I love homemade spaghetti sauce. It is so easy to make with your slow cooker, much healthier than what you can purchase in a jar, tastes better, and is so much more economical! This can also be used on pizza. I don’t put any meat in it now, but I add meat later if I want it.
Here is how I generally make my sauce. Now if you have a garden, you can use fresh ingredients, which makes it even better!
sauce ingredients
I purchase a #10 can of either whole tomatoes, that I will crush with my hands, or pureed tomatoes, which is what I have here. Make sure your slow cooker can hold this amount, otherwise you will have to adjust for your cooker’s size. Mine will hold 5 quarts of sauce. I then also add a 15oz. can of diced tomatoes with juice, a small can of tomato paste, I like my sauce thick.
I use 1 medium to large yellow onion – chopped.
chop onions
I used one large size garlic (there were 8 – 10 large cloves) chopped (of course do to your taste);
chop garlic
And I used about 2 medium size green bell peppers – chopped;
green peppers
I used dried spices that I can get at the Sprout’s farmers market (actually a great grocery store we have here). I used about 1 tablespoon each of basil and oregano, and put in a couple of bay leaves.
I then put the slow cooker on low and cook for about 12 hours.
finished sauce
The finished product! I got 5 quarts of sauce. I put it in plastic containers and freeze it. You can also can it if you like.
When I use it, I will add meat such as Italian sausage, ground beef or ground turkey, which I cook first, add to the sauce, and simmer for a short time. Yummy! Great for fall!
