14 Ground Pork Recipes You'll Want On Repeat

Of all the different types of ground meat, ground pork may be one of the most underrated. Ground beef is used in burgers, meatloaf, tacos, and zillions of other recipes, while ground turkey and chicken are plugged into those same recipes as lower-fat substitutes. Ground pork, while it may not be a low-fat option, more than makes up for that by being extra-flavorful, as anyone who's ever eaten a sausage can attest.

Ground pork, however, can be used for a lot more than sausages (though we do have one recipe that uses it in DIY sausage patties). It can also be used in stir-fries, chili, or as the filling for a global array of dumplings and rolls ranging from lumpia to gyoza to stuffed cabbage. Ground pork also proves that it's a team player by pairing up with ground beef in various meatloaves and meatballs, including a recipe that reminds us of our favorite restaurant-furniture store combo.

Lumpia are the Filipino answer to egg rolls, and in fact, this recipe is very egg roll-like, because it's made with egg roll wrappers and filled with a familiar mixture of ground pork, carrot, onion, cabbage, ginger, and garlic. If you want a Filipino-style condiment, you can always douse the lumpia in banana ketchup before eating. If bananas aren't your thing, though, they also taste great with duck sauce or Chinese-style hot mustard.

Recipe: Filipino Pork And Vegetable Lumpia

Breakfast sausage seems like the kind of thing that you'd always buy in a box from the store, most likely from the frozen food section. As it turns out, though, they're surprisingly easy to make at home. All you need to do is mix some ground pork with a bit of brown sugar and some seasonings, then shape them into patties, fry them, and eat them (preferably with a few fried or scrambled eggs).

Recipe: Easy Breakfast Sausage

This Thai basil pork dish, while it may seem a bit meat-heavy and light on vegetables, isn't your typical stir-fry. Instead, it's our take on the Isaan Thai dish called "larb," which consists primarily of seasoned ground pork. In Thailand, larb is typically eaten with rice and papaya salad, but you could also roll up the pork inside of lettuce leaves or flour tortillas and turn it into wraps.

Recipe: Thai Basil Pork

This fried rice recipe is great for a clean-out-the-fridge meal, as you can make use of any vegetables that might be starting to grow limp in your produce bin as well as the carton of leftover rice you got with last night's takeout. Cook them up with some browned ground pork and a few Chinese-inspired seasonings, then crack a few fried eggs on top and pass the sriracha.

Recipe: Quick Pork Fried Rice

Frozen egg rolls that you heat up in your microwave are often soggy and disappointing, but ordering takeout can get expensive, while making homemade egg rolls can be too labor-intensive to be done on a whim. Making this egg roll-inspired salad bowl, however, takes just 20 minutes as advertised, plus any extra time it takes to peel and chop all of the vegetables. You could always buy pre-sliced ones at a supermarket salad bar, though, thus sparing yourself this extra bit of prep work.

Recipe: 20-Minute Egg Roll In A Bowl

While this dish is made with pork and green chiles, it's not the chile verde stew that's known in the Southwest. Instead, it's more of a white chili where ground pork stands in for turkey or chicken. The flavor will be pretty mild if you stick with canned Anaheim chiles and bell peppers, but for a hotter dish you could swap these out for Hatch green chiles, jalapeños, or serranos.

Recipe: Pork And Green Chile Chili

Gyoza are the Japanese version of potstickers, but whatever you want to call them, they're equally delicious in any language and it's not as tricky as you might think to make them from scratch. While it will take some time to stuff all 40 gyoza wrappers with the savory pork and vegetable filling, the dumplings are small enough that you should be able to fry and then steam about a dozen at a time.

Recipe: Authentic Fried Pork Gyoza

What makes Rachal Ray's meatloaf different from your grandmother's? We couldn't say, because we don't know your grandma, but we can tell you it stands out from a number of meatloaf clones that you might find on any given recipe blog, because it's made with both beef and pork. Our version is just a bit different from Ray's original, though, since it uses crushed potato chips instead of breadcrumbs and flavors the ketchup glaze with curry powder.

Recipe: Rachael Ray's Meatloaf

While homemade egg rolls can take a little time, they're really not all that difficult to make as long as you use store-bought egg roll wrappers. (While there's probably a way to DIY these if you're extra ambitious, there's no shame in making things easy on yourself.) Here, we're going with a pretty classic filling of ground pork and vegetables seasoned with soy sauce and sesame oil, but you can always add some chopped chiles if you're feeling spicy.

Recipe: Delicious Egg Rolls

While Ikea is notorious for its maze-like aisles, at the figurative heart of the maze lies a restaurant that's home to some of the tastiest meatballs you'll find this side of Stockholm. If you're wanting this dish but aren't up for a shopping expedition, our recipe makes a pretty fair approximation of both meatballs and sauce. All you need is lingonberry jam – or, in a pinch, a can of whole-berry cranberry sauce. (With all due apologies to Sweden, the two condiments do have a very similar flavor.)

Recipe: Copycat IKEA Meatballs

Anne Burrell one-ups Ikea when it comes to meatball-making, as she uses not just ground beef and pork, but veal, as well. (If you'd rather not use the last-named ingredient, though, it's okay to stick to a 50-50 mix of the first two types of meat.) Where she and the Swedish meatball masters part ways, though, is that she dishes up her creation with marinara sauce and grated cheese instead of gravy and lingonberry jam.

Recipe: Anne Burrell's Meatballs

Yes, this is our third meatball recipe, but how could that possibly be a bad thing? You can never have too many meatballs. These are made with the familiar pork-beef combo and flavored with an Italian-style blend of garlic, oregano, and parmesan cheese. They're then simmered in homemade marinara (recipe included), although you could use the store-bought kind if you're short on time. Once both meatballs and sauce are warm, pile them on a sub roll and smother them with lots of melty mozzarella (or provolone, if you prefer).

Recipe: Homemade Meatball Sub

Tan tan ramen, or tantanmen for short, is a Japanese noodle dish that's basically dan dan noodles in soup form — this is no coincidence, as the recipe was adapted from the Sichuan dish. Our version starts with those same cellophane-wrapped bricks you can find in any supermarket but ditches the seasoning packets for a broth made with soy milk and bean paste. Once cooked, the soup noodles are topped with ground pork, bok choy, and hard-boiled eggs for a nutritious one-bowl meal complete with starch, vegetables, and protein.

Recipe: Tantanmen Ramen

While stuffed cabbage exists in many different varieties, cabbage rolls like the ones in this recipe are an Eastern European specialty. The rolls themselves are stuffed with a filling made from ground pork and beef mixed with rice and seasoned with paprika. Once assembled, they're covered in a sweet and tangy tomato sauce flavored with vinegar and brown sugar then finished off in the oven. In keeping with the Eastern European theme, serve them with a side of buttered egg noodles and maybe some potato pierogi for a starchy-heavy, but very satisfying meal.

Recipe: Cabbage Roll