I have a new oval shaped slow cooker (programmable), I usually use the plastic liners I was wondering if I could use two liners with different chicken dishes in each. They should cook about the same length of time but I don’t know about if they both would cook evenly all the way through. Has anyone tried this?
ohh, nobody?
I have never used even a single liner, and can’t answer your question. I feel bad that no one has responded to your post. So here I am, asking you why those things don’t melt.
I had never even heard of slow cooker liners, so no help here. Are you talking about these from Reynolds?
ETA: If I had to hazard a guess, I would assume that the liners have great heat transfer characteristics which would make the material a non-issue when dividing two dishes.
They’re made from nylon which doesn’t start to melt until at least about 360F.
To the OP, this is one of those things where It Depends. Usually the stoneware portion of a slow cooker promotes even heating, but w/o knowing how your cooker’s heating element is arranged I can’t predict. All I can suggest is to try it and see.
No experience, but the “slow” part is to your advantage. The temperature will have time to equalize throughout the cooker. Once it’s hot throughout, it will be fine. How long is the cook time?
Are the dishes something you could stir once or twice at the beginning, to make sure the whole dish is hot? Or could you cook them for a little longer, just to be safe?
The wife suggests that it is indeed possible. She suggests that you either rotate the crock or swap the liners about halfway through the cooking time to accommodate any uneven heating.
yep those are the liners, they keep from having to scrub the dried cooked on food off the crock. both recipes cook for about 5 hours
I am going to give it a shot, the worst that will happen is I have to finish on the stove. now I just have to get to the grocery store.
thanks everybody!
While that’s probably a good idea to deal with potential uneven heating, that should add a bit to the cooking time. I’d probably say 15 minutes or so if cooking a single dish and depending on how long you’re cooking overall. (I make a carne adovada in my crockpot, where I put it on low and cook for about 10 hours or so while at work. At that point, 15 minutes is practically a rounding error.)
Obviously, the liners will need to be tied shut. So I’d expect the effects of opening to swap or rotate to be minimal.
I think this should work. I think I’d be most concerned about tying the bags shut.
Aha! There’s a cookbook that uses the technique!
ETA: It looks like she doesn’t tie the bags. She drapes the bag ends over the side and then puts the lid on. This strikes me as better than tying. I’d be worried about allowing the bag to breathe.
This is an amazing idea!
… since I’m here, anyone else have any cool slow cooker recipes/tips to share? We did a pot roast on sunday, and it turned out… ok. I think I probably added too much water, the broth was tasty but very watery, and the meat shredded easily but was a bit on the tough side.
Posting because I’m interested in hearing how this worked out.
If you put in a lot of onions or mushrooms and maybe a little tomato paste or ketchup, you don’t really need any water at all. I also add mustard and Worcestershire sauce, usually. How tough the meat is will depend on how much fat it has.