DARE TO COMPARE: Ground Beef vs. Ground Chicken/Pork/Turkey

This Saturday's DARE TO COMPARE is a MONEY SAVER.

Normally I only buy meat when it is on sale or reduced in some way.  I HATE paying full price for anything really and meat is no exception.  But with food you need to have a plan in order to avoid paying full price for items (more on that later).  

Ground pork (my ground beef substitute)

We were out of ground beef at home so I added it to my shopping list and hoped there would be some on sale when I got to the grocery store.  No such luck.  They had the premium ground beef at a very high price, and the cheap brand (ours comes packaged in tubes) for $6.99!!! It was a 2 lb package but I only needed 1 lb for supper.  There was NO WAY I was going to pay that much.  I looked around for an alternative brand, hoping beyond hope that it was on sale.  I saw a paler package of ground meat and saw the price was $3.62 for 1 lb.  It was still more than I wanted to pay but the cheapest I could find.  That's when I noticed I was holding a pound of ground pork not ground beef.  So I had the idea!

The idea:

Why not try this ground pork in my taco recipe instead of ground beef?  It would save money, I would buy less and I might enjoy the taste!

The How-To:

This is the simplest "How-To" because all you do is choose which ground meat you'd like to substitute for ground beef in your recipe and give it a try!  I recommend trying the ground meat that is cheapest.  Of course if you have health concerns and would like to try switching from red meat why not try now?  Remember to inform your family that you made a switch otherwise they will think something is wrong with the meat.  The taste is definitely different.

Ground pork cookin'!

I did notice that the ground pork did not cook the same as ground beef.  When I cook ground beef in kinda balls up while the pork stayed in ground strings.  I thought it looked like I was cooking meal worms!  Yuck!  But I stayed true to my recipe and didn't alter it.  I also noticed that the ground pork had hardly any fat drippings.  I usually drain the beef once it's cooked but I didn't need to with the pork.  This of course had a slight affect on the taco seasoning.  It didn't thicken like it usually did.  I had to boil it alot longer to reach the same consistency.

(Note: in the background of this photo I am cooking home-made tortilla shells for the tacos.  I will feature this recipe in February.  Stay tuned!)

The Result:

It smelled great!  In the taco it looked great!  And I thought it tasted better than beef.  Pork has a much more subtle flavour than beef so I found it highlighted the taste of the other ingredients in my taco.  I would definitely buy ground pork again!

So yummy!

My Hubby's reaction was: "I miss the beef flavour.  Buy beef next time."

I guess the ground beef wins out after all.

(In a side note: the ground beef went on sale for half price the following week at my grocery store.  Good thing I didn't spend extra money on full price beef!) 

The Cost:

Ultimately I saved $3.32 because I didn't need to buy the 2 lb tubes of ground beef I only bought 1 lb of the ground pork, but pound for pound the ground pork was actually $0.13 more than on the ground beef.

What do you think?  

Will you DARE TO COMPARE ground beef to a different ground meat?

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