Recently I invested in a slow cooker. I’m a keen and adventurous cook, but was interested in a way to make dishes ahead of time in a slow cooker, so that mid week when I get home, dinner is good to go.
But my efforts so far have been… disappointing. Watery frequently, tasteless meat. I must be doing something wrong.
I’ve tried my favourite chicken curry recipe (watery), my killer chilli recipe using the finest leftovers from a prime rib (both watery and the meat was dry and tasteless). Even a faithful daal recipe comes out watery and in need of finishing off on the stove.
Is this just par for the course with slow cookers? I’ve had mildly better luck with pulled pork but that’s about it.
^ Use a lot less liquid than called for. Same thing goes when cooking in a pressure cooker (even moreso, as there is pretty much no evaporative loss.)
Just think about it. If dishes come out too watery, the solution would be to use less liquid, no? Even when I cook on the stovetop in a Dutch oven, I find that most recipes include way more liquid than necessary.Meat & veggies contain a lot of liquid, and if they’re in an enclosed area where evaporative loss is minimized, then only need the barest amount of liquid to keep them from scorching, and they will release a shit ton of liquid during cooking.
My GF uses a slow cooker all the time, and everything she cooks is deeeelicious. Even stuff I hate normally (like pork chops) come out tender and tasty. But she ALWAYS uses a recipe intended to be done in a slow cooker. So general advice: get a slow cooker cookbook or use a slow cooker website.
My ex-husband hated the slow cooker. “Everything comes out tough and undercooked!” Which is how I found out he was coming back and filling my crock pot with water after I’d set it to cook. No surprise he didn’t like his boiled roast. I didn’t like it either.
If the idea of using almost no liquid scares you, use it nights or weekends when you’re at home for the first few tries. Once you’re comfortable with the fact that it’s not going to catch fire, then you can set it to cook while you’re gone.
Here’s an easy one if you like shredded chicken with a Tex-Mex flavor. use it in salads, tacos, enchiladas, soup, etc. Take 1 lb of boneless skinless chicken breasts and add one small can of salsa. Like the 7-8 oz Herdez Ranchera or salsa verde. Put chicken in the crock pot, dump in the can of salsa, cook 3-4 hours on high (5-7 low) until the chicken shreds with a fork. Or use four breasts and a can of mostly drained Rotel tomatoes.
We’ve had a slow cooker (crock pot) for years. We prefer to use it only on weekends, like an all-day Sunday cook just so we can keep and eye on it, periodic taste tests, etc. We make enough in one pot to last two-three dinner meals for the week.
As others have said, you need to reduce the amount of liquid you use. Also, invest in a box of crock pot condoms. It makes clean up a breeze.
And they should come with crock pot recipes! We like the sweet & sour meatballs, which are quite good when made with sauce leftover from a delivery of Chinese food.
2 TB cooking oil
1 lb. beef stew meat
½ of a 6-oz. can tomato paste
1 10.5 oz. can of beef broth, or 1 12 oz. bottle of dark beer
1 medium potato, diced
1 or 2 green onions, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon of chili powder
1 teaspoon adobo seasoning
½ teaspoon black pepper
2 serrano peppers, chopped (use less if you don’t want it too spicy)
Salt to taste
1 TB cornstarch
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Sear beef until evenly browned. Pour off excess fat.
In the crockpot, stir in the tomato paste and broth or beer. Add the beef, potato and green onion. Season with garlic, chili powder, adobo, black pepper, serranos and salt to taste.
Simmer on low for 8 to 12 hours, or until beef is tender. Dissolve cornstarch in 2-3 TB of water and then stir into pot. Simmer for 15 minutes or until thickened.
[ul]
[li]OPTIONAL 1ST STEP: steam wings for 10 minutes, or bake at 250F for 30 minutes. This will melt out some of the fat, yielding a better end result but it’s not 100% necessary.[/li][li]Mix together all ingredients except chicken in a saucepan.[/li][li]Heat until sugar has dissolved.[/li][li]Put everything into the slow cooker.[/li][li]Cook on “High” for 2 hours, or “Low” for 4 hours.[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]Whole chicken, large enough to fit in the crock. I don’t know from fryers and roasters. Whatever the grocery store has in the bags. I guess a whole cut up chicken with a few additional parts would work, too. Anyway…[/li][li]Rub it with every spice you have in the house that goes with chicken (salt, pepper, garlic, Italian seasoning, poultry seasoning, etc.)[/li][li]Can of black olives, drained[/li][li]Jar of stuffed green olives, drained[/li][li]A few slices of salami, cut into strips[/li][li]Sundried tomatoes[/li][li]Jar of artichokes[/li][li]1/2 can of chicken broth[/li][li]Half a glass of white wine[/li][/ul]
Put it all in the pot, turn it on high, come back to it when the pop-up thing on the chicken pops up in about 4 hours or so. Turn it to low while you make some rice.
It does not get easier than this, and it’s a huge bang for the buck (unless you have a bunch of family or friends over the first night, you’ll have plenty of leftovers):
Three-Ingredient Chicken Tacos
Five or six chicken breasts, frozen
One package taco seasoning
One 16-oz jar salsa
Place frozen chicken breasts in the bottom of the slow cooker, cover with taco seasoning, then cover everything with the salsa. Cook on low for 8 hours. Shred chicken with forks; serve on warm corn tortillas and whatever toppings (sour cream, tomatoes, cheese, lettuce) you like.
I’d be leery of leaving of running any resistance heat electrical appliance from you-know-where operating unattended, as in “not at home”. There’s a reason they cost eight bucks. Fuses and breakers don’t always work the way we’d like.
I once worked in an office where one particular person would bring to work a Crock-Pot and all the ingredients for the meal, let it go all day in the office’s kitchen, and then take it home at the end of the day. She didn’t make many friends (having to smell it all day long with no other benefit), but she also never burned down her house.
Just because an ingredient is expensive doesn’t mean it’s the best for any purpose. Prime rib is a quick cooking cut and will dry out in a braise. You need to use a braising cut like chuck, brisket or short rib.
(I live in the Bay Area. If a tacqueria here didn’t fry their carnitas crispy before serving, they’d be out of business before you could say “estas carnitas no son crujientes”.)
