How To Use A Slow Cooker

Slow cookers – in that location's nothing more exciting than unboxing your new gadget, except maybe trying out a brand-new recipe. Equally well as being a convenient way to melt tasty and wholesome stews, a slow cooker is a keen for cooking cheaper cuts, so perfect if you lot're on a budget.

Non certain where to start? Our guide explains which settings are best for dissimilar types of meat and which cuts are worth because. Slow cookers are also a great way to brand a range of vegetarian and vegan dishes, plus other recipes you may not accept thought of.

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Ho-hum cookers: What'southward the best setting for my recipe?

Slow cookers come with different temperature settings - bones models usually only have loftier, low and off settings, while premium models may take a medium setting and an auto setting, which will automatically swap between cooking settings for yous. The best setting to cull depends on the food yous're cooking:

High setting

This is recommended for cooking stake meat such as chicken. A high setting volition cook the meat faster (in three to six hours) and at a slightly higher temperature. And it'due south also a good pick if you've forgotten to put your recipe on and need it cooked quicker.

Medium setting

Typically institute on Morphy Richards models, you lot can use the medium setting for cooking cuts of red meat. This setting is useful for cooking more quickly without losing all the benefits of wearisome cooking, only the results won't be as impressive as cooking on low for longer.

Low setting

This is recommended for cooking cheap cuts of cerise meat, and is neat for recipes such equally pulled pork, every bit it breaks down the meat to make information technology melt-in-the-rima oris. Information technology too gets better results than cooking on the medium or high setting. Cooking on this setting usually takes around 8-ten hours, depending on your slow cooker. There are 'faster' slow cookers, which give results on the low setting quicker than others.

Automobile cook

This setting is a bang-up selection if you want a more hands-off arroyo to your recipes. It starts cooking on high, and afterwards a set amount of time (usually an hour) will switch to cooking at a depression oestrus. Some models will even picture show over to the proceed-warm setting, to cease your recipe from spoiling.

Go on warm

A keep-warm or agree setting tin can exist handy, particularly if your dinner is delayed - information technology prevents food from drying out while stopping it from getting cold. On some models, though, it can actually continue cooking the food.

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Which cheap cuts of meat should I endeavour slow cooking?

A slow cooker is a great way to experiment with cheaper cuts of meat, so is perfect if you lot're looking to cutting dorsum on your shopping nib but without compromising on taste or flavour. Beef shin, mutton shoulder) and ox cheek are merely the beginning of a listing of cheaper meat cuts that benefit from slow cooking.

You don't need to get to MasterChef level though - diced beef or chicken from the supermarket will also work just too.

As a general rule of thumb, the more piece of work a muscle does, the more it benefits from slow cooking. For case, a shoulder of lamb can be quite tough and fibrous with normal cooking, simply whack it in your slow cooker and it will soften beautifully, resulting in a delicious dish.

There are several cheaper cuts of meat that are practiced for dull cooking and available from butchers:

Beef– brisket, ox cheeks, ox tail, beef shin, beef skirt
Pork – gammon articulation, pig'south cheeks, pig's knuckle, neck of pork, grunter's trotters
Lamb – lamb shanks, scrag end (neck), shoulder
Mutton – all cuts

Cuts such as clod, bract and chuck are often lumped together in supermarkets and labelled as 'braising steak', and these are bully when slow cooked too.

Food shopping on a budget? Read our guide on how to spend less at the supermarket.

Can I roast meat in my wearisome cooker?

Yes – and it can be a more free energy efficient to do so. Roasting in a boring cooker uses an average of 246W, a tiny amount of power, heating a small infinite. Compare this with the average oven, which uses effectually 700W. However, the 'roasting' results won't exist identical to oven-roasted meat.

An oval-shaped slow cooker is best if yous're aiming to roast craven or large joints of meat, such as a leg of lamb, as they fit easier.

Find out more most slow cookers in how to buy the best tedious cooker .

Vegetarian and vegan recipe ideas – what can I apply my wearisome cooker for?

There are plenty of vegetarian and vegan recipes to cook in a wearisome cooker, despite many people associating slow cookers with warming stews and meaty dishes like chilli con carne.

Ideas include edible bean and lentil chilli, mushroom stroganoff, sausage casserole using vegan or vegetarian sausages, to proper noun just a few tasty dishes, just the listing is endless and simply limited by your imagination.

Most traditional slow-cooker recipes, such equally stew, casserole and curry, can hands be tweaked to suit a vegan or vegetarian diet.

If you adopt to utilise dried beans, lentils and peas to cook with, brand sure you lot read the instructions and prepare them carefully. Usually, they'll need to be soaked overnight to soften, so boiled for a minimum of 10 minutes to get rid of any toxins.

Canned alternatives are easily bachelor in most supermarkets and are inexpensive.

What other recipes can I brand in my ho-hum cooker?

Some of the more adventurous recipes to attempt include pulled pork, lasagne and risotto. Yous can even make fudge in your wearisome cooker. Search the internet and you'll notice endless recipes for block, gammon in Coke, and even a full cooked breakfast. It'due south even possible to make certain types of bread, though the results won't be the same as oven-baked staff of life.

You lot can make an easy and tasty pudding in your slow cooker by calculation pudding ingredients into individual bowls, which you and then identify into the master pot. Pour boiling water in between the bowls, halfway up their sides, to gently poach the puds. Any mess created past the puddings boiling over volition be contained if you take an piece of cake-clean ceramic pot.

Ho-hum cookers are likewise cracking for jam – they speed upwards the jam-making process by softening fruit without drying it out. Slice fruit and ho-hum cook on a low oestrus overnight to make a bully jam base.

And for a festive favourite, find out how to brand perfect tedious cooker mulled vino.