Spaghetti of Smothered Burger Sauce in Crockpot

I mentioned in my last post for Smothered Burger Sliders, there would be sauce leftover as well from the original Smothered Burger Dinner. Tonight we make spaghetti sauce in the crockpot! Yum!

First all the leftover sauce was very chuncky so I took a fork and smashed the larger pieces of potato and carrot. (My leftover sauce was still in the crockpot, so I just carried on from there.) Now, instead if you wish to remove the vegetables for another use, you certainly could... an egg frittata comes to mind... sounds good!

Anyway, next came the can of condensed tomato soup. Just drop it in there and mix together.

Now to the stove:

Brown 1 pound hamburger. I used 80/20, but you can use 93/7 or even ground turkey if you want. As it is browning, I added the following seasonings:

1t garlic powder
1/2t onion powder
3T Italian seasoning
1/4t ground black powder
(if you like it spicy, I'd add some red pepper flakes or hot sauce as well. Nut's not so much on the spicy so I just add that to my own portion.

Once meat is browned, Add one cup of water to the ground meat. This will deglaze the pan to assure not to waste any flavor. Once pan is de-glazed, add to crockpot and mix into the tomato soup mixture.

Add two bay leaves.

Not that's it. Cover crockpot and set to high for 4 hours.

Notes along the way: At hour three, Nut and I noticed it was turning out a bit runny so for the last hour I'm cracking the lid of the crockpot with a chopstick. I learned that trick from one of my new favorite blogs.

Well, it worked. The sauce thickened nicely. All that was left was to boil our spaghetti noodles according to the package, drain. Then ladle up dinner.


The sauce coated the noodles nicely. Finishing with some shredded parmesan cheese, and dinner looked and smelled awesome! Tasted good too... as a matter of fact...

Taste Tester Results: Nut liked it. I think I was getting a clue when, while the sauce was simmering, I would hear the rattle of the crockpot lid being removed, and Nut would emerge from the kitchen still smacking his lips. The clincher came when I gave him my plate after dinner, to put my leftovers back in the crockpot.... they never got there, giving their all amidst more lip smacking and yummy noises. Another winner of the clean plate club!