I bought some ground Italian sausage on sale a few weeks back and froze it.

Ah, gotcha. I think the word “funky” threw me. Well, the acidity of a tomato sauce and other elements like aromatics and spice can help diffuse the funky taste but I doubt you can mask it entirely, and I suppose whether that would be enough depends on your threshold for tolerating a taste you fundamentally don’t like. I’ve tried masking ingredients that tasted strange or bad to me by ramping up other elements in the dish and personally it never works for me. Rather, it winds up being a lot of ingredients and a lot of effort spent on something that is essentially unappetizing to me. It’s a bummer when that happens, though!

Incidentally, I freeze chicken sausage all the time and never noticed a funky taste/smell. I don’t know what protein you’re sausage is made from or if that makes a difference, but might be worth trying another brand. Others can weigh in on this; it’s just not my experience with chicken sausage. Anyway, sorry your sausage wound up funky!

Well, in general a funky smell indicates that something is spoiled or rancid so I would cut your losses and not try to salvage it. You can, however, usually return it if you have the containers or receipt to show where you bought it and they will likely replace the meat or refund you the money. Most supermarkets are grateful if you alert them to a potential food poisoning situation since that is definitely something they want to avoid. Even if you don’t have a way to return it the store manager might appreciate a heads-up.