I got a slow cooker for Christmas. I’m looking for recipes where you just put in the ingredients, start the cooker and come back and it is done.
Please, I’m sure there are a lot of good recipes where you need to brown stuff before cooking, or do stuff after, or do some other thing before or after that I don’t know about. That might make a great other thread.
In this thread though, I’d love to see recipes where you add a bunch of ingredients to the slow cooker and in X hours it is done. You have any like that?
I highly recommend and endore the slow cooker bagsthat you can find in the bag aisle ( either top shelf or bottom shelf.) They are worth a gadzillion bucks when it comes to quick and easy clean ups.
Personally, you cannot really go wrong with a chicken breast or three, can of cream of something soup and a noodle of your choice ( the latter to be added in the last 30 minutes or so.)
Have fun with it!
1 beef roast + 1 jar pepperocini + just enough water to cover the roast + several hours = the start of the best roast beef sandwiches you will ever eat. Just add some good cheese and soft rolls and you’re good to go.
Frozen chicken (breasts, thighs, whatever), italian seasoning, 40 whole, unpeeled cloves of garlic.
When it’s done, you can pop the garlic out of its skin and spread it on crusty bread. Sweet and delicious.
Pork or beef roast (pot roast is good). Pour some barbecue sauce over it. Add some garlic and liquid smoke. Cook until falling apart. Pull apart with two forks, serve on soft rolls with more barbecue sauce.
New Years Pork and Sauerkraut
-This is a traditional German New Year’s dish, but it’s good and simple anytime. Also, I have a very small crockpot so feel free to vary the amounts.
1 package Pork Country Style Ribs (Boneless optional)
2 cans of Sauerkraut
1 sliced onion
1 can of natural juice pineapple chunks or rings cut up
2 Tablespoons Brown sugar
Salt and Pepper
Chuck it all together in the crockpot and let go on “high” setting for about 5 or 6 hours. Serve with Mashed Potatoes.
I use my slow cooker all the time, but I think my favorite thing to make in it is split pea soup. Here’s my recipe:
1 lb. bag of split peas, washed and sorted (they do not need to be pre-soaked)
2 cans of chicken broth or water to cover and chicken bullion
very small diced onion and garlic
1/2 to 1 tsp red pepper flakes, depending on how spicy you like it
diced potatoes and/or carrots, if you wish, but not necessary
a chunk of ham, a ham bone, a hamhock, cut-up sausage like kielbasa or ground sausage, or even just leftover pork roast- literally any kind of pork will do, or no meat at all, even
salt and pepper to taste
cook for 4 hours on high or 6 to 8 on low. take some of the peas out and put into a blender to puree, and add back to the soup for extra creaminess.
This soup is the bomb, especially with homemade or take-n-bake bread from the store.
Please scroll through this blog. It’s one of the best on the net as far as I’m concerned. This lady made a resolution to use her Crockpot every single day for a year. There are some definite winners in here (and a few losers), and she has chronicled her entire year. Each page is a week’s worth of recipes.
Put 2 or 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts on the bottom. Mix a box of Stove Top with a can of cream of whatever soup (I usually use Healthy Request cream of chicken) and half a can of water, and spread it on top of the chicken. Cook on low for 7 hours or so. I usually dump a jar of gravy on top in the last hour.
I actually got that recipe from Weight Watchers. If you use the whole wheat Stove Top it adds some fiber, too, and I swear that stuff tastes exactly the same as the regular.
Hockey Monkey, I just spent 30 seconds at that blog and I am completely and totally in love!
I’ve had my aunt’s old crock pot for years, and then, um, it got left by a series of coincidences with half of that butter beef recipe upthread in it for several months, because by the time I realized it was there in the garage I was afraid. I mean really afraid. So last week I steeled my nerves, marched in there, got my crock pot, cleaned it out (oh my god it was disgusting - I was thinking maybe it had just rotted beyond rotting, but it had NOT) and had gotten through the bad part and was cleaning the lid when I dropped it in the sink. Now, this thing has been a battleship for the past, I dunno, 30 years, and I know I’ve dropped that damned lid before - but this time it shattered into six or seven pieces.
