Splendicious Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce Recipe - Allrecipes.com
Splendicious Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce Recipe
  • READY IN 9+ hrs

Splendicious Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce

Read Reviews (13)

"This recipe comes from my Army days where dishes were often created by throwing in everything including the kitchen sink! I've refined it over the years, and this recipe yields a tangy yet sweet and rich sauce that is sure to make your soldiers happy. The sauce is excellent over any pasta." —  

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Original recipe makes 16 servings Change Servings
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Directions

  1. Mix together the crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes, 1 cup of red wine, green olives, 4 teaspoons of sea salt, basil, oregano, paprika, and cayenne pepper in a slow cooker. Set the cooker to Low.
  2. While the cooker is warming up, place 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, and cook 3/4 cup of sweet onion until the onion just begins to soften, about 2 minutes; stir in 1 clove of garlic. Cook the mixture for 3 more minutes before mixing in parsley and mushrooms. Reduce heat, and simmer the mixture for about 10 minutes. Stir in the brown sugar, and mix to dissolve.
  3. While the parsley and mushrooms are simmering, heat 3 more tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, and stir in the remaining onion and the sausage. Brown the sausage, breaking the meat up into crumbles as it cooks, about 10 minutes; season the mixture with white pepper and cumin. Pour 1 cup of red into the skillet, and scrape the pan with a wooden spoon to dissolve any brown flavor bits into the wine. Simmer for about 10 minutes; pour the sausage mixture into the skillet with the parsley and mushrooms. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat just until all the ingredients have had time to introduce themselves to each other, about 10 minutes. Pour the sausage mixture into the slow cooker.
  4. Cook on Low for 8 hours to overnight. Add more red wine or water if needed to prevent the sauce from getting too thick and burning on the bottom.
Kitchen-Friendly View
  • PREP 30 mins
  • COOK 45 mins
  • READY IN 9 hrs 15 mins
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Reviews More Reviews

Most Helpful Positive Review
Jun 19, 2011

Lot of work here before you even turn on the slow cooker. First, 4 tsp of salt plus 1 cup of olives (with lots of sodium) made this WAY too salty for us. And I hate that because I have a ton of leftover sauce going into the freezer. I'd recommend starting with 1 tsp salt and then adding to suit your taste because once it's in there, you can't take it out. After 7 hours cooking, the consistency was too soupy to serve over pasta, so I added one 6-oz can of tomato paste which brought it to the right consistency. I wouldn't bother with the 1/2 tsp cumin because it's just lost in a pot of sauce this large, and I wouldn't saute the parsley, just stir it into the sauce. The recipe doesn't specify whether or not the cans of stewed tomatoes should be drained; I didn't drain them. FYI, I used a 4-quart cooker, which was filled right up to the top. Only change I made to this recipe was adding one teaspoon fennel seed, which I always add to spaghetti sauce. We liked the flavor, and I'm giving 4 stars based on less salt and adding tomato paste.

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Most Helpful Critical Review
Feb 22, 2011

This is at home in my slow cooker as I type, so I can't say anything yet about the finished product, but it looks promising! One change I'd definitely make though would be to cook the sausage and drain the fat before adding the onions, deglazing, etc. I used hot Italian sausage and after it had browned in the olive oil, there was quite a bit of grease that I wish wasn't in the final product.

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15 Ratings

Mar 04, 2011

This was a little too soupy for my family's taste at the start. (We like our sauce to cling to the pasta.) The next time I added two cans of tomato paste and then thought it was much better. So it is not too greasy after browning the sausage, onion and garlic in step 3, I put it all in a strainer and rinsed in warm water. I then wiped out the pan with paper toweling before putting everything back in the pan and proceeding to add white pepper, cumin and wine. Now it's a real hit!

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Feb 07, 2011

Excellent!! Delicious!! Superb!! I used chardonnay b/c I didn't have red wine, bell pepper and zucchini instead of mushrooms, capers instead of olives, and chicken sausage instead of Italian b/c that's what I had on hand. I'm not recommending changing things, but this recipe can definitely be adjusted easily to accommodate your preferences or the ingredients you have in the fridge! The recipe is fabulous and I will definitely be using it again.

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Jan 27, 2011

This sauce is PHENOMENAL!!! I am not a fan of olives, so I left them out. I put this all together at around 7:00pm and let it cook on low all night long. The slow cooker finished "cooking" and reverted to the "warm" mode all day while I was at work. This recipe is definitely a "keeper". For the wine, I used a cabernet as the wine element... the flavor was rich, and with the cayenne pepper - YOWSAH! This sauce is fantastic!

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Apr 23, 2011

The best spaghetti sauce I have ever cooked. Worth all the effort.

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Feb 13, 2012

I will likely try this recipe as it sounds really good and very adaptable. As for the texture of the sauce that some have commented on, marinara sauce from my understanding is more of a soupy-non clingy type of sauce- so this sauce is behaving as it should.

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Mar 24, 2012

Wouldn't change a thing. Good stuff. And versitle!

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Nutrition

  • Calories
  • 184 kcal
  • 9%
  • Carbohydrates
  • 13.4 g
  • 4%
  • Cholesterol
  • 8 mg
  • 3%
  • Fat
  • 10.8 g
  • 17%
  • Fiber
  • 2.8 g
  • 11%
  • Protein
  • 5.3 g
  • 11%
  • Sodium
  • 1245 mg
  • 50%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

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