I don’t know about you, but life is fkn busy. I’m a set and forget kinda girlie, so the most used appilance in my household is our beloved slow cooker. I whip that bad boy out almost daily, just because of how easy, convient and fool-proof it is. If this is your first time hearing about a slow cooker, allow me to introduce you to your new bestie.
Table of contents
What is a slow cooker?
A slow cooker (or crockpot as some like to call it) is a great way to cook large, cheap and easy meals. You basically just pop everything in a pot, whack it on low, and leave it for anywhere between four and eight hours. By slow cooking your meals, you allow the ingredients to slowly simmer and infuse all the flavour into the dish.
How is it different to other cooking appliances like multi and pressure cookers?
Slow cookers are a little different to other cooking appliances like multi-cookers and pressure cookers. As we mentioned earlier, slow cookers like to cook dishes low and slow, while a multi-cooker has multiple cooking functions — including slow cooking. As for pressure cookers, well, they use high pressure to cook food quickly.
What can you make with a slow cooker?
So many things! You can cook some seriously tender and juicy meats like roast beef or lamb, pulled pork or chicken, or you can even roast a whole chook. Aside from that, they’re a wonderful way to make belly-warming soups, curries and stews, as well as comfort meals like chilli con carne, beef ragu, mac and cheese, bolognese, or lasagna.
How expensive are slow cookers?
Slow cookers are pretty cheap considering how bloody amazing they are. You can usually get a pretty decent slow cooker for around $100, but places like Kmart and Target do cheaper ones for under $50. If you wanna splash out and get something a little fancier with a few more cooking features, you’re looking at around $300.
What features to look for in a slow cooker?
Capacity
Since slow cookers take up a fair chunk of courter space, and different households have different needs, they make them in a variety of sizes. A 3.5 to 4.5L slow cooker will feed up to four, and a 5 to 7L one should feed a larger sized group (think eight to 10).
Additional settings
Slow cookers are pretty simple in terms of function — most have three settings, high, low and off. The fancier ones also offer a built in timer, so you can leave the slow cooker unattended throughout the day without running the risk over overcooking it. Some also offer a keep warm setting, which is perfect if you love entertaining, or need to reheat things a little later in the evening.
Some of the multi-cooker style slow cookers also have settings like saute, brown, and steam.
How do you clean a slow cooker?
As someone who loves their slow cooker and uses it regularly, I’d recommend emptying your slow cooker while it’s still warm and rinsing it out with warm water. Then, while it’s unplugged, add some warm water to the pot along with half a cup of diluted vinegar with water and half a cup of baking soda, before plugging it back in and setting it to low for an hour. After that, you should be able to rinse and wipe out your pot.
Dish washing tablets are another great hack. Follow the same steps as the above, just swap out your vinegar and baking soda for the tablet. Try to avoid using abrasive cleaners and cleaning tools on your stoneware to help get a long life out of it.
It’s also worth noting that some slow cooker pots are dishwasher safe.
The best slow cookers to buy in Australia
Breville The Smart Temperature Slow Cooker 6L
This Breville Smart Temperature Slow Cooker keeps things nice and simple with it’s easy to use funcations and IQ temperature sensor to prevent overcooked meals.
Sunbeam HP5590 Electronic Slow Cooker 5.5L
If you’re someone who loves to save time with meal prepping, a slow cooker is going to take it up a level. You can prepare around six to eight meals each time you pop it on.
Russell Hobbs Searing Slow Cooker 6L
This one’s for the meat lovers! The Russell Hobbs Searing Slow Cooker eliminates the need for extra pots and pans when you’re slow cooking meats. You can use the pot to sear and prep your meat before you leave it to get all juicy and tender. Plus, this baddie is dish washer safe! How good?!
Anko Slow Cooker 6.5L
If you’re looking for a cheap and cheerful option, Anko’s Slow Cooker is it. According to 288 reviewers, it’s equally as good as it’s expensive competitors. It cooks well, is easy to use and won’t set you back the big bucks.
Crock-Pot Digital Slow Cooker 4.7L
You know when you hear people refer to slow cookers as crock pots? This particular brand is why. Crock-Pots are the original slow cooker brand, so you know this is going to be a good one.
GreenPan Elite Slow Cooker 6L
Everybody loves a GreenPan, so naturally this slow cooker makes out list. You can do just about everything you need with this slow cooker — sear, slow cook, roast, brown/saut, and steam. It’s a little more expensive than the others, but well worth the price tag.
Philips All-In-One Cooker
If you’re looking for more of a multi-cooker, then this Philips one comes highly recommended. It comes with 16 smart programs including slow cook, pressure cook, sear, and keep warm. And it allows you to do other forms of cooking like baking and yogurt making.
Healthy Choice 8L Slow Cooker
This Healthy Choice slow cooker is another affordable options that does what it says on this lid — especially since it’s on sale.
Image Credit: GreenPan / Easy A
