flavors!
Amazing burgers! Followed recipe exactly.
It is very good. Yes I will make it again.
This recipe is great, I made it with pretty much no alterations. I have made it twice now and the second time, I saw that they had some Merguez sausage at Whole Foods, where I was buying my lamb, so I got a link and tasted it side by side. Everyone in my family all said this recipe beat the Whole Foods one hands down. Getting the right patty size and shape is a bit tricky, but that is true for any burger. I had them a bit on the thinner side than the picture showed. The first time I made them they were on the thick side and a little under done in the center.
One of the best burgers we’ve grilled. The spices pop and using the ground lamb adds a welcome wrinkle to the tried and true. We eat a lot of Moroccan dishes, tho, so that probably helped.
I followed the recipe as written and was very pleased with the results. The only thing I did differently was throw all of the seasonings into the food processor as I was prepping enough for 3 pounds of lamb and was running out of room with the mortar and pestle when I went to add the garlic. That really sped up the process. Next time all the spices are going into the food processor as soon as I am done grinding the salt and fennel. There most definitely will be a next time too! The flavor was totally unique from anything I have had before. It wasn’t anywhere near as spicy as I thought it would be. The smell as the sausages were cooking was amazing. One piece of advice, I got a ton of splatter cooking this on my stove, worth it, but next time I’m going to cook it in a larger saute pan that I have a splatter guard for.
I cannot thank you enough for creating and posting this recipe! My husband is from the South of France where they eat merguez frites and merguez sandwiches as frequently as we eat cheeseburgers. He made merguez for me once and now I’m hooked too! The only downside is that we have to go to this special import store to buy them and they are always frozen. I discovered your recipe and made merguez burgers for his birthday. This recipe is outstanding!!! The burgers taste like perfectly prepared merguez – super flavorful, juicy, and a little spicy! I’m making them again tonight, because we just can’t get enough of them. Thank you again! I wish I could give you 10 stars!
I was looking for a recipe for lamb to hide some of the lamb flavor and this worked very well, but had to change it for what I had in my kitchen. I made it with out the turmeric and Harisa sauce, and used a spice grinder to grind my fennel and coriander seeds. Since I didn’t have the Harisa sauce and not likely to find it in my area I looked it up online and found it was some of the same spices we were already using and chili pepper seeds along with red bell peppers. I substituted a tablespoon of Cajun Spice for the hot spice and it worked well for us. We tested two different recipes to decide what to do with 22 pounds of ground lamb and mixed the two recipes, so it all went into the freezer as sausage.
We didn’t like the flavoring at all. I made it twice, first with lamb and them with a chicken/turkey/beef mix. Something in the spice mix that we just didn’t care for.