Overview
Chaurice is a fresh pork sausage of Louisiana Creole cooking, seasoned more aggressively than ordinary fresh sausage and historically linked by name and flavour to Iberian chorizo.
Where it's from
The cut
Identity and terminology
The name is a Louisiana rendering of chorizo or the French saucisse chaurice found in older New Orleans cookery. It should not be treated as dry Spanish chorizo. Chaurice is fresh, raw and intended for cooking.
Composition and characteristics
Pork and fat are seasoned with garlic, cayenne, black pepper, paprika or chilli and often thyme, allspice or vinegar. The filling is coarse and red-brown, with more heat than many Cajun fresh sausages.
Production and process
The seasoned pork is minced, rested and stuffed into links. It may be grilled, fried or crumbled into dishes. It is not dried to shelf stability.
History and regional forms
Chaurice developed in the multilingual culinary environment of colonial and nineteenth-century New Orleans, where French, Spanish, African and Caribbean food traditions met. It appears in Creole cookbooks and survives as a specialist sausage rather than a dominant industrial category.
Use, storage and related products
It is used in gumbo, beans, jambalaya and breakfast dishes, or served grilled. It differs from smoked andouille and from rice-filled boudin, and it remains distinct from Mexican and Spanish chorizo.
Recipe and cure
This is not a finished recipe. It is a window into how this meat is traditionally cured. Before you follow any process, run it through one of our curing calculators so the salt, cure and timings are right and safe for your own batch.
Make this — the measured Curesmith version →“Make this” opens the same cure as a measured recipe, scaled to your batch.
- Meat
- Pork shoulder / Boston butt
- Cut
- Pork shoulder / Boston butt
- Salt (%)
- 1.8
- Curing salt
- None
- Fermented
- No
- Smoked
- No
- Maturation
- Raw sausage ≤4°C for up to 2 days; freeze for longer storage
- Basis
- per 1,000 g pork shoulder / boston butt
- Style
- Fresh coarse pork sausage; cook before eating
Ingredients
- Pork shoulder / Boston butt100% · 1000 g
- Fine salt1.8% · 18 g
- Dried thyme0.2% · 2 g
- Cayenne pepper0.2% · 2 g
- Red pepper flakes0.1% · 1 g
- Finely crushed bay leaf0.02% · 0.2 g
- Fresh garlic, finely minced0.7% · 7 g
- Fresh parsley, finely chopped0.8% · 8 g
- Fresh onion, finely diced6% · 60 g
- Ice-cold water10% · 100 g
Method
- Chill pork, water and equipment to 0–3°C.
- Grind pork shoulder once through 10–12 mm.
- Add salt, thyme, cayenne, pepper flakes, bay, garlic, parsley, onion and measured water. Mix until evenly distributed and lightly cohesive.
- Stuff into 32–36 mm hog casings and form 20 cm links.
- Refrigerate for 4–12 hours at 2–4°C.
- Grill, fry, roast or crumble into another cooked dish until the cold point reaches 71°C.
Safety. Chaurice is a raw fresh sausage. Vinegar and chilli are flavourings, not preservation controls.