What Can I Cook in a Slow Cooker? The Best Ingredients and Our Top Tips
If you’ve just got a slow cooker and you’re wondering what you can cook in it, you’re in the right place! For years, we’ve been saying that slow cookers are one of the best kitchen gadgets you can buy.
You can’t beat the convenience of popping ingredients into the pot, and returning a few hours later to a perfectly cooked meal. It’s maximum flavour for minimum effort – every time!
You’ll never regret planning meals around your trusty slow cooker, especially if you’re juggling a busy schedule. We use ours a few times a week and it’s an absolute life-saver (ours never leaves our kitchen worktop!).
We’ve gathered plenty of slow-cooking tips and tricks to share. Have a scroll through for the full Pinch of Nom guide to what you can cook in a slow cooker…
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Pinch of Nom: Slow Cooker is simmering away now
It’s no secret that we love our trusty slow cooker at Pinch of Nom! That’s why we’re bringing out a whole Slow Cooker book filled with delicious, one-pot wonders for you to try on September 25th.
Pre-order by tapping here (or on the image below) to grab your copy!
First of all, what is a slow cooker?
A slow cooker is a plug-in appliance that consists of an inner pot (usually ceramic) with a lid, and an outer pot that contains the controls. They come in varying sizes and if you’re not sure which one is right for you, take a look at our article on the best slow cookers to buy by tapping here.
Slow cookers work by trapping steam inside the inner pot and slowly cooking over a lower temperature for a long time, typically between 4-8 hours. Don’t be tempted to lift the lid on your slow cooker during cooking – it releases the steam build-up and adds around half an hour to your cooking time!
A glass lid will help you keep an eye on the contents without interrupting the cooking process. Some recipes might require a stir or ingredients to be added during cooking; if that’s the case, just try to be as quick as possible.
Turn to pages 156-157 in our All in One cookbook to come home to our Slow Cooker Creamy Chicken and Sweetcorn Pasta. You’ll add the pasta, cream chelsea and sun-dried tomatoes to the pot 40 minutes before serving.
Where can I buy a slow cooker?
Slow cookers can be found in supermarkets, homeware stores and also on Amazon. Take note of the different features and your budget to find the right one for you, like this model that’s hob-proof for easy meat browning:
A slightly larger one is great for batch-cooking and larger families:
Are slow cookers great for batch-cooking?
Loads of yummy slow cooker recipes lend themselves really well to batch-cooking, since they freeze and reheat so well. If you’re planning to do a big batch of something this week, we’ve got a whole blog full of batch-friendly slow cooker recipes here.
Rustle up our fiery Slow Cooker Beef Madras and you can enjoy it twice or more throughout the week.
It’s worth mentioning that slow cooker recipes will retain a lot more moisture than stove top or oven dishes because the liquid stays in the pot.
Many stove top recipes can be adapted to work in slow cookers with a few simple changes, which we’ve explained in our handy conversion guide. A general rule to follow is to halve the amount of cooking liquid.
You can rustle up our luxurious-tasting Beef Bourguignon on the hob, in your slow cooker or even in a pressure cooker. It just depends on what suits you best!
Tap the image below to try our slow cooker version of the recipe.
Cook, portion up and freeze this dish for those days where you don’t have the motivation or time to start from scratch.
Note down that you’ve meal-prepped portions in one of our food planners, or scribble it into our handy Pinch of Nom Calendar for 2025 – so you’re always organised!
Cooking meat in a slow cooker
Great news if you’re sticking to a budget! Tough and inexpensive cuts tend to work the best and should be chosen over more expensive cuts.
Cooking at a low temperature for a long time is perfect for tenderising cheaper cuts of meat, making them taste so much more luxurious – think pork, lamb shoulder, diced beef, stewing steak and oxtail.
For the best flavour, brown the meat well in a pan or on the hob first to seal in moisture and flavour. Make sure your meat is cut to roughly the same size for even cooking.
Meat with a higher fat content breaks down slower so it ends up tender without turning mushy after a longer cooking time. Opt for chicken thighs and brisket over boneless skinless chicken breasts in the slow cooker, for example.
Our Spicy Beef Stew uses oxtail, which is considerably cheaper than cuts of steak, but just as tender and delicious!
