Slow Cooker Meaty Italian Spaghetti Sauce
Description
If you’ve been searching for “the one,” that is a reliably delicious spaghetti sauce that will please the family, freeze well and get better overnight, we humbly suggest this recipe. No hard-to-find ingredients here, just everything you’d expect to be in a basic red sauce. Before stewing to perfection in your slow cooker, this sauce does require a crucial couple minutes of skillet time. Taking the 15 minutes to brown Italian sausage and onions to golden-brown perfection doesn’t just bring out the best in these ingredients, it also leads to a sauce that’s considerably more delicious than it would be otherwise. And after you do it, it’s just a matter of tossing all the ingredients into the pot and letting them simmer together into a rich and savory red gravy!
Ingredients:
- 2 lb bulk Italian pork sausage or ground beef
- 2 large onions, chopped (2 cups)
- 2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms (6 oz)
- 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 1 can (28 oz) Muir Glen™ organic diced tomatoes, undrained
- 2 cans (15 oz each) tomato sauce
- 1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon dried basil leaves
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Directions:
- Spray 5-quart slow cooker with cooking spray. In 12-inch skillet, cook sausage, onions, mushrooms and garlic over medium heat about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until sausage is no longer pink; drain.
- Spoon sausage mixture into cooker.
- Stir in remaining ingredients.
- Cover; cook on Low heat setting 8 to 9 hours.
