Making marinara sauce usually requires a long simmer at the end. I’m too lazy to stand watching marinara sauce and found a crock pot will pretty well instead! First get your crockpot fired up on high, we’re going to use it to get our onions and peppers started. If you are lazy like me, use crock pot liners so you don’t have to scrub your crock pot when you are done.
The garden has been putting up a lot of tomatoes and peppers. I made about 7 quarts of this great sauce but the recipe will be cooked in one crockpot. Multiply the ingredients and multi-pot if you have enough to do so.
First, fire your crockpot on high while you dice your peppers and onions. Here’s the ingredient list:
- 1 medium onion
- ½ bell pepper
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 6-8 medium tomatoes
- 12 oz tomato paste
- 2 tbs brown sugar
- 2 tbs dry basil
- 1 tsp dry oregano
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- 1/8 tsp ground red pepper
- 3 cloves minced garlic
- 1 beef bullion
Once your peppers and onions are diced up, put them and the olive oil in the crock pot while it is heating up and cook them soft.
Quarter the tomatoes and use a food processor to chop them just enough to have what looks like really thick salsa. If you like your sauce thinner, give them a couple more bumps in the processor.
Once all your tomatoes are ready and the onions and peppers are soft, put it all in the pot, mix well, cook high for an hour and check your seasoning, then low 6-7 hours.
A lot of people like some meat in their marinara as it’s usually gong to be used for pasts, but we are canning our extra sauce. You can put 1/2-1 lb ground beef or sausage in the pot and cook it right along with everything. I fried mine up after the crock-pottery was done, mixed it in and it turned out to be an excellent sauce on pasta