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Home How to Guide 10 top tips for using a slow cooker. The cooking vessel is where you put the food you cook. Some slow cookers have clips to hold the lid in place for easy, no-spill traveling. Imagine trying to bring pasta water to a boil with a lid and then without it. The lid to your slow cooker works the same way. Vent holes allow steam to escape and the wattage of the unit has been adjusted to compensate for any heat loss. Cooking with a slow cooker is most similar to cooking with a Dutch oven on a stovetop.
On a stovetop, a pot is heated from the bottom and the heat rises up the sides of the pot to heat the food within. Similarly, a slow cooker creates heat toward the base, which transfers up the sides of the vessel to heat the food within. In addition, setting the temperature for both cooking methods is very similar. Instead of cooking something at a specific temperature on the stovetop, you set the temperature to low or high. Your slow cooker works in the same manner.
When you set the temperature to low on your slow cooker, your heating element will put out less heat. When you set the temperature to high, the heating element will put out more heat.
Cooking something on low takes more time than cooking something on high. Because the temperature settings work most like stovetop cooking, it is hard to give an actual temperature for the various heat levels. Slow cooking is relatively forgiving and is adaptable to a wide variety of recipes. Slow cookers use low cooking temperatures and retain moisture during the cooking process. Likewise, if your recipe calls for very high temperatures of oil to fry things quickly, a slow cooker will not be an option.
The majority of slow cooker-friendly recipes can be adapted to cook somewhere in the middle; stews and soups fall into this category. You can convert your favorite recipes to slow cooker recipes if you learn these important differences first:. We like to say slow cooking is energy efficient for you AND your home.
Slow cooking gives you the ability to cook while you are away, saving you time and energy. A small slow cooker uses approximately the same power as one and a half watt light bulbs. Because it cooks with contained heat, it uses less energy. Research Hamilton Beach Slow Cookers here. We hope this helped answer some of your questions about slow cooking.
What others do you have? Try these Slow Cooker Recipes or learn how to easily convert "low and slow" recipes for use in a slow cooker.
Save Save. Save Save Save Save. Breakfast Sandwich Makers. Skillets and Griddles. Share this post. Since slow cookers cook low and slow, they make even the toughest and cheapest meats tender and juicy. So grab a low-cost cut and let it cook all day. The resulting dish will be so fall-apart tender and full of flavor, no one will guess you bought the bargain meat.
It's time to be honest. If your recipe says to sear your meat before you place it in the slow cooker, do you do that It seems reasonable to skip it — it's going to cook all the way through in the slow cooker, right? Well, technically, yes. You can skip it and you'll still end up with a fully cooked meal. Still, skipping the searing step does change the flavor of your dish, and not necessarily for the better. According to Kitchn , searing your meat before slow cooking it caramelizes the outside of each piece of meat, adding texture and an extra layer of flavor.
If you've never seared your meat before slow cooking it, you won't know what you're missing. But after you've tried it once, you'll never skip that step again. Chicken cooked skin-on in an oven or pan usually ends up with a gorgeous, crispy skin.
When you're cooking in a slow cooker, you're probably going to end up with a soft, rubbery outside that's anything but appetizing. If you want to be able to serve dinner straight from your slow cooker with no extra steps, use skinless chicken when you slow cook. If you don't mind an extra step and another dish to wash , transfer the cooked meat from the slow cooker to a broiler pan and cook it under your oven's broiler for just a few minutes, until the skin is golden-brown and crispy.
With all the props given to fresh herbs, it's kind of refreshing to know that dried herbs are actually the go-to seasoning in slow cooker meals.
Since they do their best when cooked over long periods of time , dried herbs are the easy winners when it comes to your favorite slow-cooked recipes. That's not to say you can't use fresh herbs in a slow cooker recipe — just don't add them at the beginning.
There won't be anything left when it's time to serve. Instead, toss those in toward the end of the cooking time, so they're still fresh and full of flavor when you sit down to eat. One slow cooker does not fit every slow cooker recipe. The cooking time on each recipe counts on the fact that you're using the same size slow cooker as the recipe directs — meaning it's filled to the appropriate level.
Your slow cooker should be filled halfway to three-quarters of the way full. If it's not full enough, your food will end up overcooked.
If it's too full, it may not cook completely , or you may end up with an overflow — and a big mess on your kitchen counter. Dairy products don't do well warm, and the slow cooker is no exception. If you add ingredients like milk, cheese, cream, sour cream, or cream cheese too early in the cooking process, you'll have a curdled, disgusting mess at the end of your cooking time. To save your dish without sacrificing the creamy flavor you love, cook it without any dairy and then add those ingredients in during the last half hour — cooking them just long enough for them to melt and blend properly into the dish.
Its not that big of a deal to use a heavy hand when cooking with wine on the stovetop. It all cooks off, right? That's not the case with a slow cooker because the lid stays on tight and nothing really evaporates. In fact, when you add wine to a slow cooker recipe, you'll taste more of the wine than you would in a stove-cooked dish.
For that reason, its best to skip the wine — or add it sparingly — unless you're really after that tang. Pinterest is full of recipes touting the wonders of freezer-to-slow cooker meals. As fabulous as it sounds, it's not a good idea to put frozen food — especially meat — in your slow cooker.
If your slow cooker is full of frozen food, it'll take way too long to reach a safe temperature of degrees Fahrenheit , meaning your food will spend longer than it should at temps that are less than safe. That sounds like a great way to get food poisoning, if you ask us. Go ahead and thaw your food completely before adding it to your slow cooker. You might think that since you keep the lid shut tight on your slow cooker all day you do that, right?
Believe it or not, your slow cooker doesn't cook evenly all the way through. The heat element is at the bottom , so foods placed there will heat up first and cook a lot faster. This is where you want to put foods that need longer cooking times. Root vegetables like potatoes and carrots should be layered in first, along with tougher cuts of meat. Following that same reasoning, the faster-cooking, more delicate ingredients — or those that don't need much cooking at all, like canned veggies — should be layered at the top.
Keeping this in mind will help ensure that all of your ingredients finish cooking at about the same time , because no one wants a slow cooker dinner that's partly overcooked and partly raw.
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