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This easy, homemade spaghetti sauce cooks itself in the Crock Pot, and costs only pennies to make. It’s chock-full of vegetables and has no added sugar!
Inspired by Make the Bread, Buy the Butter.
There are several reasons to make your own spaghetti sauce:
- You want all the ingredients to be pronounceable
- To avoid added sugar (No, really! Check the label…on Prego it’s ingredient #3.)
- You’re too cheap to spend $3+ a jar, or more for the fancy stuff
- Need sauce to fuel your pasta/homemade pizza addiction
- It cooks itself in the crock pot overnight
- Garden is overrun with fresh herbs
- Just because you can
As you know, all of these reasons apply to me. And the very first batch was a success! Sometimes I need to try a recipe a few times before it turns out right, but this was tasty right off the bat.
The part that makes it cheating easy is that we’ll use canned tomatoes. If you’ve ever spent an afternoon skinning, de-seeding, and cooking down fresh tomatoes, you’ll know why canned tomatoes are a godsend here. There’s no shame in this shortcut!
Tools to Make Crockpot Spaghetti Sauce
Food Chopper: if you like a smooth spaghetti sauce, this chopped gets everything minced super fine
Crock Pot: a great way to simmer your spaghetti sauce for many hours without needing to pay much attention
Immersion blender: a great kitchen tool to get a super smooth spaghetti sauce
Crockpot Spaghetti Sauce Recipe
Ingredients:
6 cloves or more garlic
2 large onions
1 cup raw baby carrots (adds sweetness)
1/4 cup olive oil
#10 can chopped tomatoes (12 cups)
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
1/4 cup or more finely chopped basil
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Finely chop your garlic, onions, and baby carrots. We like smooth sauce, so I use my chopper-majigger to get everything minced nice and fine. They’ll disappear into the sauce and you’ll get the flavor without the lumps.
Saute the garlic, onions, and carrots in the olive oil over medium heat until softened. Add them to the crock pot along with all the other ingredients.
Cook on low, stirring occasionally, for 10-12 hours. You can see from the “sauce ring” that it cooks down quite a bit.
The tomatoes will soften and break down while cooking. If the sauce is still too lumpy after several hours, zip it with your stick blender to desired consistency.
Cool, divide into jars, and freeze. I ended up with 11 cups of sauce, which equals about 5 jars of store-bought.
Oh, and the cost breakdown? If nothing else, let this convince you. An average price around here for Prego Traditional, 24oz, is $3.59 ($0.15 per ounce). Mama’s crockpot sauce? Since I got the garlic, parsley, and basil from the garden, the entire batch cost $4.75–or FIVE CENTS per ounce. Cha-ching and yum!!
Easiest Crock Pot Spaghetti Sauce
This easy, homemade spaghetti sauce cooks itself in the Crock Pot, and costs only pennies to make. It's chock-full of vegetables and has no added sugar!
Ingredients
- 6 cloves garlic
- 2 large onions
- 1 cup raw baby carrots
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 12 cups chopped tomatoes
- 1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
- 1/4 cup finely chopped basil
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Finely chop your garlic, onions, and baby carrots. We like smooth sauce, so I use my food chopper (or food processor) to get everything minced nice and fine. They’ll disappear into the sauce and you’ll get the flavor without the lumps.
- Saute the garlic, onions, and carrots in the olive oil over medium heat until softened. Add them to the crock pot along with all the other ingredients.
- Cook on low, stirring occasionally, for 10-12 hours. You can see from the “sauce ring” that it cooks down quite a bit.
- The tomatoes will soften and break down while cooking. If the sauce is still too lumpy after several hours, zip it with your stick blender to desired consistency.
- Cool, divide into jars, and freeze. I ended up with 11 cups of sauce, which equals about 5 jars of store-bought.
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Totally going to make this. Thanks! I love my crock pots ! All four.
i want to use my own tomatoes..can anyone tell me how many they used..or lbs.?..thx
12 cups!
Can you can it in a water bath or do you think that you would need to pressure can?
It doesn’t have any added acid, so I would freeze it or pressure can it to be safe. It’s not worth taking the risk!
Thanks so much for letting me know Pam. I can’t wait to make some. Love your site!
I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to can this in a hot water bath. I believe there is enough acid in the tomatoes. I checked other recipes for canning and they also use the same ingredients. Nothing extra, so I am planning to can this. Thank you so much for the recipe.
I made this with garden tomatoes, turned out great! I canned but added 2 TB of lemon juice per quart. Thanks for the recipe!
Might be a stupid question, but do you keep the crock lid on or off? Doesn’t seem like it would cook down as much as shown in the pic with the lid on since it’s such a moist environment. I make my own sauce often, but have never done it in the crock. Would be nice to have it cook overnight.
This looks great! I can’t wait to make it. I am embarrassed to ask this, as I guess I should know– but what do you mean by #10 can of tomatoes? I’m assuming you don’t mean ten cans of 6-pound tomatoes, but one can of 6-pound tomatoes doesn’t seem like enough. Thank you!!
I was thinking the same and I’m in the UK so not sure either.
Can this be put in sterile jars and made shelf stable if sealed properly?
Your spaghetti sauce looks wonderful.
I made 2 recipes of this. It’s great. I also added sauteed mushrooms at the end to jazz it up a bit. Thanks.
Since it is not actually canned how long will these stay good in the freezer?
Marissa, it should keep for a year in the freezer. We have homemade pizza almost every Friday, so it doesn’t last that long in our house though!
Thanks for the recipe! It sounds delicious!
I always make my own sauce for all the above reasons too. Never thought to do it in a crockpot though – great tip! Visiting from The Gunny Sack linkup 🙂
Hello, love your official recipe, I have done this for several years-only add just what I have, lots of fresh tomatoes and lots of zucchini, celery, I add mushrooms when I actually use it.This year I added some canned tomato paste to it and liked the thickness
Thank you for the recipe. I am hoping we get enough tomatoes to can this year. I will save your recipe for this fall. Thanks.
Hi Pam! We met at the library where I work, and this is my first visit to your blog. I love it! Your home made, crock pot tomato sauce is timely for me. Just recently I was noticing that the organic brand of tomato sauce I have been buying lately has one more gram of sugar per serving than the non organic brand! Yikes. Your recipe looks great and I love using my crock pot too so I will have to try this soon. I also appreciate the cost break down you provided.
I will for sure stop by your blog again and again. Take care and see you at the library! Andrea