Can you make this recipe with turkey sausage?

Note from Elise: Perhaps. We've never done it. I think turkey sausage tends to be leaner than Italian sausage, so you might need to add a little fat (olive oil) back in to have this work well.

On the pasta preperation, I've been taught to use butter rather than olive oil to keep the pasta from clumping due to the fact that the oil acts as a barrier on the pasta that keeps the sauce (and flavour) from being absorbed.

I know that using olive oil has an added benefit of being lower in cholesterol, but for those lucky few of us that aren't worrying about that... Any thoughts?

I do mine a little different. I only use hot sausage, leave the casings on, cut the sausage into largish chunks, pour a bottle of hard cider (such as Woodchuck or Hornsby's)in the pan, and brown the sausage in the cider until it cooks off pretty much entirely. This gives the sausage pieces a wonderful sweet glaze so that it both sweet and hot with each bite.

I'm sure you can use turkey or whatever kind of sausage you like. On a separate note from the pasta, I grilled a spicy turkey sausage the other day and it was just as flavorful as regular sausage, and a bit leaner too...so it should work perfectly fine, either cooked in sausage form or perhaps decased and crumbled like in the recipe.

I have made sauce for pasta/lasagna using this technique but substituting hot and sweet Italian turkey sausage for standard sausage. The results were fantastic - go for it!

My question . . . what is the merit to cooking the onion and garlic separately and then adding it to the meat and the sauce. A more conventional route, and simpler, would be to start with simmering the onion and garlic in the oil till fragrant and then adding the sausage meat to cook and then to the same pan the tomato.

Any thoughts on this? Since it's from Martha Stewart in origin I'm inclined to guess there's a good reason for the way it's done here.

Hi Elise- I've made this sauce before and it's just great. Once again, you've given us a simple, luscious recipe. Hurrah! Just the kind I adore.

A really nice recipe that my husband always likes. He is a big fan of italian sausage. Last night, I made this but I added chopped red bell peppers to the onion sautee, increased the garlic, used tomato sause and doubled the sausage. I didn't break up the sausage completely, I left some big chunks of it so they were a little like mini meatballs throughout the sause.

This was so delicious! Smart idea using half hot/spicy, half sweet. I would normally just put sweet! Thanks for everything!

Hi Elise,

I just walked in the door from work, to a ringing telephone. It seems my husbands' children are coming for dinner after all. So at first I panicked, but then I remembered Simply Recipes. In particular this recipe. An luckily I had all the ingredients since I purchased extra sausage and froze it the last time I used your recipe. Elise to the rescue again.

I use your site many more times than I say thank you.

So a very big thanks for saving the day,

Jan

Not sure how large the sausages you are talking about are...approx how many ounces??

Hi Elise,

With the hot weather really in force for the first time this year here in the East, I decided to try this recipe tonight to avoid cranking up the oven. I'm so glad I did because it was delicious. I didn't bother to puree the tomatoes but that didn't seem to affect the quality of the sauce at all. This recipe will definitely go into our regular summer rotation.

Best regards,

Manley

This was amazing, my family does not
usually like anything new. I tripled the
recipe and thier was hardly any left for me,
by the time I served myself, everyone wanted
seconds. Thanks for something new!
\karen

Can you make this recipe with chicken sausage?

Note from Elise: Many people (see comments above) have made this successfully with turkey sausage. I can't see how chicken sausage would be that different.

Really, really yummy, and dead easy. Definitely a keeper!

What a great easy weeknight meal. I have 3 hungry little boys running around while I make dinner. With its ease of preparation and great flavors, this pleases all of us! Thanks, Elise! (BTW, I skipped using separate pans for the sausage and onions. Just added the onions and garlic when the meat was just about done, and it turned out fine.)

Simply delicious! I've made this several times using turkey sausage (1/2 hot, 1/2 sweet) and Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes over linguini.