Slow-Cooker Classic Marinara Sauce

Why This Recipe Works

There are many classic pasta sauces that are basically variations on marinara, and we wanted to come up with a formula for making them in the slow cooker, where the long simmering time would render them rich and flavorful. The biggest hurdle was choosing the right tomato products to create sauces that were neither watery nor too thick. Our solution was a combination of three different tomato products (paste, crushed, and puree). The concentrated products (paste and puree) provided strong, complex flavor without unwanted water—no need for evaporation. For all these sauces we microwaved onions and aromatics along with tomato paste to create a flavor-packed sauce base, adding other ingredients like anchovies, red pepper flakes, or pancetta to the mix to suit the particular sauce. Seasoning at the end, and adding additional herbs or other ingredients like capers and olives, provided the finishing touches.