Slow Cooker Naturally Sweetened Red Sauce

This is a partner post to my sourdough pizza crust. See that sauce peeking out below all those toppings? That's what we're making here. A super easy slow cooker red sauce that can be used on pizza, pasta, rice, or even as a base for a soup.

Jarred pizza and pasta sauce can be intimidating to purchase based on the sugar content. I've also accidentally purchased sauce with meat or dairy ingredients. It's not impossible to find one that fits my needs: gluten-free (let's hope--it's flipping tomatoes), dairy-free, meat-free, no added sugar, ideally organic--but that makes for a pretty high price point. So, I make my own. The recipe below makes four cups, or two pint jars, so you'll have some for later.

What You Need:

• 2 lbs paste tomatoes

• 2 cloves of garlic

• 2 tablespoons dried basil

• 1/8 cup lemon juice

• 1/4 cup red wine (Yay! Open wine. Better drink some. It goes bad so quickly. Like an avocado.)

• 2 tablespoons honey

• 1 tablespoon salt

Directions:

SO much easier than the crust, let's start there. I roughly chopped all of my ingredients then used my immersion blender, but if you don't have an immersion blender then you will need to be much more careful with how you chop up your ingredients. I used one of the two pints that this makes on the pizza crust in the photo.

Step One: Get out your slow cooker OR put a saucepan on a back burner and plan on being home for the next 4-6 hours.

Step Two: Put all of your ingredients in your slow cooker/pan. Set your slow cooker to high OR get your saucepan to simmer. Cover. It will feel like there isn't enough liquid but the tomatoes will release a lot of juice as they cook and you will be set.

Step Three: Leave this for 90 minutes, stirring occasionally. After 90 minutes, if you do have an immersion blender, puree your ingredients, leaving them slightly chunky. If everything is already pre-chopped, this step is unnecessary.

Step Four: Leave this for another three hours. Once you feel like it has cooked down and is adequately viscous, turn your slow cooker/stove top off and let this stand for a few minutes.

Step Five: After your pizza crust has pre-cooked, careful spoon this on top as your sauce. It also makes a great pasta sauce!