I feel as if I'm using too much rudder to stay on center
This part of your question suggests that you may have some misconception about how to judge what control inputs are needed during a crosswind landing.
From a pilot's practical perspective, during a crosswind landing using the "wing down" (sideslip) method, rudder controls heading, and ailerons control (via bank angle) the aircraft's sideways "drift" (either upwind or downwind), or lack thereof.
(From a fundamental point of view, that's not really what the controls are doing1, but when we include the pilot in the loop, in this particular situation, that's the net outcome.)
So you make rudder inputs as needed to hold heading, and you make aileron inputs as needed to stay on the centerline.
There's no "set" amount of aileron deflection that should go with any given rudder input, or vice versa. (Well actually there is, at least for one given airplane, at one particular airspeed, flying in a perfect world featuring a crosswind that is totally smooth with no gusts etc-- but we don't live in a perfect world.) So just use the rudder, and ailerons, as described above, as needed.
Changes in one of the two control inputs (rudder or ailerons) will normally drive a need to vary the other control input as well, for reasons that are beyond the scope of this brief answer. Don't worry about it, just continue to apply inputs as needed as described above.
You'll almost always find that you need to dial down the rudder and aileron inputs as you descend down through the wind gradient near the ground. No problem-- just continue applying the corrections as needed as described above.
Another answer to this question has made an excellent suggestion for a practice exercise.
Footnotes:
- This answer is aimed at aircraft of a basically conventional configuration, and more specifically, aircraft that generate some amount of net sideforce in the "downwind" direction when being flown in a sideslip. But for a real "outside-of-the-box" mind-bender, consider the following: imagine a nearly all-wing aircraft with no fuselage, and a swept wing. There is virtually no cross-sectional surface area that would generate a "downwind" sideforce in a sideslip. Directional stability ("weathervane" stability) is entirely due to sweep. There is an all-moving rudder/ vertical tail with no fixed portion, mounted on a slender tail boom, only a short distance behind the CG. Due to the short moment-arm, the rudder must generate a lot of sideforce to generate a yaw torque to create a sideslip (i.e. to yaw the aircraft's nose out of alignment with the actual direction of the flight path and relative wind), and the sideforce from the rudder acts in the upwind direction in relation to the relative wind. So the net sideforce during sideslipping flight is in the upwind direction, not the downwind direction as would normally be the case. Imagine that this aircraft is on final approach in crabbed (coordinated, non-slipping) attitude, and the pilot then applies rudder to align the nose with the runway heading. To cancel out the sideforce resulting from the deflected rudder, and balance the forces on the aircraft and keep the aircraft moving in a straight line, must the pilot bank the aircraft in the upwind direction as is normally the case, or in the downwind direction? If the pilot attempts a last-minute "kick out the crab" style of crosswind landing without banking at all, and if the touchdown is accidentally delayed and the pilot continues to work the rudder as needed to keep the aircraft heading parallel to the runway heading, while keeping the wings level, will the aircraft "drift"-- i.e. will the flight path curve-- toward the downwind edge of the runway as would normally be the case, or toward the upwind edge of the runway? The take-home lesson: with unusual aircraft geometries, "your mileage may vary", but the content of this answer is valid for all aircraft with even a remotely conventional configuration.
