Sometimes, I just want spaghetti. I mean, a couple of times a month I just want spaghetti. And, I love having an easy sauce that uses things I usually have in my pantry or refrigerator. This Slow Cooker Arrabiata Sauce with Spinach cooks all day and has a hearty deep Italian flavor with a bit of a bite.
When I was going through chemo, I craved 2 foods – spaghetti and dollar store kosher dill pickles. I’m totally blaming it on the fact that I would get a bag of saline between each chemo medicine and my salt levels were all over the place, but those 2 foods I had to have weekly. Crazy huh?!?!
What’s even crazier is that I still want to eat them, even eating them that much during that time. Often people will never eat again foods they ate while on chemo, but I still have spaghetti in some form a couple of times a month and I will usually have Dollar Tree kosher dills if you come to my house at any time. But, spaghetti is not really something I like to eat out. Mostly because I don’t like red sauce that fancy restaurants make. I just like a good homestyle, hearty meat sauce that somehow tastes best around your own dinner table.
This summer marks 12 years since I found that lump in my neck and it seemed like as good a time as any to share my Slow Cooker Arribiata Sauce with Spinach. Put it on ground turkey or ground beef or bake a few Tyson Air Fried chicken strips and have a homemade Chicken Parmesean in 20 minutes (well plus 8 hours in the crockpot)
Slow Cooker Arrabiata Sauce with Spinach
Ingredients
- 14.5 oz can Tomato Sauce
- 29 oz can Tomato Sauce
- 14.5 oz can petite diced tomatoes
- 12 oz jar roasted red peppers
- 1 Grill Mates Tomato Basil Marinade or Spaghetti Sauce seasoning packet
- 2 tablespoons pesto – OR – 1 teaspoon minced garlic and 1 Tablespoon chopped basil
- 2 cups chopped frozen spinach
Instructions
- Place a liner in a slow cooker.
- Pour tomato sauce and tomatoes in a slow cooker.
- In a small food processor, blend red peppers to desired texture.
- Pour peppers into the sauce.
- Add seasoning pouch and pesto or basil to the sauce.
- Cook on low for 8-10 hours. Stirring a couple of times to keep edges from burning.
- About 20-30 minutes before eating, stir in frozen spinach.
- Serve as you would any marinara sauce.
Notes
- Use as a dipping sauce for bread or mozzarella sticks.
- Eat with Spinach Ricotta Calazones
- Serve as the sauce in Chicken Parmesean.
- Serve as spaghetti sauce.Â
- Stir in ricotta cheese or heavy cream to make a pink sauce.
Oh and I’ll make it one step better. You can make this as a big batch and freeze half of it for later. Or, use part of it to make a Short Cut Lasagna to take to a friend who has had a hard week, surgery, or a new baby. I have a sister and sister in law who had a baby during quarantine. I should totally make them each a batch of this…..hmmmm!
You might also like my homemade marinara recipe that is perfect for the end of summer and all those extra (or ugly) tomatoes.
