Have you tossed your slow cooker yet?

[DavidNorcross]

We use the slow cooker some but not often. There are certain recipe's that my wife has have become favorites. I mostly use the dutch.

[ofelles]

I have a slow cooker Chicken Noodle Soup recipe that's very good. I will try the Dutch oven method next time. I just remembered a Beef Stroganoff recipe also!

[glitchy]

We still have a slow cooker and I don't see them going anywhere. In fact, I think the InstaPot would go bye-bye first. I've not been overly impressed with the InstaPot. First, a few things I have tried have scorched badly (mostly chili) to the point it has very negatively affected the taste of the dish. Second, when I've tried things that were fragrant, the smell really gets into the seals and sticks around quite a long time. I smelled STCG's Mexican shredded beef for days, so much I haven't made it again despite loving it.

As well, my wife really only makes a few main dishes (she's doesn't enjoy cooking at all and would admit the same and not be offended) and the first 3 of those that come to mind are in the crock pot. So, if the crock pot goes, so do many of my days off from cooking unless it's take out. I generally only make chili in it and have used it to keep shredded pork or beef warm for a gathering. I used to cook more things in it, but most of those have been converted to outdoor techniques or just fallen out of the rotation over the past 15-20 years since I've gotten a smoker.

I've recently gotten the Misen Dutch oven, so when I take the time to try that out, maybe my opinions will change. Even if I absolutely love it, I probably won't even bother trying to get the wife to use it even though the crock pots take up a lot of storage space in a small kitchen.

[Craigar]

I hear ya on the lingering smells. The very first cook I made red beans and rice. It took about 2 years for the smells to subside. It wasn't totally a bad thing until I made cheesecake. Fortunately the cheesecake turned out pretty good.

[Joey877]

Second, when I've tried things that were fragrant, the smell really gets into the seals and sticks around quite a long time. I smelled STCG's Mexican shredded beef for days, so much I haven't made it again despite loving it.

My wife uses the InstaPot and we had the same issue. Seemed to be a problem anytime we cooked anything mexican. She solved it by buying another seal, one for mexican dishes and one for everything not mexican. Each seal goes into its own gallon ziploc and gets stored in the freezer. Haven't noticed it since, and had actually forgotten that until seeing your post. I would suggest trying it.

[fzxdoc]

When it comes to browning meat with much less spattering mess, nothing beats my Instant Pot set to High Saute. It's response time is snappy as all get out.

It leaves my 7 quart Staub and 4 quart Tramontina Dutch Ovens in the dust in that respect. For that reason, it's the most heavily featured Slow Cooker I have because you can REALLY brown meat in it, saute veggies, etc., add the sauce or broth and set it to either Slow Cook or Pressure Cook, depending on what your time constraint is. One pot does it all.

In fact, just a couple of days ago I made a pot roast with onions and curry leaves and a ton of Indian spices on the Slow Cooker setting of the Instant Pot. I did it because I was making some other dishes early in the day and didn't want to mess with cooking that portion of the meal later in the day. I wanted to do the major prep cleanup all at once for all the dishes I had going.

The slow cooker can just perk away all day long doing its thing. That said, when the meat is fork tender, I stop the process and set it on Warm so the meat doesn't dry out before serving time.

rickgregory , I don't cook my beans in a slow cooker. Some, like kidney beans and limas (the RG Christmas Limas are delicious and I hate regular lima beans) need to be briskly boiled to eliminate toxins, and you can't do that in a slow cooker.

I cook almost all my beans in the Instant Pot because then I'm sure they're taken up to high enough temps. I live at an altitude where water boils lower (206°) than the recommended 212° brisk boil for 10 minutes rule of thumb recommendation for dried beans before lowering the heat. For me, pressure cooking lets my mind rest more easy when in eliminating toxins in dried beans. Plus it's easy. Talk about set and forget.

jfmorris , I almost always preheat my slow cooker when prepping the recipe and usually heat up the broth or sauce used before adding it to the slow cooker. I want the food to get through the 40° to 140° danger zone as quickly as possible when making slow cooker meals.

Attjack , the setting for the slow cooker setting on my Instant Pot defaults to Normal, as I recall. I'll have to check the next time I fire it up. Thanks for pointing that out. The IP slow cooker temps are 170° for Low, 200° for Normal, and 210° for High, FWIW.

And finally, I have an Instant Pot glass lid that I use for slow cooking. It allows for evaporation, which the locking lid used for the pressure cooking function does not.



Kathryn

[tbob4]

Very interesting. I bought a couple of Le Creuset pots that are 30 some-odd years old. I bought them when they were cheap. My wife cooks in them more than I do and she hates the weight. Most of it is for browning. Nothing (we thought) beats it.

