This Italian Slow Cooker Sausage Pasta Sauce recipe is an easy way to get a homemade dinner on the table with little hands-on time! There’s just 10 minutes prep and the crockpot does the rest! Tastes best topped with lots of Parmesan!
Let’s be honest here: as much as we always want to feed our family home cooked dinners – it’s not always possible, right? And especially not during the busy holiday season (which is actually when we could really use some comfort food).
And out come the freezer meals, microwaveable dinners or like me – oatmeal three nights in a row.
BUT! Slow Cooker to the rescue! I just recently discovered the awesomeness of slow cookers. Believe it or not – crockpots aren’t popular in Switzerland. At all. To the point of non-existent.
I don’t know much about the rest of Europe but I haven’t really seen them popping up anywhere. Can you understand me being sceptic at first?
That’s why I ordered a small and very basic crockpot* on Amazon to try it out. Only mine is purple and that was basically why I decided to get this particular one.
And when I got it in the mail a few days later – I was still hesitant to try it out. I think I ordered it back in August and it took me a few months and a delicious bread pudding to be convinced of its utter slow cooking awesomeness.
I know, early bandwagon jumper over here again. But you see, something very popular everyone grows up with over here is quite the opposite of the slow cooker – the pressure cooker.
Really, there’s one in every household. And while they might be super practical – they don’t compare to slow cookers at all.
But I got over my initial fear, and now I’m a slow cooker convert! I love how the flavors have time to mingle and fill my entire house with deliciousness.
That’s exactly what happens with this slow cooked Italian sausage pasta sauce, too. The sausages fall apart beautifully and you get a deliciously fragrant sauce.
Because there’s another thing that’s really great about this recipe – it’s super budget friendly and a great frugal family dinner.
Especially as families we can’t always afford to buy meat for every dinner – and sausages are a great alternative to more expensive meats.
OK, one more thing about this – it’s so easy to make! Throw everything into the slow cooker together and poof, 8 low cooked (or 4 high cooked) hours later you have dinner basically ready!
Don’t forget to boil the pasta while you’re dwelling in all the amazing smells emerging from your crockpot!
Ingredients
- 1 lb pork sausages, meat removed from the casings and roughly crumbled
- 3 celery sticks, chopped
- 2 large carrots, cubed
- 1 shallot, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, sliced
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 2 cans 14.5oz diced tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- Salt, pepper and Italian herbs to taste
- 1 cup peas, thawed from frozen
- Parmesan cheese for serving
Instructions
- Add all ingredients except for the peas to a 3.5-quart slow cooker. Stir around well and cook on low for 8 hours or on high for 4 hours. Remove the lid and continue cooking for 10-15 minutes or until the sauce has thickened to your liking. Stir in the peas and serve hot over pasta topped with Parmesan cheese.
Nutrition (this is an estimate)
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