Easy Slow Cooker Tomato Sauce Recipe - Chef Savvy (2024)

FAQs

How do you make homemade tomato sauce taste better? ›

Tomatoes naturally contain lots of water, so cooking any tomato sauce for a long period of time will help eliminate some of the water content. The water will slowly but surely evaporate, leaving behind a thickened, full-bodied sauce with lots of flavor.

Make a blonde roux, flour and fat cooked together into a paste, add the liquid and whisk it in. There. That's gravy. Alternatively pour the liquid into a pot on the stove and set it to simmer for a long time, reducing it down until it's thicker.

"I like to add roasted garlic, fresh basil, and sautéed chopped veggies like mushrooms, bell pepper, and onion into my sauce. This combination gives it a garden-variety taste and feel," Chase told Insider. Sometimes they'll also add red chili flakes or a drizzle of garlic oil to the sauce.

Approximately three dashes or ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg is plenty for a jar of tomato sauce. If you are making a large batch, add a bit more for good measure. While the flavor should be subtle, you still want it to make the other ingredients shine, so feel free to play around with the quantity until you get it just right.

If you want to get the flavours to combine and the tomatoes to soften and get the saucy texture its best to cover the pot snd simmer on low heat. Stir occasionally to check if its sticking and do taste from time to time. If you want to reduce the sauce, evaporate excess water , you should leave the pot uncovered.

The minimum time you should simmer sauce is 30 minutes. This is about how long the oils take to disappear into the sauce (rather than pooling on top). But you should consider simmering for three or more hours, letting it lazily cook away, no more than a few straggling bubbles surfacing at a time.

While specially designated “slow cooker” sauces are not ideal for stovetop (because they are designed for long cooking to reach their potential), “simmer sauces” can absolutely be used in the slow cooker because their flavors won't be damaged by the low heat of slow cooking. Which means they're interchangeable!

This moist environment allows you to leave food to cook for hours without risking it drying out. But because there is no evaporation, the liquid isn't able to reduce and thicken naturally in a slow cooker, often resulting in watery sauces and loose gravies. The common solution? Using a thickener.

How do you thicken tomato sauce in a slow cooker? ›

Just whisk together equal parts cornstarch and water to make a slurry — using about 1 tablespoon cornstarch per cup of liquid in your recipe — then whisk this into your pot. Cook until the sauce begins to thicken.

A generous sprig or two of fresh herbs like basil, parsley, rosemary, or sage can all amp up the flavor of a jarred pasta sauce. Alternatively, some of those herbs, like parsley, sage, and rosemary, can be great minced up and gently fried into fresh olive oil before adding the sauce to the pot.

Your spaghetti sauce may taste bland due to insufficient seasoning. Try adding more salt, herbs (like basil, oregano, or thyme), and other flavor enhancers like garlic, onion, or red pepper flakes. Also, a dash of sugar can balance flavors and bring out the natural sweetness of tomatoes.

Heat and time can help soften some of the acidity and tinny edge that tomatoes have straight from the can, developing a sweeter, rounder flavor.

If you're using a plain tomato (marinara) sauce, stir in seasonings to add extra flavor. Red pepper flakes, dehydrated or fresh garlic, dried oregano, parsley, or basil, or an Italian seasoning blend are all good options.

Sweeten things up with a little sugar.

If your jarred tomato sauce is too acidic, consider adding a pinch or two of sugar (after all, it makes the medicine go down!). Jarred sauces can sometimes make you pucker, lacking the sought-after balance of a homemade sauce.

It's best to make your sauce without sugar at first, then taste it and add a pinch if necessary. There are also ways to sweeten sauces that don't rely on refined sugar. Giada De Laurentiis uses carrots to add a more nuanced touch of sweetness.