Pulled Pork is another family favourite that was made to be slow-cooked! Sweet with a smoky sauce and fall-apart pork, it’s a great weeknight dinner over jacket spuds or in wholemeal rolls.
We like to get really creative and layer it in our Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Lasagne.
Just wait until you realise you can use your slow cooker to rustle up a whole chicken!
Leave your slow cooker to do its thing for 5-6 hours and you’ll end up with a tender whole chicken that’s succulent and juicy for next to no effort. It’s a roast dinner gamechanger…
Cooking vegetables in a slow cooker
We tend to stick to fresh veg for slow-cooking, since frozen veg can add a little more water and steam to the pot – and you don’t want excess liquid in your slow cooker pot!
You’ll want to make sure your veg is diced into same-sized pieces, so that everything cooks nice and evenly.
Lots of veggies are suitable for slow-cooking, including onions, spuds and other root vegetables. There’s no shortage of slow cooker friendly veg in our humble yet warming Slow Cooker Sausage Casserole.
Some of the vegetables that cook faster, like tomatoes and mushrooms, might need to be added towards the end to prevent overcooking. Bear in mind that it depends on your recipe, as tomatoes are needed early on for our delicious Mexican-Style Chilli Beef!
It’s worth experimenting half an hour at a time to get vegetables cooked to your taste. Remember the golden rule: it’s easy to cook longer if your food is undercooked but you can’t un-cook it if it’s overdone!
Seasoning when using a slow cooker
Cooking in the slow cooker doesn’t allow strong seasonings and flavours time to meld and mellow in the same way that they do when simmering on a stove or in the oven.
Be careful when using seasonings like paprika, chili powder and cumin, which should be used in moderation, and adjusted or added at the end.
When it comes to wine, you’ll want to reduce it before adding it to the mix so you can properly cook off the alcohol and leave behind the concentrated flavour. We find it’s easier to throw in a wine stock pot or wine vinegar.
A red wine stock pot adds new depths of flavour to our pub grub inspired Slow Cooker Steak and Stilton Pie.
Cooking starches in a slow cooker
The big question is, do you need to parboil pasta before it’s added to the slow cooker? Our answer is, you can do it if you want to, but it’s not always necessary.
Take our Slow Cooker Peppered Beef with Pasta as an example. After hours of tenderising our beef on low, we’ll add the dried penne to the pot for 40 minutes on a high heat.
It’ll taste amazing after soaking up all the gorgeous flavours from our creamy sauce.
You can cook rice in the slow cooker too. Try to pick long grain versions and add an extra 1/4 cup of liquid per 1/4 cup of uncooked rice. If you usually use ‘easy-cook’ or parboiled rice, add this to the pot about 20 minutes before the dish is done.
If the recipe is due to be in the slow cooker for a few hours, add fully-cooked rice just before serving instead, otherwise it can go mushy.
It might come as a surprise but desserts and puddings work beautifully in the slow cooker. You can leave pudding rice to fluff up gently for hours, until it makes our silky-rich Chai Rice Pudding.
Cooking dairy in a slow cooker
Dairy products like milk, reduced-fat cream cheese and sour cream will curdle in a slow cooker, so you have to be extra careful – no one wants to end up with a lumpy sauce!
To prevent splitting, add dairy products right at the end of cooking time when the heat is off.
There’s plenty of dairy in our Slow Cooker Vegetable Stew with Cheesy Dumplings – the cream cheese is stirred in until evenly blended after the veggies and dumplings have finished bubbling away.
Recipes like our Crispy Chilli Beef will always be best cooked on the hob to prevent curdling and allow enough time for the sauce to reduce.
Can I convert oven or pressure cooker recipes to a slow cooker?
Absolutely! There are a few easy rules for converting oven and pressure cooker recipes, and we’ve pulled together a simple conversion table to help.
You can follow our guide on how to convert recipes to a slow cooker here.
What will you make in your slow cooker first?
We hope we’ve left you feeling inspired to cook up a storm in your slow cooker! We’ve only scratched the surface of your slow cooker’s potential here – head to our slow cooker recipes page for heaps of inspiration.
Don’t forget! We’ve got almost 1 million lovely community members waiting to encourage you on your slimming journey, or answer any recipe questions you might have in our friendly Facebook group.
You can also look for inspo in our Gallery. You’ll need to sign up to a free website account to upload and share your own photos (we’ve got a step-by-step guide on how to do that just here).
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