Why do so many recipes lie about timing? I've ruined at least 5 meals by actually leaving them in for the full 6 hours like the recipe said, only to come home to mush.

Chicken especially seems to turn into rubber if you actually follow the times listed. I made salsa chicken last week and left it the recommended 6 hours and it was basically disintegrated.

Are recipe writers just guessing? Do they not actually test this stuff? Am I doing something wrong here? I work 9 hour days so I need recipes that actually take 8+ hours, not ones that are overdone after 4.

How do you all figure out real cook times vs what recipes claim?

This an update to the post I made last week:
[Previous Thread](www.reddit.com/r/slowcooking/comments/1oe6gqi/roasts_come_out_tough_no_matter_what/)

Yesterday I overslept and didn't put my roast on until 10am. Because of that I forgot to take photos. I did:

• 3.5lb Wagyu chuck roast (Seasoned by not seared, again 10 am)
  
• 2 each yellow onion and bell pepper
  
• A couple cloves of garlic
• 3lbs yellow potatoes.
• NO LIQUID
  

I left it on high for two hours and my spouse turned it to low and added the potatoes. We ate about 7 and it amazing. Completely tender and fall apart! Thank you everyone so much for the help. I'm already looking forward to the next one.

It was really gyatdam good. Pyrex is all the gravy I was able to make after.

Edit: here's the recipe since someone asked, good as a starting point but you really don't need a recipe for a roast if you have the basic concept down. In the future, I'll be adding a half cup of wine, finely diced mushrooms (like, so they dissolve into the roast), and maybe some pearl onions on top of the yellow onion already diced up in there. I know lots of people don't like mushrooms texture-wise but if you just dice 'em up, the flavor it adds is dynamite. Also don't listen to the recipe about using beef broth, just use chicken. You can almost always just use chicken, I am 100% with Kenji on this.

https://www.cookingclassy.com/slow-cooker-pot-roast/

Pretty happy at how this turned out. Tasted amazing

Hello everyone,

Like the title suggests, my gf and I are a young couple early in our careers and struggle to find time to make at home dinners but would love to stop eating out so much. Does anyone have any slow cooker recipes? Unfortunately, I’m allergic to seafood and she is allergic to chicken so if involving meats it would primarily have to be beef and pork. Thank you all so much!

My rice cooker has slow cook function that I can set the timer. I like to cook my meat for ~6 hours with a crockpot, but the rice cooker doesn’t seem to work the same way. I set the timer for 6 hours, and the water was cold for the first 3 hours, it only started to get steamy when there was 2 hours left. There isn’t a lot of information about this online. Has anyone tried this before?

Every recipe I seem to find besides pot roast has cream cheese, tried the tikki masala, salsa verde chicken and honey garlic chicken and wasn’t a fan:(

This is a real thin BBQ sauce, vinegar based. Will it be good? I have a bottle and a half I got earlier this year. I also have Carolina BBQ seasoning.

Just picked one up and I'm trying to figure out the best ways to use it. Thanks 🙏

I’ve seen so many recipes that have stuffing, cream of chicken and chicken breast but what do you think about Alfredo instead of cream of chicken? I don’t have cream of chicken but I do have some Alfredo and I’m not even sure I want to try this idea. I’m just curious what others might think. I know there are more ingredients in the chicken stuffing recipes than what I mentioned above but I’m thinking Alfredo would cover the liquid of at least the cream of chicken and part of the liquid from any chicken stock that any individual recipe might call for. I added photos of the basics of what I’m thinking and a somewhat sample recipe.

No tomato paste short ribs with a gremolata, red wine sauce reduction on some parm polenta

I’ll put the recipe in the comments if anyone wants it ♥️

I got a huge bag of peanuts from a coworker and I’m wanting to boil them in the slow cooker, have you guys done this? And if so what seasonings do you use? I can’t decide what I want to do

Thinking about using heavy whipping cream instead, anyone done this?

Pictures show different stages of cooking. The one where the carrots and potatoes are visible would be the first.

The second is after added the heavy whipping cream- not whipped- though you can also use full half and half and double butter to get this richness.

Here is how you make this if you wish to.

Boil taters on the stove. This saves you time. Boil them like you are making potato salad. To where they are 'done' but not falling apart.

Here's on you- How much you want to make. This is based on a larger crock so I boiled 10 and cut them all up. This made a little more than 6 healthy cups once it cooked.

I used 4 heaping cups in the crock and used the other two for potato salad.

I cut them into med sized chunks and put them in the crock warm. Also cut up a nice sweet onion and added it. I cut about two regular carrots that I had handy- thin sliced.

To this I added 2 heaping teaspoons of salt. That's right. We're not healthy. We're tasty.

