This technology includes a method for performing cardiac imaging without the need for the patient to hold their breath. Free breathing pixel-wise myocardial T1 parameter mapping includes performing a free-breathing scan of a cardiac region at a plurality of varying saturation recovery times to acquire a k-space dataset; generating an image dataset based on the k-space dataset; and performing a respiratory motion correction process on the image dataset. The respiratory motion correction process comprises selecting a target image, co-registering each image in the dataset to the target image to determine a spatial alignment measurement for each image, and identifying a subset of the image dataset comprising images with the spatial alignment measurement above a predetermined value. Following the respiratory motion correction process, a pixel-wise fitting is performed on the image dataset to estimate T1 relaxation time values for the cardiac region. Then, a pixel-map of the cardiac region is produced depicting the T1 relaxation time values.