Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 1/2 pounds hot Italian-style link sausage
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1/2 cup water
- 4 pieces beef shin, each 1 inch thick (about 3 1/2 pounds)
- 2 (28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
- 6 sun-dried tomatoes, preferably not oil-packed
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 6 cloves garlic, smashed
- 2 teaspoons dried Italian herb mix
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 pound tubular pasta, such as rigatoni or ziti
- Freshly grated Parmesan or pecorino
Directions
Heat a heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil and then the sausage; cook, turning occasionally, until brown all over, about 5 minutes. Transfer the sausage to the slow cooker. Pour off and discard all the oil in the skillet and return it to the heat. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, until brick red, about 1 minute. Add the water and bring to a boil, stirring to scrape up the browned bits. Pour the mixture over the sausage.
Add the beef shins, crushed tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, onion, garlic, Italian herbs, bay leaf, salt, and pepper to taste. Set the slow cooker on LOW for 8 hours, cover, and cook until the beef is very tender.
When ready to serve, bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it generously. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente, about 10 minutes. Transfer the sausage and beef to a cutting board, slice into serving portions, and arrange on a serving platter. Drain the pasta and toss with some of the sauce; transfer to a serving bowl.
Serve the meat and pasta separately with sauce on the side. Freeze any leftover sauce for up to 3 months.
Review This Recipe
You must be logged in to review this recipe.
or Sign Up to Review
Newest Ratings and Reviews
Read all 4 reviews
By pink_cupcake17
santa barbara, CA
on September 08, 2010
Flag
Flag This Review?
Please provide the reason why you think this review is inappropriate.
or Cancel
I make pasta sauces all the time, and they are always super delicious, but I wanted to try something a little different and this was easy, rich and pretty darn good! Now, I had to make some adjustments because I didn't have everything it called for. I couldn't find beef "shins", my butcher suggested beef shanks! So I only used two, they were pretty meaty, this made the sauce super rich and complex, in fact next time I will use all 4! I didn't have regular tomato paste, I had sun-dried tomato paste so I used that therefore I went a little light on the sun dried tomatoes it called for in the recipe, the jar of sun dried tomatoes I had were packed in olive oil not water, but I don't think it made a difference. Also, I first browned the sausage, put in the crock pot, then I browned the shanks, put them in the crock pot then I brown the onion and garlic and then proceeded with the recipe by adding the tomato paste. Set it on high for about 4 hours and the house was aromatic and it smelled divine! It was great! I will be making this again!
By jaclyn121_1152551
Somerville, MA
on November 09, 2008
Flag
Flag This Review?
Please provide the reason why you think this review is inappropriate.
or Cancel
I made this recipe and thought it was pretty mediocre. I think that it would have been better if made with a mixture mostly of tomato sauce and less crushed tomatoes. The base of all crushed tomatoes turned out to be too watery for this recipe's meaty mixture. In my family, we made really big batches of tomato sauce on Sundays. I would recommend 3 cans of tomato sauce, 2 cans of crushed tomatoes and 1 can of tomato paste.
I didn't like the fact that the garlic and onion wasn't sauteed before putting it into the crock pot. Sauteeing your garlic and onion beforehand really brings out the flavor.
By Chef #221624
tallahassee, FL
on August 29, 2008
Flag
Flag This Review?
Please provide the reason why you think this review is inappropriate.
or Cancel
This was very good and extremely easy. I didn't use a crockpot; I cooked it in a Dutch oven on the stovetop for about 7 hours. You could easily cut this recipe in half and still have a lot of food!
Read all 4 reviews