Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce + VIDEO

This slow cooker spaghetti sauce is simple yet delicious.  The sauce is low-carb, paleo, and whole30 compliant and can be served many different ways. Sit back & let the appliance do the work for this classic recipe.

Ingredients For Spaghetti Sauce

The ingredients in slow cooker spaghetti sauce recipe are simple and can be found in your local grocery store. 

• Ground meat
• Tomatoes: crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes & tomato paste
• Beef broth
• Onion
• Garlic
• Seasonings

How To Make Spaghetti Sauce In The Slow Cooker

Making spaghetti sauce is easy, especially when you use the slow cooker or Instant Pot. 

Slow Cooker

1. In a large skillet, add ground meat and cook over medium-high heat until browned. Drain grease. Add the ground meat to the slow cooker.
2. Add all remaining ingredients to the slow cooker. Stir to mix well.
3. Cook HIGH 3-4 hours or low 6-8.
4. Remove bay leaf before serving.

Instant Pot

1. Turn on the pressure cooker and select sauté. Once hot  add the oil, ground meat, and onion.  Cook 5-7 minutes until the ground meat is browned and the onion is soft. Crumble the ground meat as it cooks. Add garlic and cook an additional minute. Drain excess grease from the pressure cooker if needed.
2. Add broth, tomato paste, oregano,  salt, thyme, basil, pepper, and red pepper flakes (if using). Stir to mix well.
3. Pour crushed & diced tomatoes on top. Top with bay leaves. Do not stir.
4. Close lid and seal valve. Cook high pressure for 20 minutes. Natural release pressure for 5 minutes then quick release any remaining pressure.
5. Remove bay leaves & stir.

What Is Spaghetti Sauce?

Spaghetti sauce is a tomato-based sauce that has a spice blend and ground meat (usually meat, pork, or Italian sausage) added to it to make it heartier. This sauce is great on pasta, veggie spirals, or rice when you need to make something quick and easy. Each person’s homemade meat sauce is just a little bit different, but the basics are meat, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and spices such as thyme, oregano, and bay leaf. You can make meat sauce in the Instant Pot for a quick meal if you really need to, but letting this sauce simmer in your slow cooker really adds a depth to the flavors that only patience can bring.  Rest assured, no matter what you call it or how you make it, this recipe will become a long time favorite that you will find yourself wanting for dinner all the time.

Spaghetti Sauce vs. Bolognese

I’ve been asked before if spaghetti sauce and Bolognese are the same thing, and I understand the confusion. While some people use these two terms to describe the same dish, there are differences between the two. Spaghetti sauce and Bolognese sauce, both being tomato and meat based, have similarities when it comes to ingredients and flavors, but there are some particularly important differences between them that make the distinction important. Spaghetti sauce, like Bolognese sauce, has tomatoes, spices and broth in it, and spaghetti sauce sticks with and develops those flavors alone. It also typically sticks to just one type of meat whereas a traditional Bolognese sauce usually has beef, pork sausage, and pancetta. Bolognese adds in many different ingredients that meat sauce does not, like carrots and celery cooked until they’re almost caramelized, to add more depth of flavor. Some sort of milk or cream is usually added at the end of a Bolognese to give it a rich creaminess. Another key ingredient in Bolognese sauce is dry white wine, which I leave out.

What Type Of Meat To Use

This spaghetti sauce uses ground meat. You can use your preferred ground meat whether it be beef, turkey, or sausage. A good variation would be to use half ground beef, half ground sausage. You can kick this spaghetti sauce up a notch by using stew meat for chunks of beef that are fork-tender and flavorful when slow simmered in the tomatoes, broth, and herbs.

How To Serve Spaghetti Sauce

What do you serve this spaghetti sauce? The traditional way is over spaghetti noodles of course. A good low-carb, paleo, and whole30 substitute for spaghetti noodles are zoodles (zucchini noodles) or even spaghetti squash. This meat sauce is even good served over a baked potato that has been split open.

Storing the Leftovers

If you are anything like me, you might plan ahead and make a large batch of a recipe like this so that you can portion it out to save leftovers to make a few easy meals on stressful nights. This meat sauce recipe is perfect for doing just that, and it reheats well, too.

Meat sauce will save in the refrigerator for up to five days in good airtight storage or in the freezer for up to three months in freezer safe storage. You need to make sure any container you use to freeze food in is freezer safe or else you run the risk of the food going bad or getting freezer burn. Reheating meat sauce is easy, too. You can go straight from the refrigerator to either the microwave or a pot on the stovetop. If you freeze your leftovers, I recommend thawing the sauce in the refrigerator overnight or at least four to six hours first.

Meat Sauce or Meatball Recipes 

Bolognese

Meat Sauce w/Zoodles

Spaghetti Squash w/Meat Sauce

Zoodles w/Meatballs

Italian Meatball Dinner

I use a 6-quart slow cooker or Instant Pot to make this recipe.

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