Slow-Cooker Cooking

My slow cooker is my best friend some days! There are some days I choose to use it because I really want to prepare something in it, but there are other days I use it out of necessity. My slow cooker is a life-saver on busy days. It’s so wonderful to come home after a busy day and have dinner ready. It’s also great to sometimes have something ready when we get home from church.

The biggest tip I have for using the slow cooker is to get as much prepped the night before as possible. Usually mornings are rushed, and it is too difficult to get vegetables chopped or meat cut up or cooked. So, the night before, get your slow cooker set out, measure out your spices and other ingredients, cut up vegetables and meat, set out needed canned items, cook any meat, etc that can be cooked and refrigerated ahead of time, and whatever else you can do ahead of time. It just makes it so much easier when you can just start dumping things in the morning.

Also, if you need to thaw things out, be sure you get that out in enough time that they are thawed for that morning or for whenever you need to cook them. If I am going to cook some ground meat the night before, then I have to make sure that I thaw that out a couple of days ahead of time. That’s where your daily checklist comes in handy! When you make that at the beginning of the week, then you can remind yourself of when you need to get that item out of the freezer and when you need to cook it.

It’s really helpful if you have a slow cooker that has a timer feature with a warmer. I am thankful for that as I have to start my slow cooker fairly early in the morning before I leave for work. I do take that into consideration when choosing a recipe. If it only needs to cook for a few hours, then I typically don’t use that recipe on a weekday. The food can get too dried out then. I do know you can get some slow cookers that even have a delay button so that it does not come on until later. I wouldn’t let raw meat sit in there too long, but it won’t hurt for a little while. That could be really helpful.

You might even think about cooking something overnight. Then you can just refrigerate it the next morning and pull out what you need that evening or another time. Or it might be something that you want for lunch that takes a longer time to cook. 

There are lots of great slow cooker recipes out there. I have shared several on my menus, but a quick Google or Pinterist search will yield almost innumerable results. Spending a little time up front will save you so much time later and help you manage your mundane.