I've been advised to get a slow cooker as an easy way to make meals. I like the idea of easily eating food made with fresh ingredients rather than relying on ready-meals. Does anyone have any experience/advice/suggestions/yummy recipies?
Can you add pasta to slow-cooked sauces? Does it end up over cooked? Or do you have to add it later?
I am not much of a cook but they make sense to me.
The less time I spend in the kitchen, the happier I am.
My friend used to make pulled pork in one & it was good!
I use mine for pulled pork all the time. I wouldn't put pasta in them as that takes no time to boil. If you have any freezer burned meat, crock pots are great to make, even them tasty. Stews are great in them, too.
I think they are quite handy and can make a lot of meals at one time, depending on what size you get. I would search for crock pot sauces and see what you find out. I don't make sauce or eat pasta.
I like using our slow cooker, but the ceramic container it cooks in is too heavy for me to carry (I need my hands to hold a walker or the walls for balance when walk) so only use it if I know I can get my hubby to do the heavy lifting!
Lots of recipes online. I usually do meats/ stews. Can even put them in frozen. I don’t really do pasta in there since I think it may get mushy.
As for the fresh healthy kind of recipes, I love using it for a lentil butternut squash soup. Wash a cup of lentils. Add it to the cooker. Chop and drop in a butternut squash, a few potatoes, an onion, a few carrots, a few stalks celery, about 4 cups broth (veg or meat kind), a tsp each of salt, rosemary, thyme, garlic powder (or a few cloves of the real kind of you have it). Set it and forget it! I do 8-10 hours on low. Then I use a stick blender to blend about half of it. Then at the very end, I add some kale. Pre washed/ chopped is my friend. Season to taste.
A full-sized one is too big for me, but I have two small ones that are about 1 1/2 quarts each. One of them is enough for me to have some leftovers, but if I'm cooking for two, I have to use both. If you're regularly cooking for more people, I wouldn't recommend getting one.
I like the convenience for meat and veggies, and they're great for something like soup made with dried beans, but I've never done pasta. I'd think you just wouldn't cook it as long.
Before buying one, I'd find a store that lets you pick them up. That would give you an idea of whether or not you could handle the weight if they're full. Clean-up's always been a breeze.
I recommend an Instant Pot instead of slow cooker. It can be used as a slow cooker too, but can do so much more! I have been using them for YEARS!
Older people know horror stories of stovetop pressure cookers from back in the day, but these new electronic ones are so easy to use and much safer! There is a bit of a learning curve at first, but you can make almost anything once you get the hang of it. The best part is that I can make a great tasting meal without having to plan 8-10 hours in advance. Google Instant Pot recipes -- there's tons of them!
I make carnitas, pot roast and other stuff in mine. I highly recommend getting the slow cooker liners that you place in before the food to make clean up super easy. I have both a 4 quart and 6 quart cooker. I will use the 6 quart to slow cook racks of ribs that I put a dry rub on and in the bottom of the cooker add a little liquid smoke (just a few droos) and a few tablespoons of water, sometimes I chop an apple and onion to help separate the racks of ribs. After they slow cook all day I carefully get them out with tongs and put either on the grill or in the oven, sometimes I add BBQ sauce but they are usually to tender and juicy they don't need it.Doing a slow cooker search will turn up endless possibilities. I used to have a slow cooker cook book but left it at a friend's house. Now I just look up recipes online.
There are lots of slow cooker seasoning packets at the store to give you inspiration too.
A super easy pot roast dinner I add the roast then a bag of frozen pearl onions, bag of baby carrots and bag of baby potatoes then a seasoning packet mixed in amount of water it calls for. Don't have to chop anything!
For taco/burrito meat you can add chicken or a chuck roast and either a jar of salsa or a can of enchilada sauce and cook on low all day. You can freeze any leftover for another day.
I hope you get one and enjoy it as much as I do mine!
I have a huge old crock potslow cooker which I use for pulled pork, whole chicken, and some stews. The quantity is huge so I have to share or freeze or eat the same thing for a week. I also have an Instant Pot but I use it only to make a half gallon of yogurt every week or so. My favorite is a DASH Pot which takes about 20 minutes to heat soup, cook rice or quinoa. It makes only a small quantity and has only two functions (basically: on/off), but it's small, makes enough for 1 meal and cleans up easily. As for pasta, you can add it last minute to a crock pot, but it would probably get mushy otherwise. Perhaps there's a way to add it to an Instant Pot at the end but not to my knowledge, and definitely not to the tiny DASH Pot.
