Cooking Help Needed

[joelsgirl]

I have a recipe that calls for Italian Sausage. We cannot get Itailian Sausage here, so I want to just use ground beef. Can I do that? If I do, do I need to add some Italian herbs or something?

Forgive my ignorance. My mother never taught me to cook.

[Leila]

You can sub the beef for the sausage. If at all possible though, I'd look for ground pork. Either way--season it with some italian seasoning and you should have a good approximation of the flavors.

[joelsgirl]

Well snap. I can get ground pork, but I will have to go to the grocery store again. I think it will be worth it though. Thanks for the tip, Leila!

[DawnMarch]

Yeah, use ground pork. My mom one day basically made sausage one day out of some left over ground pork that we had. I was amazed!

[Paula]

Yea, ground pork is very close to sausage. I'd just season it with italian seasonings. What's the recipe? Inquiring minds want to know! LOL

[MamaBee]

for more of a "sausage taste"... add some fennel seeds...

[MamaK]

or try substituting ground turkey and season with plenty of italian herbs. We actually use turkey in many of our dishes to break from the beef all week long.

[joelsgirl]

I made 7 Layer Rigatoni from the Betty Crocker Best Loved Classics Casserole Recipe booklet. It was great! I blogged about it here with a picture and the recipe.