There are very few things in this culinary world that make me happier than spaghetti. You know what else makes me happy? Coming home to a kitchen smelling like crockpot heaven. This slow simmered Thick and Chunky Garden Crockpot Spaghetti Sauce is just that.
Pasta sauce heaven.
This delicious homemade pasta sauce is full of healthy and colorful vegetables. Fresh summer squash, zucchini, onions, sweet peppers and mushrooms simmer for hours and create a zesty sauce for your favorite pasta.
Plus, we made it super filling with a mixture of sweet Italian sausage and lean ground beef. Can’t wait to twirl this around on a fork.
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Thick and Chunky Garden Crockpot Spaghetti Sauce. An amazing recipe to twirl your fork around in.
I’d like to meet the inventor of the crock pot slow cooker and kiss them square on the mouth. Seriously, outside of the discovery of fire, has there been a more helpful cooking device?
Ok, so maybe the knife is pretty handy. But I think you will all agree that using a slow cooker is one of the easiest ways to create delicious homemade meals.
Like this off the charts crockpot spaghetti sauce.
I wasn’t kidding when I said this crockpot spaghetti sauce was LOADED with veggies. We filled our crockpot over halfway full of colorful and healthy vegetables.
To create this yummy pasta sauce, we picked vegetables that would do two things:
- maintain a texture after being slow simmered for hours
- provide moisture to the sauce so we didn’t have to add much liquid
Love this recipe? Check these out:
Country Chicken Cacciatore
Easy Baked Spaghetti Casserole
Cinnamon Cherry Crockpot Cobbler
We used two types of squash : yellow summer squash and dark green zucchini. Yummy! I love squash and zucchini, don’t you?
Diced onions and my favorite sweet red bell peppers really add a lot of vegetable flavor to the crockpot spaghetti sauce. Especially after they slowly cook in the crushed tomatoes.
If you love mushrooms like I do, add a bunch!
Stir in your seasonings and add your browned meat. We used a combination of sweet Italian sausage and lean ground beef to make our Thick and Chunky Garden Crockpot Spaghetti sauce super thick.
You can leave the meat out if you would like for a vegetarian version of this spaghetti sauce recipe.
Look at how thick this crockpot spaghetti sauce is! I’m getting that spaghetti craving all over again. This really is one of my favorite ways to prepare spaghetti.
Enjoy with shredded Parmesan cheese and your favorite bread. My kind of meal!
Save RecipeBuy This:
- 1 lb sweet Italian sausage, browned
- 1 lb lean ground beef, browned
- 56 oz. crushed tomatoes
- 1 small zucchini, diced
- 1 small yellow summer squash, diced
- 8 oz mushrooms, chopped
- 1 red bell pepper, seeded and diced
- 1/2 onion, peeled and diced
- 1/2 cup water (if needed)
- 1 5.3 oz packet of spaghetti sauce spice mix
- 2 TB olive oil
- 1 1/2 TB minced garlic
- 1 tsp dried basil
- 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
- Salt & pepper to taste (if needed)
Cook That:
Prepare ingredients as directed above.
Stir all ingredients together in a 6 quart crockpot. Cover.
Cook on high for 1 hour and on low for 3 hours, or cook on low for 8 hours.
Taste and re-season as needed. (Keep in mind the sausage and spice pack mix will have their own seasonings, you may not need to re-season.)
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