Crockpot Tomato Sauce
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Crockpot Tomato Sauce is so easy to make! Ditch the jarred sauce and let your slow cooker do all the work for a delicious tomato sauce!
Wondering how to make homemade tomato sauce? Look no further. This Healthy Crockpot Tomato Sauce is the BEST! Growing up in an Italian family where sauce and pasta are staple dishes, we never ate jarred sauce, and honestly, once you try this, you won’t want to either.
Making your own sauce is SO much cheaper. Plus, it’s easy, and it tastes way better than anything you’ll find at the grocery store (also, no salt!)!
Sauce is easy to make on the stovetop, but when you let your crockpot do the work, it’s even better. The tomatoes cook low and slow, creating a rich, flavorful spaghetti sauce that is so yummy!
If you have 10 minutes to spare in the morning, you can make this for dinner tonight by just tossing everything in your crockpot.
You can even prep it the night before—just sauté the onion and garlic, mix everything in the crockpot, and store the base in the fridge. In the morning, pop it into the crockpot, turn it on, and go about your day.
Crockpot Tomato Sauce Tips
- Be Prepared for leftovers! . If you’re just one or two people, I recommend making the full recipe and freezing half of it. I store my sauce in these freezer molds and just pop it in the freezer.. then when I need a fast dinner or lunch, I will take it out of the freezer the night before, defrost and enjoy.
- Add meat for flavor: I love this Healthy Turkey Meatballs recipe or our Homemade Meatballs for adding into the sauce! This Chuck Roast Pasta Sauce is also delicious!
- Use fresh herbs if you can.. they just taste 100x better and give SO much flavor!
- You can also use this sauce in recipes like my Crockpot Stuffed Peppers or Unstuffed Pepper Bowls.
Ingredients:
Substitutions
Olive Oil: You can substitute avocado oil, butter, or ghee for the extra virgin olive oil.
Tomatoes – I prefer to make this with canned crushed tomatoes, but you can make it with whole tomatoes that you puree or hand crush, but you might get a watery sauce. If using fresh tomatoes, the stovetop is better. You could also try our Fresh Tomato Sauce Recipe!
Fresh herbs – This recipe calls for dried herbs for accessibility, but I prefer to use fresh herbs (fresh basil, fresh oregano, fresh parsley) if available. Depending on what you use, I usually use this ratio: 3 tablespoons fresh = 1 teaspoon dried herbs. You can add more or less dried herbs to taste.
Red Pepper – If you prefer a less spicy sauce, simply omit hot pepper flakes
Instructions
- Cook your onions/garlic in olive oil on the stove until translucent. Stir into the crockpot with the remaining ingredients.
- Cover with a lid and cook on low for 8-10 hours. If you can stir it occasionally, that’s great too – but if not, it will still be delicious!
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Adding meat to this sauce:
We like to add cooked meat to our sauce. Our Healthy Turkey Meatballs, Ground Beef Meatballs or italian sausage to the crockpot while it’s cooking. I’ll bake the meatballs the day before I’m going to make sauce, and then just put the completely cooked meatballs right into the sauce while it cooks in the crockpot.
It makes the meatballs SO tender.. they literally fall apart!
Whether you add meat or stick to meatless, this Crockpot Tomato Sauce is LOADED with flavor and super easy to make.
Ways to Use Healthy Crock Pot Tomato Sauce
Here are our favorite ways to use this recipe:
- Over pasta- these Homemade Ricotta Cavatelli are my favorite!
- Over zucchini noodles
- Mixed in with Whole30 Stuffed Peppers
- Freeze it for another day
- Add a little bit to this Healthier Alfredo Sauce to make a creamy red pasta sauce
- With Homemade Ground Beef Meatballs or Healthy Turkey Meatballs
You can also try this Rosemary Chicken Sauce or Healthy Bolognese if you’re looking for a higher protein meat sauce. If you’re looking for a cream sauce, try Healthy Penne alla Vodka, Healthy Alfredo Sauce, or Healthy Lemon Cream Sauce.
