Crock Pot Basics, Part 2

Earlier this week in Part 1, I gave you some tips on getting started with a crock pot.  Now, before you begin to lick your lips, here are a few basic tips about how and what to cook in your crock pot.

First, there are crock pot cookbooks on the market (here are some of the better ones).  They turn some of your favorite oven recipes into crock pot sensations.   You’ll also find great recipes here on my blog (yes, that was a shameless plug!), as well as others such as Crock Pot Meals.  You’ll quickly realize that dishes you may never thought of cooking in a crock pot can be prepared without you even being there.  As Melanie discovered after reading my latest post on Russian Chicken, you can make a lot more than just stew in your crock pot!

What you’ve got to remember when cooking anything in a crock pot is the liquid component.  There must be some type of liquid in the bottom of the cooker to begin the cooking process. Without it, your food will just cook on the bottom and burn.  There doesn’t need to be a lot of it, just enough to cover the bottom in most cases.  The juices within the meat will mix with the other liquid during cooking to create more of a stock.

When using a crock pot it should be at least half full for maximum cooking potential.  Remember that the more food you add to the pot, the slower it will cook.  However, your food will cook evenly without overcooking as long as the temperature is adjusted correctly.  If you aren’t careful and don’t set the crock pot heat settings right, you may find that an eight hour setting cooked your dinner in two and spent the other six drying it out.  Like I suggested in Part 1, you should test out a new crock pot on a weekend (when you will be home all day to keep an eye on it) and learn how long a meal takes to cook at a given temperature setting.

Meats are the most common foods cooked in a crock pot.  Since meat will take the longest to cook of any of your ingredients, it should make up the bottom layer.  This will also help keep the meat moist since the liquids and other ingredients will be layered above.  For safety, cook meat at least three hours to ensure that it is cooked all the way through.   This isn’t usually a problem, since most people use the crock pot at its lowest setting (six to ten hours depending on the brand of cooker).   However, you shouldn’t cook a whole chickens in a crock pot.   The internal temperature needed to safely cook that much chicken properly usually can’t be reached in time for eating at such low temperature settings.

Vegetables work great in a crock pot as well.  Tough fibrous veggies like carrots and potatoes can be tossed in at the beginning with the meat.  It takes longer for the fibers to be broken down and the vegetables to be cooked all the way through.  More delicate vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, and mushrooms should be added half an hour before the meal is done.

A crock pot makes dinner quick and easy when you’re on the run.   These tips should have you up and running with your crock pot in no time!

Tagged as: crock pot, hints, slow cooker, tips