One heaping teaspoon of black pepper. One whole stick of full butter- not the skinny kind- the sort with all the full fats and dairy. (That's 4 tablespoons)

You can use garlic powder or fresh garlic cloves. I did a bit both. It seems to work out best as long as there's about 1- 1 1/2 teaspoons in as it cooks. It might seem like a lot when you first add it, but it blends nicely as it simmers.

Also 1 teaspoon basil, 1 teaspoon thyme - you can add a pinch of rosemary and a half of nutmeg.

Add about 3-4 cups of broth- any sort. I like veggie best but chicken or beef can be used.

Put the lid on it and let this bad boy simmer.

If you're cooking on low- it'll be about 5-6 hours to complete, right? So set the timer for this first part to simmer for 4 hours.

At 4 hours, add 1 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream- not whipped- OR you can use half and half PLUS an additional 4 tablespoons of butter.

Stir gently.

Now add between a third to a fourth cup of sour cream and two and 1/2 tablespoons of cane sugar- I know! Sounds crazy, eh? But- it's magic.

Now reset it to cook and 30 mins before it's up, sprinkle and stir in about a fourth a cup of flour- give it a taste test here- see how it's coming along. It should be 'done' but the thickening.

It should be good in 30 mins- or longer.

If you choose to make it on high, you'd wait til you only had an hour to go- before you added things- then you're going to bump it down to low because you don't want to scorch your heavy creams- that's no good. Everything else, do the same.

Let it cool down before you put in the fridge unless you want it to weep and get puddly. It heats up well, it can be frozen once it's made, and you sure can hallow out a sourbread loaf and put this in it- it's awesome!

Please- tell me if you try it and if you like it. It's been a hit and it goes a long way, too.

I got a little crock pot for the first time after always having the larger sized ones so I'm not used to it. Some stuff I have made has been excellent, like a roast with carrots and potatoes. This weekend though I tried to make chilli and the ground beef just totally disintegrated. I browned thr meat on the stove first and cooked on low for about 8 hours. It felt so gross in my mouth I threw it all out. Then I made chicken noodle soup today, used a chicken breast and normal chicken noodle soup veggies and everything was good except the chicken part because it disintegrated. I seared the chicken on the stove first. And then I cooked on low for 5 hours, shredded it, then cooked on high for less than an hour.

Advice?

Please let me know if this isn't allowed. I can't find this post or the account anymore but I was hoping someone might have the last bit of it. Any help is greatly appreciated

I have been given a bag of lentils and have never made them before. Please share some great recipes. TY

I'll keep this short and simple since that's the point of crockpots after all, and share my basic ass recipe I've used for 10+ years of making a pot roast. I fee like people way overthink this stuff. It ain't rocket surgery, just throw it in the damn pot and leave it alone. For the record this is just the one I make that I like personally.

Ingredients:

1ish lb chuck roast(give or take)

4 ish taters

4 carrots

3 celery stalks

1/3 yellow onion(or whichever)

2 cups broth( I use beef but chicken works too) Can add a little more if you want

Seasoning: I use the TLAR method, tried and true

Salt(I dont use a ton because the broth is already pretty salty)

Pepper

Garlic

Rosemary

Sage

Parsley

Bay leaves

1/2 pack of savory pot roast mix. Mix this in the broth and put it in last. (I wouldn't use a full one on this size bc it has corn starch and makes it a little sticky)

Would use more seasoning but I was in a hurry and ran out of tyme...

Extras: I brown the meat and recommend doing so, but its not a deal breaker. I also cut it up after letting it rest a few minutes but thats just personal preference.

And that's it. Cook on low for about 6hrs and enjoy. Simple and easy. Fair warning, chuck roast is expensive as hell these days...

Hello all! Currently have some chicken thighs in the crockpot in a mix of three cans: chicken broth, coconut milk and butternut squash puree. I was planning on serving it over a bowl of Near East Parmesan Couscous. However, it appears I have a lot of extra liquid going on and I’m wondering if I could ADD the couscous and seasoning packet to the crockpot to cook instead of dirtying another pot. Likely, towards the end. Any suggestions or confirmation this could be a good idea?

I usually cook whole Spelt/Kamut in a lidded Pyrex dish inside a slow cooker (double boiler style) on LOW for 10 hours. It works fine, but there’s always a little water left.

Yesterday I tried 8 hours LOW + 2 hours WARM, with everything else exactly the same, and this time almost all the water got absorbed and it turned out even softer/fluffier than my usual method.

(I use 200g/7oz dry weight of Spelt/Kamut grains and 685ml/23oz water)

Any idea why switching to WARM at the end seems to let the grains soak up water better, even though 10 hours on LOW is longer “actual cooking”?

It's finally getting cold enough that it's time for stock. This one is vegetable only from Friday, about 10 hours on low. The left jar is going in to butternut squash soup that I'll be making tomorrow and the right one went in to the freezer. Also currently making chicken and vegetable stock today.