How to Thicken Sauce:
This spaghetti sauce is thick as it is. If you want to make it thicker, you can try cooking it for longer or adding some tomato paste.
Turn your slow cooker on high to try to thicken it. Be careful to watch your sauce towards the end because it could burn.
storage
How long does tomato sauce last in the fridge?: This tomato sauce will last in the refrigerator for up to 4 days in an airtight container. We love to store it in a mason jar.
Freezing: You can freeze this sauce recipe for up to 3 months. Make large batches for easy meal prep! We like these containers for freezing.
Reheating: You can reheat this sauce recipe in the microwave or on the stove. Reheat directly from the fridge or freezer, or thaw completely and reheat.
Crockpot Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ¼ cup chopped onion
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 2 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes optional
Instructions
- In a small sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium high heatl. Sauté onions and garlic for about 5 minutes or until translucent.
- While the onions and garlic cook, add crushed tomatoes, basil, parsley, black pepper, oregano and red pepper to the crockpot base.
- Once the onions and garlic have cooked, add to the tomato mixture in the crockpot base. Stir together well until combined.
- Set the crockpot to low for 6-8 hours. You can set it to high for 4-6 hours, but we really recommend cooking on low. Some crockpots can run very hot and can cause the sauce to burn.
- Make sure to stir the sauce every hour or so to prevent it from sticking.
- Once cooked, serve the sauce over pasta of choice. We also like to add cooked meatballs and sausage to the sauce for extra flavor. It also makes them SO tender!
Notes
- Fresh herbs – I prefer to use fresh herbs in this recipe. I like to use 3 tablespoons of fresh herbs for every 1 teaspoon of dried herbs.
Thx for creating the easiest and most delicious Sauce recipe!!
Usually hate making sauce,as I feel it never comes out right !!
Keep creating, so we don’t have to overthink… what’s for dinner !!!
I’ve been wanting to make my own tomato sauce forever now. The unstuffed peppers recipe led me to this tomato sauce recipe and I will never look at a jar of spaghetti sauce again. Seriously the easiest recipe and it makes so much. I have 5 15oz. bags of spaghetti sauce chillin in my freezer for future recipes. 🙂 My favorite part is that I know exactly what went into my sauce – not like the jarred stuff. Great job, Liz and Tyler!
Can olive oil be substituted with butter if added after the sauce is cooked
I’m not sure I understand the question here. You can substitute butter for the olive oil to saute the onions/garlic – but you shouldn’t be adding butter to cooked sauce (or olive oil).
Hope that helps!
Thanks
I can’t wait to make this! The dried herb to fresh herb ratio seems off. You mention later on in your notes that it’s one tablespoon of dried herbs to three tablespoons of fresh herbs, but the recipe calls for one teaspoon of dried to three tablespoons of fresh. We just a want to make sure we put the right amount in our recipe!!
I usually use this ratio: 3 tablespoons fresh = 1 teaspoon dried herbs. You can add more or less dried herbs to taste. You can always add more herbs but you can’t take them away.
Can you make this recipe on the stove top?
Yes, you could. Saute onions/garlic in a large pot, then cook on low for 6-8 hours stirring occasionally. It’s really no different than the crockpot and you don’t save any time. Tomato sauce needs to be cooked for a while to remove the acidity and thicken up!
This is basically my sauce recipe, but I use much more onion and garlic, plus I actually dove carrots, sauté them first then throw the onion and garlic in.
I haven’t used jarred sauces in years, and I love this recipe! It’s really great to have a crockpot option that tends itself. Since there are only two of us, I looked for silicone freezer containers, but I could not find the log-cube trays that aren’t made in China. I ended up buying the Zip Top brand cup-style containers and keep them sitting upright in a bin in the freezer to avoid any leakage. I love that they are made in the USA! Now I have a stash of yummy sauce at my fingertips. Thank you so much!
Can you explain why there is no tomato paste? Is it just because it cooks for a long time? Thank you.
yes. you don’t really need tomato paste. It thickens on it’s own. if you want to add a tablespoon or two feel free but it’s not necessary!