I do A LOT of cooking, essentially all from scratch. I have different sized slow cookers, an instant pot, a suis vide,...get the idea? There is a place for each. A crock pot is great for slow cooking, but not necessarily easier cooking. If for example I make a soup or stew with the slow cooker, it's the same amount of prep whether cooked in the slow cooker, instant pot, or in a pot on the stove. People used to like them for setting it all up, go to work, and it cooks so slow it would be done just in time when you get home from work. But that's not the only reason for one. It is a choice you make. Low and slow, or using the pressure of an instant pot to do the same but really really fast. Is one less work than the other? Not really. Prep needed is the same for most everything. Clean up is harder than.....Want easy. Pick up some processed "poison" from the grocery store. Slap it in the microwave, and in seconds a meal. How about a fresh salad for a meal? A lb box of pre-washed organic spring lettuces as a start for many salads, and let your imagination go from there. Strawberries and raspberries were on sale cheap this week, a bit of crumbled queso fresco I usually keep in the refrigerator, add some nuts if you like. Get the idea? Want meat? The fastest/easiest for me is the gas grill. Marinades are good too and they say it helps offset the making of carcinogens grilling meats. There are so many ways to go. Enjoy it! Whatever you choose! But yes. As someone said, start with the recipie. What are you dreaming of? What is on super sale this week that you could go for? Google recipies for that item and your on your way. If anyone knows where you can get a home auto prep machine, that handles veggies, lean meats, fish, and seafood....please let me know. I worked in food processing plants for many years. They have amazing machinery that can do it all. ButI don't have tens or hundreds of thousands of square feet in my kitchen to put the equipment which is all specialized for prep and /or cooking. Remember the Jetson's? Didn't they have a futuristic home meal maker. Push a few buttons and in seconds, there it was. I'll take one of those please!
I struggle cooking but my store had buy 1 get 1 free for pork ribs. They have been in the freezer for a few months. I decided Tuesday to defrost them and figure something out. I was so proud of myself! I found a recipe on Pinterest, I had all the seasonings for a dry rub, and they turned out great! Shocking for me!!
Great!!! I have a slow cooker recipe I love for that too. Good for you.
I did a dry rub on it, let it sit, put them in the 300 oven for 2.5 hours, BBQ sauced it, then 450 oven for 15 minutes. Really moist!
I use my crockpot often. I don’t mind having to clean up afterwards, it seems to be part of the territory of cooking no matter how I prepare something. But the crockpot is super easy to fix everything. I can throw stuff in and walk away. A few hours later, it is ready. Nice!
I make ref beans (black or white too) 1-2 times per week in a slow cooker. We eat beans and rice, black bean chili(black beans and ground meat i brown on a stove). I have a slow cooker recipe book with umpteen recipes in it. I put ANY meat in there (chicken, pork, beef, sausage, etc; not fish tho) an d about 3/4 to 1 inch of water, chicken broth, soup, or other liquid and cook on low for 7-8 hours (sometimes a little less) salted and seasoned. Sometimes sear meat 1st (to hold in juices), sometimes I don’t. House smells good when everyone comes inside. Esp if i put a lot of garlic and onions
Yes, a slow cooker is a terrific idea, Kit10 ! There is a lot of recipes online. I go to allrecipes.com , but there’s so many web sites out there that cater to whatever you wish to cook! The world is your oyster, so enjoy! 
Kit10 - hi! you asked about a slow cooker. I used 2 for many, many years. (I am 75) Our daughter bought me an Instant Pot duo Air Fryer. I was intimidated at first with the 8 auto settings, and another 8 choices. After reading a lot of recipes and advise, I finally started using mine. Now, I probably will never use my crock pots (slow cookers) again. Using the Instant Pot setting, I can steam fresh carrots in 4 minutes, without losing all the food value that happens when boiling. I can steam fresh broccoli and cauliflower in 2 minutes. The longest time I cook with it is for brown rice, which takes 18 minutes instead of the old way of stove top and 45 minutes. It has three lids - the Emerill Lagrasse brand - and when I use the Air Fryer lid, I can actually boil eggs in 15 minutes. (I have been known a few times to forget about my boiling eggs until I hear a strange popping noise while sitting in living room, only to go to kitchen and see my eggs boiled dry and popping open!) Using this awesome duo pot, everything cooks so quickly, I don't mind sitting at the table for a few minutes until the beep sounds, then empty my fresh veggies or whatever into a serving bowl. I cook the largest amounts possible and freeze some for my husband to use when I'm in bed for the day. I think the Instant Pot Duo is the greatest invention since the automatic washing machine! We don't eat out near as much anymore because fresh from the farm veggies are so quick to cook. I can boil my pasta in chicken bone broth while my sauce is cooking in the Instant Pot, then drain the pasta, add the sauce, sprinkle some shredded cheese - instant dinner. During this heat wave, it also keeps my kitchen cooler, which keeps my MS heat attacks down. Good luck if you decide to buy one.
YES! Ever since Bill blew up the stove, my slow cooker became my tool for making stews and soups. And I also roast beef, pork and chicken in it. Very useful appliance!
I wish I could blow up my stove.
It drives me nuts that I have no real stove. I had to give up my interests (reading, photographing). The only one I have now is cooking. It is challenging enough preparing meals for the pickiest of 65 year old eaters, I get to use a 2 burner hot plate, an electric skillet, an Insta Pot, a crock pot, and a microwave. Oh! And I do have an oven. But I miss being able to cook the homeny on one burner while cooking the pork roast on another burner when I'm making pesole. My hot plate has 2 burners, but I can only use one at a time.
I'd say that's a sign to retire from cooking, go back to your interests and have him give it a go.
My mother yells at me all the time because mine's more or less just an extension of the counter now. I just clear a space if I want to cook. Makes a great excuse, though. "Sorry; I can't cook for the party because I lost the stove."
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