I figured I’d never find a replacement lid, so I went and bought a new one with a timer and everything, since everything was on sale - great time to buy a new crock pot, right?
I was taking it out of the box and the unsecured lid fell out and smashed into a million little tempered glass pebbles on the floor.
Yes, I broke two crock pot lids in a day.
(I totally took it back and said it was broken in the box. Well, it practically was!)
Heeey, that’s mine (I think we both posted this last time as well). The only thing I do different is add a packet of Good Seasonings Zesty Italian (or one of the others).
Ohh, and I call mine “Dragon Beef”
Ohh+1 After I shread mine, I toss it back in the pot with the peppers. Then taste is every half 10 minutes or so, when it get’s to the hottness that you want, pull the peppers out.
My other entry is beef stew. Line the bottom with cut potatos (little smaller the a golf ball, then some carros (still cut pretty big), then anything else you want and lay your meat on top. Toss on any fresh or dried herbs, bay leaves or seasonings, then, dump a bottle of guinness over it and move on with your day.
for a 6 quart
7 pounds of boneless pork
1 jar of franks red hot buffalo wing sauce
1 jar bbq “your favorite”
1 jar coarse ground mustard,
1 can stew tomatoes (just about any kind will do)
4 spoonfuls of honey or jam
mix up all the sauces and stuff in a big bowl
layer pork and sauce in pot pouring the last sauce over the top
cook for 8 hours on low, shred the pork in the pot WITH the sauce (I just use a serving spoon the pork should just fall apart)
drain the extra sauce off, put on a bun or in a tortilla and put in your face
Oh, yeah. I make lasagna in the crockpot for potluck at work all the time. Basically, you just find any good lasagna recipe, online or even on a box of lasagna noodles, whatever, and just layer the stuff in the cooker. Add a half-cup of water and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours. You don’t even have to cook the noodles, but you do have to precook the hamburger or sausage and mix in the tomato sauce with it. You also have to mix up the cheeses with an egg and a small amount of milk, as one of your layers. So it’s not really set it and forget it, but it sure is good. Always a big hit at work.
I don’t use as much moisture in my slow cooker meats, the meat usually throws off a load on its own. Bus since you want to use the bags, maybe increase the volumes here by 50-100% since a lot will stick to the bag:
Mole Chicken:
-bed of thinly sliced onions on bottom
-boneless chicken thighs
-for each 2 thighs: 1/4 cup taco sauce and a soup spoon of Mole paste, combined. Dump over thighs. Plug in crock pot. Bugger off 8 hours. Tear apart with 2 forks and stir together with sauce. Serve inside tortillas with whatever you normally plop over your tacos
Smokey pork butt:
-bed of onions, see above
-cheapo hunks of unboned pork- I get the ‘country ribs’ when on sale
-coat pork with a 3:1 mixture of brown sugar and cumin. Put the sugar mix on a plate, roll it around like Uncle Scrooge in a pile of $20’s. Toss in crockpot
-pour Worcestershire sauce over until it come about 1 inch up the side of the meat. If you have liquid smoke, a few shakes of that too.
-Plug, bugger off 8 hours. tear fork/stir, serve on toasted buns.
Creamy Chicken & Noodles
3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2-10 ¾ oz cans of Cream of Chicken Soup
½ c. butter, sliced (one stick!)
1 box of low-sodium chicken broth (48 oz or so)
1 large pkg. dried egg noodles
Combine first 4 ingredients in a slow cooker.
Cover and let cook on low setting for 8 hours.
One hour before serving, remove chicken, shred and return to cooker for another 30-40 minutes.
Stir in noodles; cover and cook on low for 20-30 minutes.
Lean rump or round roast, sliced onion on the bottom, put the roast on it, stir up one of those Au Jus gravy packets in 1 cup water 1/2 cup white wine, cook on low for 10-12 hours. When done, shred and put on french rolls, serve with Au Jus for awesome french dips. This recipe lasts us (two of us) for two dinners of sandwiches, then I am making another dinner and a lunch worth of beef stew (just add some low sodium beef broth, potatoes, carrots, celery and season as desired).