The brunch sausage would be ground pork seasoned mainly with salt pepper and sage....some recipes also contain thyme and some maple syrup (?) and others bay leaf and/or marjoram.
Italian sausage is a fresh pork sausage seasoned with various things...garlic, red pepper, maybe oregano maybe cumin, maybe basil....and is variously labled, sweet, mild or hot.
Pepperoni, salami is another thing...in the category of cured sausages...or smoked.
Linda C

I'd just add that a Italian sausage typically has a prominent fennel taste. Sometimes you'll see sausage specifically labeled "no fennel" for those that don't like it.

My homemade Italian sausage is a fresh pork sausage which has mocato wine, asiago cheese, lots of fennel, some tarragon, salt, pepper, other spices. It's "sweet", there is also a "hot" or "spicy" version that contains red pepper flakes, I don't like that as well.

I agree, sausage in a casserole will be a breakfast type sausage, the predominant seasoning is often sage.

Annie

Italian sausage is a fresh pork sausage which, as FOAS points out, is characteristically seasoned with fennel seed. Personally I prefer the hot type, seasoned with red pepper, to the sweet type, which has no red pepper.

I've never seen a sausage labeled or referred to as "brunch sausage". You've made the correct conclusion, from the context of your recipe, that the intended sausage is the one we think of as breakfast sausage, the fresh pork sausage seasoned with sage and black pepper.

Jim

And understand that breakfast sausage comes in two forms, loose sausage (which is what would be used in a casserole recipe) and sausage links, in casing.

Netla:
The Italian Sausage at our market has a great flavor.
Everyone loves it.

The butcher showed me the bag of spices, that they use but
there were no spacific amounts.
It is from California.

And there is no Sage or Fennel.

I finally figured out the recipe.

It calls for Anise Paprika but I substituted

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LouÂs - Mild Italian Sausage

2 lbs. of Ground Pork
1 1/2 Tablespoons Paprika
1 Tablespoon of Garlic Powder
1 tablespoon Salt
1 Tablespoon of Sugar
1 Teaspoon of Black pepper

3 heaping Tablespoons of Red Wine
1/2 teaspoon of Mc Cormicks Anise Flavor

Spread the Pork out in a pan.
Mix all the dry spices together and sprinkle over the Pork.
Mix the Anise flavor into the Wine and pour it over the Pork.

Mix the ingredients well .
Form into Patties or make into Sausage Links.

If hotter Sausage is your taste , add some ground Red Pepper or
Hot Stuff of your choice.
LOU

Thanks everyone for clarifying this for me.

I don't think I can get anything resembling Italian sausage over here, but if I come across a recipe calling for it and I want to try it, I can use Lou's recipe.

American breakfast sausage is similar enough to the English breakfast sausages available here, so I plan to try the casserole using those. I will report back with the recipe if it turns out to be as tasty as it looks.

Netla:
Make a small amount and add spices you like and give it a taste test.
No one here cares for the taste of Fennel or Sage in the Italian Sausage but you may like it.

You can make a couple of Patties and have them with eggs.
Mark down what spices you have added.
Good luck, LOU

Lou, doesn't the anise flavor in your recipe take the place of fennel seed?

I like that flavor in Italian sausage.

Is there Italian sausage in Italy? Probably not, just as the Danes don't have Danish pastry and the French don't have French fries.

Jim

Jim:
It's not the same.
I don't mind a little fennel but some have a predominate fennel taste.

I don't think there is Italian Sausage in Italy, LOL !!!

Just Salsicca, or something like that.
I think it is either " Blando "or " Caldo ", Mild or Hot.

Why don't you give it a test run, with a small amount and

I'll make some Halibut,with my favorite breading.

Halibut that
Lou

In Italian, the word for "hot" meaning spicy is piccante and for mild, it would be delicato or non piccante.

I would compare American sausage to Bratwurst, in case you have that available. Bratwurst does not have the same seasonings, but you could add fennel and other seasonings to get a similar flavor. I frequently remove casings when using sausage in a casserole, and I have never used breakfast sausage in a casserole, but that's because DB does not eat pork.

My Italian teacher once ordered a pizza in Texas with pepperoni, expecting to get it with peppers, and she was shocked to find it had a type of salami on it.

