Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce

I really love this recipe for spaghetti sauce because it is easy, tasty, and cans well. Because it is a crockpot recipe it will cook overnight or while I'm at work, and then I am able to can it when I have the time. The original recipe, from which I adapted this one, can be found here. I would encourage you to please visit the site and leave a good review, as I like to give credit to those who did the "leg work" and came up with a good recipe to begin with. I adapted the recipe to omit the meat, doubled the recipe and made it a bit more saucy, so that it would be easier to can and to open up the options for what I could eat it with.

Here's the recipe I used:

2 medium onions, chopped
4 cans (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes
2 cans (14.5 oz) tomato sauce
2 cans (8 oz) tomato paste
2 bay leaves
2 Tbsp brown sugar
8-10 cloves minced garlic
4 tsp dried basil
4 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp salt
2 tsp thyme
Lots of ground black pepper (I don't measure, I just grind!)
A few dashes of hot sauce, if I'm feeling like a spicy sauce

Please note that I have a pretty big crock pot. If your crock pot is smaller, you can make a half batch pretty easily. Start off by dumping in all of your tomato products.











Add in all your seasonings, garlic and brown sugar. The only thing that should be left out until the very end is the bay leaves. Don't put those fellows in just yet!











Mix it all together really well before you put the onions in. That way it is easier to blend your tomato paste in. If you don't blend the tomato paste in, it can stick to the side or bottom of the crock pot and burn.










Chop up your onions. You don't need to worry about chopping it up super fine, or even uniformly. We're going to use a stick blender on this beautiful mess at the end!











Stir in your onions, add your bay leaves, put a lid on it, and turn it to low. You'll want this to cook for about 8 hours. Did you notice that I left the bay leaves sticking out just a tiny bit?











Once your 8 hours are up, snag those bay leaves out and find your stick blender. It's a lot easier to find the bay leaves if you leave just the tip sticking out of the sauce. Whatever you do, don't forget to pull out the bay leaves. Believe me, it's not great if you forget.









Using your stick blender, grind your sauce up until it's nice and smooth. I like a saucy sauce, but if you like yours a bit more chunky, you can just blend a little, or you can skip it altogether. If you are planning on canning this sauce, turn your slow cooker to warm while you get your jars and rings together. This is the recipe I used in my instructional post Food Preservation - The Basics of Canning.

Meatballs

We ran out of store-bought meatballs a while back, and had nothing with which to eat our spaghetti sauce. I decided to put together some meatballs of our own to put in the freezer. The recipe that I liked the best was this one by Ree Drummond. (Please click the link to view the original recipe, and let her know that she's a genius!) I didn't quite have what I needed to follow her recipe to a tee, so I adapted!

Here's how my adaptation went:
1 lb ground beef
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c plus 2 Tbsp grated Parmesan
1 egg
1/4 c plus 2 Tbsp Italian bread crumbs
1 Tbsp dried parsley
1/4 tsp salt
Black pepper to taste
Splash of milk

Start out with your favorite mixing bowl. Mine happens to be this red plastic number.

Measure out your dry ingredients, crack an egg in there and splash in a little milk.



















Add the meat, and mix it up with your hands, making sure to incorporate everything evenly. I like to use gloves for this part, so that my hands don't get yucky.

















Line a baking sheet with some wax paper, this will be landing zone for your finished meatballs. Put some more gloves on and begin rolling the meat into balls about 1" across, then place them on the wax paper lined pan.















For some reason I always end up with 30 meatballs. However many meatballs you end up with, space them out on your baking sheet so that they are not touching one another. Stash them in your freezer for about 10 minutes to firm up a bit.















In a flat bottomed skillet or frying pan (I prefer cast iron for this application) add just enough oil to coat the bottom of your pan. Apply medium heat, and when your pan is hot begin adding meatballs, a few at a time. Using tongs, turn your meatballs so that they brown on all sides.














Once brown on all sides, remove your meatballs and place them on a paper-towel lined plate. The meatballs will not be cooked through, you just need to make sure that the outside is totally browned so they will hold their shape. Leave them to sit on the paper towels to drain off any excess oil and to cool completely.













Once completely cool, you can put your meatballs into a zip-top container and stash them in your freezer until you are ready to use them. Be sure to label the bag so that you know what you have and when it was made. Nothing worse than playing "Guess What I Found in the Freezer." Ick! When you are ready to use your meatballs there are two methods that I have used with great success. First, you can put your meatballs on a baking sheet, or a baking rack with a foil-lined baking sheet underneath it, and bake in a 375 degree oven for 15-20 minutes. Once cooked through, add it into your spaghetti sauce. The second option is to add the frozen meatballs directly into your sauce. Heat it until simmering, then simmer for about 20 minutes. I prefer the first method, as it produces a meatball with a firmer texture, whereas the simmering method produces a softer textured meatball.

It's all up to you, though!