After one Halloween, I discovered internet instructions for cooking and freezing pumpkin. The desire for pumpkin recipes resulted from the large quantity of uncarved pumpkins I harvested, roasted, and frozen. I created this dish on my own one evening when I was feeling inspired. French vanilla coffee flavoring offers a great touch, therefore I’m surprised I don’t see it in more dishes.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 8 hrs 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 8 hrs 40 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ¼ pound bulk Italian sausage
- 2 small onions, chopped
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 teaspoon dried Italian herb seasoning
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon dried marjoram
- 1 (29 ounce) can tomato sauce
- 1 (14.5 ounce) can Italian-style diced tomatoes
- 1 (14.5 ounce) can Italian-style stewed tomatoes
- 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ¼ teaspoon dried thyme leaves
- ¼ teaspoon dried basil
- 1 tablespoon white sugar
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add Italian sausage and onion; cook and stir until sausage is browned, about 10 minutes. Transfer sausage and onions to a slow cooker.
- Add ground beef to the same skillet over medium heat; season with Italian seasoning, 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, and marjoram. Cook and stir until beef is browned and crumbly, about 10 minutes. Transfer ground beef into the slow cooker.
- Stir in tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, tomato paste, 2 teaspoons garlic powder, oregano, thyme, and basil. Cover and cook on Low for 8 hours. Stir in sugar 15 minutes before serving.
- This sauce is not super sweet, and you may find that you want to add more sugar!
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 264 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 19 g |
| Cholesterol | 45 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 4 g |
| Protein | 15 g |
| Saturated Fat | 5 g |
| Sodium | 1025 mg |
| Sugars | 13 g |
| Fat | 15 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This is always my go to base recipe and I tweak it as I gob I have made it at least four times. I used a large can of rotel this time and T kicked it up a notch. Definitely added the sugar to help even the heat out. I doubled everything in this recipe. I was a little heavy handed with all of the spices. AND. I used 3lbs of beer, 1lb of hot sausage and some chunks of pepperoni. It is definitely meat lovers. I separate into 3 cup servings and freeze what I fmdont need this week.
This is my one and only spaghetti sauce recipe. Everyone loves it. I freeze what we don’t eat for an easy meal on a busy day
I adore this recipe…simply the best.. I just add chili pepper to it ! I make it with ground chicken thank you..my men devour it.
I love this recipe. I modify it a bit but not too much. Mostly with seasonings. Since it’s just the two of us, it freezes well for another night (I use a Mason jar, but don’t top it off). I also use it to make Lasagna as well with it. It’s a favorite at our house.
I have made this several tines. Simple and quick to make. Minimal cleanup. Always good. I often double the recipe and freeze extra.
This recipe is so tasty that my husband prefers it over his family recipe! We canned what we didn’t eat. I opened a jar a few days ago and it tasted as fresh as the day we made it.
I’m really surprised by such a high rating on this recipe. The only change I made was using a full 1 lb of Italian sausage vs. 1/4 lb. Overall I found it to be just “ok”. I did like the ease of putting together and being able to put it in the slow cooker. But the flavor was just kind of lackluster / dull and didn’t really feel like it was worth the effort of doing. I’d honestly rather just cook up meat and combine with some Rao’s. After making I double checked the recipe just to be extra sure I wasn’t missing an ingredient or deviated and aside from adding salt and the extra 3/4 lb of sausage that was it.
This was just okay; stars for ease of prep, but was a bit runny for my taste.
Pretty bland. I think it would have been better without the stewed Italian tomatoes and the Italian diced tomatoes though and used plain tomatoes.
I made this for my Italian son-in-law. He LOVES it. I put it together before going into work, so I added the sugar with it all instead if at the end. Really fantastic!
I did not have any Italian sausage or Italian tomatoes so I just used diced, no sugar (forgot!), and it was still awesome! Almost as good as my dad’s—finally! Thank you, thank you!!
I doubled the Italian sausage and added mushrooms. This is the first time I’ve made homemade sauce. I’m extremely pleased with it.
absolutely wonderful sauce, as culinary student and also been to Italy several times, you as a foodie or not will never find old school real Italians use sugar I n their sauce or gravy r,Shredded carrots or whole carrots and then removed or some other high sugar vegetable is much preferred.
Sauce was very good, but w crock potting the sauce is kinda thin, with the moisture in crock. After 8 I left the lid off for few hours seemed like that thicken it up. But very tasty, didn’t need sugar at all.
I absolutely loved it. The only change I made was I used 1# of bulk Italian sausage and no ground beef. It had plenty of meat with just the sausage. Will definitely make it again.
I use a similar marinara sauce cooked in the crock pot and love it. However, I don’t use sugar; I use honey and some balsamic vinegar in my recipe.
I like the sauce but omitted the sugar. In my view better to cut the acidity of the tomatoes in a pasta sauce with dairy, like the Italians do.
This is a great recipe! I also look at the ingredients per serving. For those who are concerned about the sugar, 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons sugar. Divide the 3 by 8 servings and each person would get 1/3 of a teaspoon, a bit more than 1/4 tsp. Another way is to look at it by grams. Each tsp. has 4 grams. One-third of that is 1-1/3 gram per servings If you’re adding veggies or mushrooms, you’ll get more servings and less than the 1/3 tsp. of sugar. Reconsider adding back that sugar to temper the acidity.
Wow! That was way too much sodium for me to even try. Any suggestions on the lower sodium intake?
In stead of having to add sugar, I just used Dole or Hunt’s canned tomatoes. They come in many varieties such tomatoes and basil, oregano, garlic, sweet onions, etc. They will prevent the sauce from being too acidity or bitter. I also substituted beef hotdogs or pepperoni instead of using Italian sausage because I don’t like sausage. Thanks for recipe
Delicious, i did have to add a little sugar to cut the acid!!