Boerewors is a traditional South African sausage with a coriander flavor. It is often the South African food that expats miss most. Since it generally can’t be bought in food stores outside South Africa, many South Africans make their own. This boerewors recipe has been around for a long time.
Boerewors Recipe
Boerewors is a South African sausage with a coriander flavor. It is very popular with South Africans.
Ingredients
- 4.4 ibs Beef (super trimmed brisket works well)
- 2.2 lbs Pork
- 10 tsp Coriander
- ½ tsp Ground Cloves
- ½ tsp Ground Nutmeg
- 5 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp freshly ground Black Pepper
- 1 ibs Bacon
- 0.4 cup Vinegar
- Casing (Hog casing is good. Some use lamb casing.)
Instructions
Preparing The Coriander (1 tbsp produces 1 tsp)
- Place in dry pan, heat and stir until light brown.
- Grind, sieve to remove husk. Grind remainder to a fine powder. (A plastic food storage bag and a rolling pin works well. Recently I’ve been using an old coffee grinder.)
Making The Boerewors
- Cut meat into approximately 25mm (1 inch) cubes.
- Let the cubed meat stand for a while to allow excess blood to drain.
- Cut bacon into small pieces. Mix all the meat and spices. Add the vinegar and mix well.
- Put the prepared mixture in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
- Grind all together. Do not grind it too fine – use the cutter that has +/- ¼ inch holes.
- Stuff the mixture into the casing, but be careful to not overstuff.
If you’ve never made boerewors before, here’s a more complete description of how to make boerewors.
How To Easily Cook Mouth-Watering South African Food In The USA
South African Cooking in the USA is a new book created specifically for people living in the US and who want to cook South African food. It has never been easier!
- Recipes contain US equivalents for ingredients found only in South Africa
- Recipe quantities and volumes have been converted to US measures
- More than 170 South African recipes, including:
- Melktert
- Bobotie
- Samoosas
- Bunny Chow
- Buttermilk Rusks
- Hot Durban Curry
- Monkeygland Steak
- Hot Cross buns, and more...
Please share this information...
I’m excited to try this recipe, but I have 1 question. The 20g of Coriander, is the 20g before or after it’s been ground up?
Good to add all spices to meat before grinding.
Just to clarify in the last question. The 20g of Coriander. Is that with or without the husks? I can only find ground coriander at my store, so I’m trying to figure out how much I need to use.
Hi Ricky,
I’ll answer both your questions here… If you can’t find whole coriander, I believe that 20g of ground coriander will be fine, and I don’t believe that the husks will make much of a difference. I don’t think this is an exact science and a gram this way or that way won’t make too much of a difference. Besides, many people experiment with their recipes according to their own taste. Use 20g of ground coriander and go for it. Then you can adjust according to your own taste as you go along.
John
without the husk, husk acts as a binder but not necessary, I also ad 30ml of Worcestershire sauce and use a 100 ml Balsamic Apple vinegar mix.
Wondering why would the texture seem dense/dry?
Hi Heleen. If the texture seems dense, the meat was probably ground too fine. If you grind your meat yourself, use at least a 6mm (1/4″) grinding plate and only grind the meat once. If the raw meat seems dry, did you put any water/vinegar mixture in it? For 10 lbs of boerewors, we add little over a half cup of malt vinegar (5.25 oz) and a half cup of water (5.25 oz) into the meat. If the wors is dry after braaiing, there is probably not enough fat in it. It should have 10-15% fat in it.
If you are adding water your mix, make sure to use chilled water….
Don’t use smoked bacon, it overpowers the taste :p it was still appreciated, but it definitely had a bacon taste. Live & learn!