Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce with Sausage

This slow cooker spaghetti sauce recipe is so easy and can be made two different ways – homemade and semi-homemade. The addition of the sweet Italian sausage makes this recipe a home run! 

Slow Cooker Spaghetti with Sausage

Thank you to Johnsonville for partnering with us to make this delicious recipe!

If I has to choose a food group to eat for the rest of my life, pasta would be a serious contender.

Sure, it’s not the healthiest option around, but it’s so versatile and delicious.

Red sauce, white sauce, pesto sauce…fettuccine, spaghetti, tortellini…I love it all!

Everyone else seems to love pasta as well, so it’s a great idea for parties.

Earlier this year, we had a spaghetti dinner for the Cub Scout Rain Gutter Regatta, and it made me laugh because everyone just kept raving about how fancy and delicious it was.

But the truth was – it was SO easy, because I just made slow cooker spaghetti sauce with sausage.

A few days ago, I was in charge of a Christmas party for all the women at my church, and we also went with a pasta bar – we had Alfredo Sauce and sausage meat sauce (both made in the slow cooker). It was a huge hit!

People really seem to like the spaghetti sauce I have made in a slow cooker, so I decided it was about time that I shared my recipe.

I have two versions of it – the homemade version and the “cheater” version…and both turn out great.

But the secret to both is using sausage.

Sausage is probably one of my favorite kinds of meat – it just has so much flavor, and it always takes a dish from yum to amazing.

I was recently sent the Johnsonville Sizzling Sausage Grill, so I thought it was the perfect time to try it out when I was making some slow cooker spaghetti sauce. I felt like it would make the process even easier because I didn’t have to babysit the sausage being cooked over the stove top.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure how much I would love the grill, but now that we’ve used it once, I’m not sure I will ever cook sausage another way again.

It makes cooking sausage SO effortless. All you do is place the sausages into the grill:

Plug it in and let it cook.

And in less than about 15 minutes, you have perfectly cooked and juicy sausage.

I honestly don’t think I’ve ever had such a juicy sausage before. The flavor seemed even better than usual, too.

This is perfect for this recipe, but also for a quick lunch or entertaining idea. There’s so much you can do with sausage – so versatile!

If you buy it before December 11th, you can use the code ‘sizzle’ to get free shipping and handling!

I thought about putting them into the slow cooker with the sauce whole, but I decided it was better to chop it up so the flavor could infuse throughout it even more (at least that’s what I tell myself it did).

It is 100% essential to put the sausage in while the sauce cooks. I feel like it just makes the flavor of the sauce more rich. Making it in the Sizzling Sausage Grill just makes this recipe a little easier.

Now, time for the recipe. Like I said, I have the homemade version and the “cheater” version – feel free to use whatever one works with your schedule more.

Also, you will see that I added spaghetti noodles to the slow cooker. If you do this, add them about 30 minutes before you are ready to serve it. With that said, I actually really don’t love cooking noodles directly in the sauce. I feel like it all tastes too starchy or something…Something is just off. So just be aware that it may be a better idea to just boil the noodles separately!

Spaghetti Sauce Slow Cooker

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Slow Cooker Spaghetti Suace

Yield: 8 people

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Ingredients

Homemade Version

• 2 cans stewed tomatoes, 14.5 ounce
• 3 cans tomato sauce, 14.5 ounce
• 1 pound Italian Sausage, cooked and sliced/crumbled
• 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 Tablespoon Italian seasoning

Cheater Version

• 2 jars favorite spaghetti sauce, 24 ounces each
• 1 Tabelspoon minced garlic
• 1 Tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 1 pound Italian sausage, cooked and sliced/crumbled

Instructions

1. (Instructions are the same for both homemade and cheater version)
2. Cook sausage and either slice or crumble it. Drain excess grease.
3. Add all ingredients to a slow cooker. Stir. 
4. Cook on low for 5-6 hours, or on high for 2 hours. 
5. Add spaghetti noodles 30 minutes before serving and place slow cooker on high. Be aware that I don't like cooking the noodles in the slow cooker with the sauce, but this is an option.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Johnsonville. The opinions and text are all mine.