I love my crock pot.  No really, it’s serious.  There is nothing better than throwing a bunch of stuff into a big ol’ pot in the morning, when motivation level is still high, and returning to a ready-to-eat meal in the evening when your only motivated to change into pajama pants with an elastic waistband.

I especially love it this time of year, when a bowl of soup is about as good as life gets.  So, here’s a couple of tips to make crock potting {that’s a verb starting…now} even easier:

1. Technically, for safety reasons, you are supposed to always start with thawed meat.  And even though all the “professionals” say you are not supposed to  put frozen meat in the crock pot… I do it anyway. I am a rebel, what can I say?
2. Resist, at all costs, lifting the lid to your crock pot.  I know the waft of cooking goodness is hard to resist, but it really messes with the temperature and can add quite a bit of additional cook time when done a few times throughout the day.
3. Only add dairy to a crock pot meal in the last 15 minutes or so of cooking because it tends to break down during a long cook time–make the texture a little less than desirable.
4. Since you basically have to do nothing extra, consider doubling your crock pot recipes to get a meal for now, and one for the freezer for later.  This works best with soups {not cream based} and chilis.
5. A lot of recipes can be adapted for the crock pot, just reduce the liquids by about 20% {evaporation is much less when using a slow cooker}.
6. As a general rule of thumb, the low setting on a crock pot is 200 degrees and the high setting is about 300 degrees.
7. Browning meat before throwing it into the crock pot results in better overall flavor–though, sometimes it defeats the purpose of dump and go, so don’t feel obligated, like the meal won’t turn out, it still will.
8. Add herbs during the last hour of cooking.  I know it seems counter-intuitive not to let the flavors marinate all day, but the flavors can actually break down a bit over extended cooking times.

Need some recipes to try out in your crock pot?  Go HERE to check out my slow cooker recipes or HERE to see the recipe index, and scroll down to Crock Pot Recipes.

~Mavis

My favorite Crock Pot – Crock-Pot Cook’ N Carry 6-Quart Portable Slow Cooker
My Favorite Slow Cooker Cookbook – Fix-It and Forget-It Big Cookbook: 1400 Best Slow Cooker Recipes!