[jfmorris]

Ok this post inspires me to try our off-brand instant pot for more things. It did come with one of those crock pot style lids, if I can find it.

[fracmeister]

The slow cooker does a good job of keeping liquids warm. let's say you have made some chili and need to serve it but aren't quite sure when. that sort of thing.

[Attjack]

The IP also keeps stuff warm.

[Oak Smoke]

We have three slow cookers. Their only function is to keep things warm when we have a big get together at the house. Two weeks ago one of them had pulled pork, one had beans that were cooked in a Dutch oven then transferred to the slow cooker, and the last was for the hot dogs we grilled for the kids. We use a mixture of beef broth and coke a cola to keep the hot dogs warm in the slow cooker. They are hot and good all afternoon.

[Michael_in_TX]

I have two.....a CrockPot that we got as a wedding gift that has been used perhaps just twice, last time probably 2003ish. The second is a KitchenAid slow cooker that I bought in 2018 (before I got into grilling/smoking) and used weekly for several months. Did chicken thighs....chuck roasts....the usual stuff.

While the pot made the house smell fantastic, I never got the results I was really looking for. Food just didn't have the flavor I wanted. It all tasted like something braised for hours (to state the obvious). Not bland....but just not leaping out at you with flavor.

I stopped using the slow cooker when I got into smoking, but also as the teflon coating on the inside began to peel. Replacing that part is nearly as much as a new one, so I'm not sure why I am still holding on to it.

[Potkettleblack]

Wife continues to hold on to it. Despite us having all the replacement gear. She likes it and doesn't want to learn the Breville Fast/Slow or whatever they call their Instapot.

[shify]

I got one as a wedding gift ~14 years ago and have maybe used it four times and zero of those times were to actually cook anything. Its been used those four or so times strictly to keep chile or a pot of meatballs and sauce warm during parties. Conversely I use the Instant Pot maybe 5-8 times per month (although that is primarily to make rice and maybe 1-2 times a month to cook a meat of some sort in it)

[58limited]

I use crock pots all the time. I have two larger ones: one is my mom's (Sears) from the 1970s and the other is a Hamilton Beach I bought while in college in the 1990s. I recently bought a 4 qt for smaller recipes. I do not own an Instant Pot.

I only did a quick skim of the article by Serious Eats. From what I quickly saw they were only comparing the crock pot's cooking ability on the low setting as compared to a Dutch oven (at 225⁰) and an Instant Pot. I didn't see a comment on using the crock pot on the high setting but, again, I've only done a quick reading. I start most of my cooks on high: pot roast, stews, etc. Granted, you will not get the Maillard reaction in a crock pot (I sear in a skillet first) but I get good results when cooking on high heat: tender pot roasts, veggies and stew meat just right, etc. Low is for holding and serving in my opinion. The high setting is indeed a slow cooking process (8 hours for a pot roast) but yields a nice result and is great when you work a full time job. Change to the low setting to hold until you eat.

I do not use the crock pots to make stock - that never occurred to me. That is not the intended use in my opinion.

Comparing a crock pot to a pressure cooker is disingenuous, they are different styles of cooking with different outcomes. Split pea soup in a crock pot? Really?

You want browned tomato on the sides of the pot? Turn a crock pot to high and see what happens: I've scrubbed many a burned-on food off the sides of crock pots.

On quick review this really seems like a flawed article: crock pots (slow cookers) are just that: slow cooking. Pressure cookers such as Instant Pots are for faster cooking under pressure. Dutch ovens (which I love) are great too but more like a slow cooker in the end.

Modern pressure cookers are an amazing thing - I don't have one yet but I plan on getting one: you can pressure cook, brown food, deep fry, air fry, etc. It is a versatile cooker so my comments are not against them. They are different from a slow cooker.

[Attjack]

The gist was that a dutch oven in your home oven can do warm, low, and high better than a crockpot. And the IP of course has a slow cooker function.

[fzxdoc]

FWIW, I always oil the inside of the ceramic insert of the crock pot before using it. That way nothing sticks. Browned residue around the surface of the liquid easily comes right off.

Kathryn

[troymeister]

I have 2 slow cookers. One large and one small. They collect a lot of dust.

[TheQuietOne]

We have a small one we use to make oatmeal. If it breaks, I doubt we'll replace it.

[Attjack]

I make steel-cut oats in the IP and I do it in a single-serve stainless bowl so there's nothing to wash afterward except for the dish you eat out of.

[bbqLuv]

Yep, replaced the slow cooker with an InstaPot, but ours has an air fryer attachment. Works fine, lasts a long time, won't rust bust or collect dust.

[bbqLuv]

Turtle soup in the slow cooker, and rabbit stew in the InstaPot.

[fzxdoc]

Turtles, rabbits, and slow cookers, oh my!


Kathryn