I just wanted to confirm that it is 1/2 tablespoon of pepper. That seems a lot but I guess it makes a lot of sauce.
1/2 teaspoon of pepper 🙂
I’m confused. Your recipe says 1 teaspoon of dried herbs but your notes say 1 tablespoon. Which is correct?
The recipe calls for dried herbs. The notes are talking about how to sub for fresh herbs. its 1 teaspon dried herbs or 1 tablespoon fresh herbs
I am making this for dinner tonight. I added mushrooms, Turkey meat and tomatoes paste. Going to have it over gluten free pasta. Let you know how it works out.
The sodium in this appears to be too high. Do I need to leave out the salt or perhaps reduce it, and will that impact the taste?
Use low or no salt canned tomatoes or skip the salt and add to taste. canned tomatoes typically are higher in sodium
Super easy. So flavorful! I made it in the crockpot this morning, and used it for dinner. I only had dried herbs, so used those instead of fresh. Tasted great!
Glad you liked it!
This sauce is AMAZING! It has a nice sweet taste. I will not buy jarred sauce ever again. It’s super easy and makes leftovers. Don’t scroll past this recipe. You want be disappointed.
Thanks, Mary! So happy you liked it!
I’m making this sauce tonight …I’m starving !!
Hope you like it!
I have a no sugar recipe that the hubs found online and it was just alright. I saw your instagram post just last week on this and figured I would make it to see if the Italian could make a better sauce than a jar, And you did!! This was so good. Even my kids who don’t like red sauce were dunking their garlic bread into it. It makes a lot so I froze into single serve ball jars and will be so easy to grab one for dinner now
So glad you liked it, Berni! Thank you so much!
This sauce was ABSOLUTELY delicious! Used the turkey meatballs recipe as well but subbed ground turkey for ground chicken! DELICIOUS! Clean eating for me & everyone in my household enjoyed it just as much as I did.
Thank you so much! Glad you all enjoyed it!
Hi. Do I need to blanch my fresh tomatoes and peel the skin off?
That’s up to you. This recipe is for canned crushed tomatoes. If you’re using fresh tomatoes I’m not sure how this will work, but I would probably blend them or roughly chop before putting in the crockpot.
This is really good!! I made it exactly like the recipe but put it in the crock pot on low and let it cook all day long! It smelled so good made with the fresh herbs. And it tasted so good, too. Everyone loved it. I put meatballs in it about halfway through. This is a winner. I will be making this again and again.
Thank you so much, Cynthia! I’m so glad you liked it!
Can you water bath can this sauce?
Hi Becky – I’m sorry but I don’t know anything about water bath/sauce. I would think you can but it’s not something I’ve ever done!
Can you do it for 4 or 5 hours in the crockpot?
If you’re short on time, I’d turn the crockpot on high. The tomatoes need to cook for a while or at least on high heat to help get rid of any acidity!
I make this a least once a month. It’s the only sauce we use now. It freezes well, is so easy to make and it is incredibly tasty. Total crowd pleaser!!!
Yay! Thank you so much, Kimberly! Glad you like it!
Can this be frozen into smaller batches and if so, what is the lifespan? Also, how long is the lifespan if in refrigerator? I am a disabled Vietnam Vet and I am looking for a healthy pasta sauce and this looks like it will work for me.
Hi George – Yes, this can definitely be frozen in smaller batches. I keep it in the fridge for a month or so. Lifespan in the fridge is probably 3-4 days! I think you will loove this 🙂
I have stopped buying jarred sauce… this recipe is so easy to make and it is so delicious. I like to make a large batch and freeze it for the month!!!!! LIFE CHANGING 😋
Love hearing that, Kim! Isn’t it so simple?! Making/freezing it is the way to go – doesn’t get any easier than that!
I’m usually a sauce on the stove all day kinda girl….this was so easy and the sauce is super tasty!
Right?! I’m a sauce on the stove all day kinda girl too for the most part, but you just can’t go wrong with this recipe!