Cornerstone Family Practice

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Adapting Your Favorite Recipes to a Slow Cooker and Other Slow Cooking Tips

You can easily adapt many of your favorite recipes for the slow cooker. Moist-heat recipes (i.e., recipes with water, broth, soup, sauce or stock) work particularly well in slow cooker.

• In general, cut liquid amounts in half. You can try starting with 1/2 – 1 cup of liquid: you can always add more.

• Most slow cookers have a high setting (about 250-300° Fahrenheit), low setting (about 185-200° Fahrenheit), and a warm setting (about 165-175° Fahrenheit). Think of high as about 300° and low as about 200°. Note that slow cooker temperatures vary: it is important know your slow cooker.

• Chicken, pork, lamb, beef and vegetables all cook differently in a closed, moist-heat environment. Well-marbled, tough cuts of beef (like chuck roast) do very well in slow cookers, and are tender and wonderful after 9-10 hours on low heat. In contrast, lean chicken can be cooked about 4-5 hours on low heat. Pork and lamb are somewhere in-between those time frames.

• One hour of oven or stove-top cooking is roughly equivalent to 8 hours in a slow cooker at low heat and 4 hours on high heat. Two hours on low heat in the slow cooker is roughly equivalent to one hour on high heat in the slow cooker.

• A 3-quart slow cooker will cook in a third less time than a 6-quart slow cooker.

• If you are unsure of timing, try low heat for about 8 hours (i.e., all day or overnight).

• It is best to fill the slow cooker only half or 2/3 full, that said, if it is not full enough, you may overcook the meal.

• We recommend browning meat before putting it in the slow cooker: this develops an attractive caramelized exterior, and maximizes the flavor profile. Dredge the meat in flour and seasonings, and then sear it in a skillet or sauté pan. Browning the meat can also helps reduce the grease in the final dish, and helps mitigate the food safety issue, as most bacteria resides on the outside of meat. It is also advisable to brown ground meat before adding it to the slow cooker.

• You can prepare the vegetables and brown the meat the night before. Be sure you cover and refrigerate vegetables and meats separately.

• There are several ways to thicken liquids. You can dredge meat in all-purpose flour before browning it; mix a slurry of cornstarch and cold water and add it to the liquid; or add ground, quick-cooking tapioca at the beginning of the cooking process.

• Trim as much fat as possible from the meat.

• Put whole and hard vegetables toward the sides of the slow cooker, since this is where the heating elements are. This is particularly recommended for recipes with shorter cooking time (for example when chicken instead of beef).

• Try not to remove the lid, as this lowers the interior temperature of the slow cooker and increases cooking time and can make the food unsafe to consume.

• Bacteria and food borne microorganisms grow in the temperature range 41-135 ° and most rapidly between 70-125°. Food cannot be in the 41-135° range for more than four hours, and must reach 140° within 2 hours. It is alright to remove the lid to add ingredients, or stir the contents, but try not to open the lid too many times.

• Add fresh herbs at the end of the cooking time.

• Do not let the electrical cord touch the base unit.

• To keep vegetables from getting too soft, leave them in large pieces, or leave potatoes whole and cut them into smaller pieces at the end of the cooking process.

• From the food safety perspective, is advisable to use chicken pieces rather than a whole chicken so it is more likely to cook through.

• Do not put frozen ingredients directly into the slow cooker. Thaw ingredients in the refrigerator overnight.

• Add dairy products (yogurt, milk, and cheese) toward the end of the cooking process to minimize curdling.

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