Ground pork seasoned spicy style. A can of crushed tomatoes seasoned as well. OTC garlic knots from Aldi.
When I was growing up our mom would ask us if we wanted Italian spaghetti or American spaghetti. The difference was pork versus beef.
Buying spicy sausage has become problematic because why does every brand of Italian sausage contain sugar? Anyway with a well stocked spice cabinet you can turn cheap ground pork into awesomeness.
And seasoning a can of crushed tomatoes offers exactly the same no sugar added return with way more flavor than a jar can provide.
Spicy Italian Sausage
1 pound ground pork.
1/2 teaspoon salt.
1/4 pinch garlic powder.
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper.
2 1/5 teaspoons ground paprika.
1/4 teaspoon anise seed.
1/4 teaspoon fennel seed.
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes.
1 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- add all to a bowl.
- mix until everything is completely integrated.
- use fresh or freeze 1/4 lb per zip locking snack bag.
The sauce? I don't have exact measurements on. But it's mostly the same stuff except the paprika and cayenne. Maybe the amounts are different. But just wing it.
How much pasta? Just half a box. But cook the whole box. Save half of it in a container with 2 tbsp of butter. That will be a meal later this week.
Cost per person: $3
Huh, sure enough. For mine, corn syrup is the fourth ingredient. This is just ground meat so it never occurred to me to look at the ingredients
I just checked Whole Foods website. Sugar is in every brand that isn't listed as organic and some of those have cai sugar. One thing I did notice was their meat counter sausage is sugar free. So it looks like you need to spend $6.99 or more per pound to avoid sugared sausage.
Meanwhile. Over at Walmart their Marketplace brand is just $3.97 a pound. Dextrose and corn syrup. Oh, and propyl gallate, which is slightly bitter tasting. And Johnsonville is just as bad.
Spend 50% more or make your own from ground pork. Those are the options.
I just checked the store brand Italian Salsiccia here (3,49 € for 300g, made in Italy) and it has 1% sugar (listed as dextrose). Supposedly dextrose is often used in raw sausage products to retain that juicy red colour, at least from what I read online.