Dirty South Sausage Balls

I just love the name of this delicious appetizer. It's kind of naughty. They're easy to make and then freeze until you need them. They need a dipping sauce of some sort to make them truly wonderful. Maybe hot mustard with a little honey. Or something else creative. Let me know what you come up with.

The recipe was printed in the Dallas Morning News and comes from Blythe Beck, the executive chef at a GREAT restaurant here in town, Hector's on Henderson.


Dirty South Sausage Balls

2 pounds pork breakfast sausage (half mild and half spicy)
1/2 pound softened cream cheese
1/4 cup snipped chives (or green onions)
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper to taste
Juice of 1 lemon
3 cups panko breadcrumbs or unseasoned dried bread crumbs
2 sheets of frozen puff pastry dough, thawed (Note: I went through a LOT more puff pastry than the recipe calls for. Used two boxes/4 sheets and still had lots of filling left over.)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In large bowl, combine sausage, cream cheese, chives, cayenne, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Fold bread crumbs into meat-cheese mixture until fully combined. Roll mixture into 1 inch balls.

Roll puff pastry sheets out slightly. Cut into 1 1/2 inch squares. Wrap puff pastry squares around each ball, stretching to cover. Make sure all filling is "tucked in" and pinch seams to seal. Place seam-side down on greased cookie sheet and bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes.

If you freeze them, bake them (still frozen) at 375 degrees for about 17 to 20 minutes, until lightly browned.