Italian Sausage in the Crock Pot

Italian sausage in the crock pot, with peppers, onions and tomatoes, is about as easy as feeding a crowd gets. Brown the links in a skillet, make a quick sauce in the same pan, then layer everything in the slow cooker and let it run on low for 4 to 6 hours. The sausages turn tender, the peppers and onions melt into the sauce, and dinner waits for you instead of the other way around.

Fresh Italian sausage is usually coarsely ground pork seasoned with garlic and fennel, sometimes with chili flakes for heat, stuffed into links. It has enough fat to stay juicy through hours of gentle cooking, and as it simmers it seasons the whole pot.

At a glance: serves 6 to 8. Prep 20 minutes, brown and make the sauce 15 minutes, cook on low 4 to 6 hours.

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Pasture-Raised Italian Sausage Links

This recipe uses 2 packs of Italian sausage links, enough for six to eight sandwiches.

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Cooking for a full freezer instead? See the 1/8 beef share subscription.

Gray Shipley, who runs the farm, was asked how he would feed a crowd. He had the smoker in mind, not the crock pot, when he said this:

“that's a good way to kind of do a lot of food and low and slow and take the time to get something that really stands out.”

Gray Shipley

Sausage was not part of his answer, and a slow cooker is not a smoker. The idea carries over all the same. A big pot of sausages and peppers that cooks low and slow for hours makes a lot of food, and once the lid is on it asks almost nothing of you.

Ingredients

• 2 packs Italian sausage links, 2 to 2 1/2 pounds, fully thawed
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 bell peppers, a mix of red, yellow and green, cut into 1/2-inch strips
• 2 medium yellow onions, halved and thinly sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
• 8 hoagie rolls, split and toasted, or 1 pound pasta, to serve
• 8 slices provolone or 1/2 cup grated Parmesan, to serve (optional)

Instructions

1. Make sure the sausages are fully thawed; FSIS advises against putting frozen meat in a slow cooker.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Brown the sausages in batches, turning them with tongs, until browned on all sides, 6 to 8 minutes per batch. They do not need to be cooked through yet. Move them to a plate.
3. Spread the peppers and onions in the bottom of a 6-quart slow cooker and lay the browned sausages on top.
4. Pour off all but about 1 tablespoon of fat from the skillet and lower the heat to medium-low. Add the garlic and tomato paste and stir for about 1 minute, until the paste darkens. Add the crushed tomatoes, oregano, basil, salt and red pepper flakes, scrape up the browned bits from the pan, and bring to a simmer.
5. Pour the sauce over the sausages and vegetables. Cover and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours, or on high for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until the peppers are very soft and an instant-read thermometer in the center of a sausage reads 160 degrees F.
6. Skim any fat from the surface with a wide spoon and taste the sauce for salt. If it seems thin, take the lid off, turn the cooker to high, and let it bubble for 20 to 30 minutes.
7. Serve the sausages whole or sliced on toasted rolls with plenty of peppers, onions and sauce, topped with provolone, or slice them over pasta with the sauce and Parmesan. Refrigerate any leftovers within two hours.

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Do you need to brown Italian sausage before the crock pot?

You do not have to, but it is worth the 15 minutes. A slow cooker never gets hot enough to brown anything, so sausages that go in raw come out pale and a little soft-skinned, with a sauce that tastes flat. Browning firms up the casing, renders some of the fat so the sauce is less greasy, and leaves browned bits in the skillet that go straight into the sauce. Making the sauce in that pan is how you keep them.

How long to cook Italian sausage in a crock pot

On low, 4 to 6 hours is the window. At 4 hours the sausages are cooked through and the peppers are soft but still hold their shape. By 6 hours the peppers and onions have collapsed into the sauce, which is what you want for sandwiches. Much past that, the links can split and turn crumbly inside. On high, 2 1/2 to 3 hours does the same job.

Slow cookers vary a good deal, so the first time, check a sausage with a thermometer at the early end. Push the probe into the end of a link toward the center rather than through the side, where it can slip out.

Hot or sweet sausage?

Either works. If your links are mild, the red pepper flakes give the sauce a little warmth; if they are already hot, leave the flakes out and taste at the end. A spoonful of red wine vinegar or a pinch of sugar stirred in before serving can balance a sauce that tastes too sharp from the tomatoes.

Sausage and peppers for a crowd

This recipe doubles in a 7- or 8-quart slow cooker; brown the sausages in more batches and give it the full 6 hours on low. For a party, set out the rolls, cheese and a slotted spoon next to the cooker and let people build their own. It travels well too, which is why sausage turns up so often on a tailgate menu, and the guide below has more ideas for that kind of day.

Food safety

USDA FSIS lists 160 degrees F as the safe minimum internal temperature for ground meats, and fresh sausage is ground meat, so check it with an instant-read thermometer rather than by color. FSIS also advises thawing meat completely before it goes into a slow cooker, refrigerating leftovers within two hours, and reheating them to 165 degrees F on the stove, in the microwave or in the oven, never in the slow cooker itself. See the FSIS guidance on slow cookers and food safety and the FSIS Safe Minimum Internal Temperature Chart.