½yellow onion, finely diced (about ½ a cup)($0.47)
2cupsshredded pepper jack cheese($1.30)
1tspsalt($0.01)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine ground sweet Italian sausage, buttermilk pancake mix, finely diced yellow onion, shredded pepper jack cheese, and salt in a mixing bowl.
Mix ingredients with your hands until a uniform, sticky mixture is achieved.
With a 1 oz. cookie scoop**, scoop mixture, and transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake for 25-30 minutes in a 350 degree oven.
Serve with honey mustard sauce (optional) and toothpicks as the perfect holiday appetizer. (A little sprinkle of salt on top when they are fresh out of the oven is nice, too!)
*I used Odom's Tennessee Pride Maple Sausage from Walmart, but any sweet ground pork sausage will do, including breakfast sausage, sweet Italian sausage, etc. You could use a spicy sausage as well, but you may want to opt for cheddar cheese instead of pepper jack if you do, to avoid an overly spicy outcome. (But, hey! Turn up the heat if that’s your thing!) I did not test this recipe with turkey sausage or ground veggie meat substitutes, but they’d be worth a try! Let me know if it works out.**You can use any size scoop, but the yield will vary.