Welcome to Day 2 of my 5 day series, 5 Days of Using Your Slow Cooker.
If you’ve missed any of the series so far, you can look at the links below:
Day 1: Using Your Slow Cooker, Freezer to Slow Cooker, Week 4 Recipes, Shopping List
Today we are talking about the best things to do or not to do when using your slow cooker.
10. Never store your slow cooker on your washing machine. It may fall off during the spin cycle and break the rim. Yep. It really happened. I still use it though. I’m stubborn like that!
9. Never store it where you may accidentally hit it with something and break the knob off. Yes, that happened to us twice. We are the proud owners of 3 crockpots. 1 with a broken rim and 2 with broken knobs. We’re just hard on our slow cookers!
8. Once the lid is placed on your crock pot and the heat has begun warming it up, resist the incredible urge to pull the lid off to stir it up. It will slow down your cooking time and make it cook less evenly. Of course, throw this tip out the window when your recipe tells you to do it. The recipe trumps the tip. 🙂
7. When cooking on low, it will generally take twice as much time as cooking on high. Most recipes (but not all) will be one in 6-8 hours on low or 3-4 on high.
6. Spray your pot with non stick cooking spray in order to avoid yucky stuck on mess.
5. Try not to fill the crockpot more than 2/3 full. If it is more full than that, you may need to allow for more cooking time.
4. Use fresh of frozen vegetables instead of canned vegetables. They will retain their original consistency much better than canned which have already been cooked once before.
3. If the sauce is too thin, take the lid off of the slow cooker for the last 1/2 hour and allow it to cook uncovered. This will allow it to thicken. If it still doesn’t thicken enough, you can add potato flakes to thicken it a bit.
2. If you’d like your meat to not cook in it’s own juices, set it on balls of foil to keep it out of the juices.
1. Trim off as much fat on the meat as you can to eliminate it mixing with the rest of the food.
Do you have any tips that I didn’t include on the list? Please feel free to add them in the comments section below.
Today’s post is part of the iHomeschool Network’s Summer 5 Days Series. Please visit 19 other bloggers in their amazing series’. From 5 Days of Homesteading to 5 Days of Returning to Your Routine. Click on the link below for a list of other topics:
