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.

Servings: 4 servings

Author:

Prep Time
10 minutes

Cook Time
25 minutes

Course:

Breakfast & Brunch

Cuisine:

American Southern

Keywords:

brunch sausage comfort food soul food wild game

🧂 Ingredients

1 batch cheddar cheese grits
8 oz venison summer sausage

cubed
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

1 Prepare one batch of the grits from this recipe
[https://www.alewyfe.com/sharp-cheddar-grits-and-greens/].https://www.alewyfe.com/sharp-cheddar-grits-and-greens/
2 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.
3 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.
4 Whisk in a tablespoon of cold butter, and season to taste with Old Bay, Cajun
seasoning, salt, and black pepper.
5 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!