Super easy Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce made with real food ingredients and takes only 10 minutes of prep time! This healthy spaghetti sauce is the perfect way to feed a crowd or prep for a busy week ahead. Super delicious and easy!
This simple, real food Italian meat sauce is not only healthy, it’s crazy easy.
No browning the meat, no pre-cooking anything. Just put everything in the Crock Pot and turn it on!
Literally, so easy a kid could make it….hey, I like that idea! 😉 and you won’t believe how delicious it is!
Ingredients – What You Need
- Canned tomatoes – use the highest quality tomatoes you can get your hands on.
- Tomato paste – adds flavor and helps thicken the sauce
- Spices & herbs – I use a simple mix of herbs and spices that add so much flavor; Italian seasoning, oregano, parsley, fennel seeds, paprika, bay leaves, salt, and pepper.
- Fresh basil – super fragrant, I love to keep some for garnish too!
- Garlic – use fresh garlic for best results
- Onion – yellow onion, finely chopped
- Beef – ground lean beef (you can also use ground turkey or Italian sausage)
How to Make Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce
Add all ingredients except from the beef and onion to the slow cooker and stir.
Add the beef and onions, stir and cook on high for 3-4 hours or low for 6-8 hours.
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Serving Suggestions and Variations
Serve it over any pasta or pasta alternative you like:
- Traditional spaghetti noodles (La Molisana imported Italian pasta is the the best – just like what we ate on our trip to Italy a few years ago)
- Ancient grain pasta (I like Jovial’s Einkorn spaghetti)
- Gluten free pasta (Again, La Molisana is the best if you can find it)
- Spaghetti squash, zoodles, or other pasta alternative
For bonus points, add sliced mushrooms, broccoli florets, green peas, baby spinach, or other veggies and voila – a veggie loaded one dish meal!
Oh, and it makes enough for a large family, a crowd of dinner guests, or – my personal favorite – leftovers! In fact, I usually serve it twice and still have half the batch to freeze for another night!
How to Make this Spaghetti Sauce in an Instant Pot
If you don’t have an Instant Pot then they are a great investment for your kitchen. It’s an electric pressure cooker that cooks delicious meals that would normally take hours to cook in a matter of minutes.
So if you’re interested in making this spaghetti sauce in just 30 minutes flat (yes, only 30 mins!) follow all the same steps placing all the ingredients in your Instant Pot and cook on high pressure for 30 minutes on the “sealing” setting (not venting).
Once finished, allow natural pressure release for 10 minutes, then manual pressure to release any remaining steam before opening the lid.
Top Tips for Making Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce
- You can swap ground beef for ground turkey or Italian sausage.
- You can use this spaghetti sauce for so many different recipes from spaghetti to stuffed shells or why not even add some spice and turn it into a delicious and healthy chili!
- Feel free to add in any extra veggies, it’s a great recipe for using up leftovers!
- To make this vegetarian simply replace the ground beef for a vegetarian ground meat substitute.
- Leftovers will store well in suitable containers in the fridge for up to 5 days or can be frozen and thawed as needed.
- To reheat from frozen, add the thawed meat to a slow cooker or heat in a skillet until piping hot all the way through.
More Delicious Slow Cooker Meals You Might Like:
- Slow Cooker Chicken Noodle Soup
- Slow Cooker Beef Roast
- Slow Cooker Real Texas Chili
- Easy Pulled Pork
Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce
Ingredients
- 3 cans 14.5 oz each organic diced tomatoes
- 2 cans 6 oz each organic tomato paste
- 1/4 cup virgin olive oil
- 6 large cloves garlic minced or pressed
- 2 Tbsp Italian seasoning
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 2 tsp dried parsley
- 1/2 tsp fennel
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 Tbsp sea salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 Tbsp organic sugar (optional)
- 1 large yellow onion finely chopped
- 2 lbs pastured ground beef
- 1 cup fresh basil, sliced into ribbons
- additional fresh basil and Parmesan cheese for serving
Instructions
- Place all ingredients except onion and beef into slow cooker and stir well.
- Add onion and beef and cook on high 3-4 hrs, or on low 6-8 hrs. If possible, open the lid a couple times during cooking to break up meat with a wooden spoon.
- Once the sauce is done, add additional salt and pepper to taste and stir in the fresh basil.
- Serve over cooked spaghetti with additional fresh basil and Parmesan.
Notes
- You can swap ground beef for ground turkey or Italian sausage.
- You can use this spaghetti sauce for so many different recipes from spaghetti to stuffed shells or why not even add some spice and turn it into a delicious and healthy chili!
- Feel free to add in any extra veggies, it's a great recipe for using up leftovers!
- Leftovers will store well in suitable containers in the fridge for up to 5 days or can be frozen and thawed as needed.
- To reheat from frozen, add the thawed meat to a slow cooker or heat in a skillet until piping hot all the way through.
Thanks for sharing this! All the best!
The https://www.backtothebooknutrition.com website is one of the best we
have found, and the Super Easy Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce (Instant Pot option)
article is very well written and useful!
I want to share with you a link that also helped me a lot in cooking: https://bit.ly/easy-fat-burning-recipes
Thanks and kisses! 🙂
Thank Margy! Glad you find it useful!
Hello, just a quick question regarding the Instant Pot option: do you mean cook for 30 minutes in pressure cooker mode?
That’s correct – pressure cooker mode set to high pressure. I just updated the notes in the recipe card to clarify that as well as instructions for pressure release. 🙂
like you said this is super easy – I definitely need to try this super easy and uncomplicated way of making meat sauce. A great staple recipe for the crockpot!
I hope you love it!
I loved how easy this simple sauce is! The slow cooker does magic! Thanks for a great recipe!
Thanks Beth it is so true about the simplicity that the slow cooker provides us!
Will try and make this in my insta pot – it looks and sounds delicious – good to have in the fridge for a quick pasta meal or even a nice bake. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Ramona!
The spaghetti looks delicious and drool-worthy. Making in a slow cooker is a lovely idea to less the work.
The more sauce recipes I stumble upon, the more exciting it gets. I like to have so many different options to go through – always inspiring and useful. Great to hear it takes only ten minutes to make – great for when you need to make sauce quickly.
Very true Laura!
I’m always looking for new sauces for pasta. This has so many delicious flavors and I cannot wait to give this recipe a try!
Thanks Lesli!
This slow cooker spaghetti looks like a super easy weeknight meal, I love the idea of being able to throw everything into the slowcooker and letting it go