How To Use A Slow Cooker More Effectively

Slow cookers are fantastic because in about 15 minutes, you can have a meal prepared and go on with the rest of your day. I know I have the most energy when I get up in the morning so it makes it easy for me to add all of the ingredients and be off to work.

Who wants to work all day and then come home and spend an hour or two preparing dinner? Not me! Though slow cookers will save you a lot of time, there are a few tips I can give you that can help you use your slow cooker more effectively.

One thing you can do to make things easier is prepare as much as you can before bed and put this in the refrigerator. This will save you time in the morning because you only need to place your ingredients in the slow cooker and you are done! There are some ingredients that you will not be able to do this with so be sure to check your recipe and prepare as much as possible. After all, you have enough to do in the morning with getting ready for work, breakfast, the kids and so on.

Being that the majority of popular slow cookers only have two settings of low and high, I have found that cooking on the lowest setting gives me the best results. Cooking on the high setting is risky because you have a very good chance of overcooking and sometimes even burning your food. I have never overcooked any food by using the low setting. Programmable crock pots are also an excellent idea because they make it literally impossible to cook something incorrectly because you can set and forget.

Many slow cooker recipes call for vegetables and if you are going to use fresh ones, you will want to plave these under the meat as they will take longer too cook. Canned vegetables cook fast and should be placed over the meat. If you have frozen meat, it is better too thaw it before putting it in the slow cooker. Some people will put a frozen roast in a slow cooker but I have found that my roasts have cooked better when they are thawed out first.

These small tips can help you save time and get better results from your slow cooking efforts. As you gain more experience in preparing different types of meals, you will develop your own shortcuts and your own unique cooking style.


If you enjoyed this article on slow cookers, you may like the following pages - Rival Crock Pots and All Clad Slow Cookers.