Lars

Lars:
I just used the words I heard everyday.

I thought " delicato " meant delicate.

The two words I used, do mean Mild and Hot but maybe not for Spices.
LOU

Here's a link to an English-Italian dictionary that you might like. It's almost as good as the Harper Collins dictionary I keep at my desk at work for when I send correspondence to Italy. The HC dictionary lists dolce as the adjective to use for "mild" when describing cheese.

Lars

Italian sausage was something that I really missed for the 2 years that we lived in the Netherlands. "Venkel" is Dutch for fennel and my Dutch friends told me I should ask for "venkelwurst" when I went to the local butchershop. But it had no relation to the Italian fennel sausage I loved. The Dutch put their blend of sausage seasonings - heavy on nutmeg - in all of their wurst, and then made it worse with "venkel" lol.

We just did without.

seagrass

I love fennel, both fresh fennel and the fennel seed, so I like the Italian sausage with quite a good amount in it. Elery says that a little sugar was often added when they made it at the store, but that makes it too sweet for my taste, I like it without.

I also make my own breakfast sausage because I don't like a lot of sage, just a little.

When you make your own sausage you can make it just the way you like it, then just take a bit, cook it and taste it, adjust flavorings instead of maybe mis-seasoning a whole batch.

Annie

I'll chime in along with Annie...make your own instead of trying to "find" one you like.

Once you are set up with a proper grinder and a stuffer (I can do both for well under $200 up here, although I have moved up, lol) you can set aside a production afternoon and end up with enough sausage to last 6 months, which is as long as I want to store it frozen before I make fresh.

The newer grinders clean up easily and running a sausage stuffer, either manual or motorized is a skill you acquire pretty quickly. Never mind you can eat your mistakes anyway!

Pretty soon you are making your own cured and semi cured sausages, amazing how many friends suddenly show up on the day you are emptying the smoke house.

I was on a sausage making kick a few years ago adn though I did use casing for some of my sausages, I often made Italian or Breakfast sausage patties and they were every bit as tasty as the onces in casing. Good luck and if you have a great recipe, it really is wasy to make!

Alexa

Lars:
Here is something I came across while searching Chicken Soup.
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It was at a well known Restaurant.

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The second surprise was the " Caldo Tlalpeno ".

This savory chicken and vegetable soup is on a lot of menus around town, but I was rocked by what arrived at the table: a big bowl brimming with rich homemade broth spiced with a smoky chipotle chile and a spoonful of thick adobo flavored with ancho chiles, tomato and a little vinegar. The adobo (which comes in the can with the chiles) burnished the soup, turning it bright orange, lending fire and a touch of smoke to the rest of the ingredients: shredded chicken, carrots, chunks of potato, squash, rice and a few chickpeas. Just before serving, the cook had showered a handful of cilantro over the soup and added a few creamy chunks of ripe avocado.

Maybe I was right ???
LOU

But that's Spanish, not Italian, Lou. In Spanish, caldo means broth or soup. It doesn't have anything to do with hotness or mildness.

Netla, the English breakfast sausage is perfect for your casserole. I prefer a "banger" style sausage to the American breakfast sausage, thankfully we have a butcher in town that makes the best bangers outside of GB!

I hit "enter" before I was finished.

I meant to add that caldo does mean hot, though not necessarily in the sense of spicy, in Italian. Just hot like in hot temperatures.

Lars, I think subbing bratwurst for Italian sausage is a bit of a stretch. Although they share some ingredients, bratwurst is finely ground, almost to a paste before it is stuffed. All the Italian sausage I have had is coarsely ground. That difference, together with the different seasoning is quite significant, IMO. I've never seen bratwurst in the form of patties and have never removed bratwurst from its casing. Both of these are common with Italian sausage.

The best alternative for someone in Netla's situation would be to coarsely grind or finely chop some pork, then follow Lou's recipe.

Jim

Maureen:
Thanks ! I thought it meant Hot Jalepeno's, lol!!!
Lou

I can buy "brat patties"...
The flavor of bratwurst depends a lot on what meat goes into it...sometimes pork, sometimes veal, sometimes beef and often a mixture. And the seasonings are a mix of things like nutmeg, allspice, celery seed, parsley etc. Every butcher has their own blend.
I sure don't think it would sub for Italian sausage.