The Teacher Dish: Sausage Balls

Man, I love sausage balls. My mom has made them for years. Every holiday season, my mom would always have a big bowl of these cheesy spheres of goodness and they would surely get gobbled up by everyone. When I married my husband I had to learn how to make things gluten free for his special diet. Luckily, Bisquick came out with a gluten-free Bisquick mix. What a lifesaver. I can easily whip up pancakes, waffles, AND sausage balls!

I used half of the batch to take to a Halloween party and added a special twist by putting green olives with pimentos into the sausage ball. Instead of just plain old sausage balls (which are yummy just like they are), they are now Zombie Eyeballs! The other half, I just made plain.

These are so easy to make and get gobbled up at parties. Make them for your next get-together with friends, or make them for your family and serve them with breakfast. Here's the basic recipe:

Sausage Balls
2 pounds (2 packages) sausage
4 cups baking mix - Bisquick is the best. I use the GF version.
4 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup water

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line your baking sheets with parchment paper. They won't stick if you do this. If you don't have parchment paper, then make sure you use a spatula about half way through baking and move them around on the baking sheet.

Mix ingredients together well. Your hands are your best instrument for this. Get in there and mix it up! I add the cup of water because the gluten-free Bisquick Mix is very fine. The water makes it easier to blend together and then form into the balls. Scoop out enough of the mixture to form about a 1 inch ball and roll in your hands to form a ball. At this point, I added the green olive, but if you aren't making Zombie Eyeballs, then you would omit the olive. When adding the olives, just make small indention in the center of the sausage ball, then insert olive and make sure the sausage mixture covers part of the olive. When it bakes, it will stay in place.