Favourite slow cooker recipes

[PollyPocketLucyLocket]

I have a slow cooker that has just been sitting in my cupboard for the last year or so.

I'd really like to start using it again, and so am looking for tried and tested recipes that the whole family like.

Any suggestions would be great. I'm so tired from around 3pm, it would be helpful to just have to serve up.

Wanted to add that if I've posted in the wrong forum (?)I will request to move it.

It's actually quite hard to fuck up with a slow cooker. You can literally just fling everything in and ignore it for six hours
Chili, or just mince, with veggies is nice. You can put dumplings in if you want too. Any meat works, and you can use cheap stuff, shin beef, stewing steak, pork shoulder, ham shank and suchlike.
Or chicken, but be careful of the bones, slow cooked chicken bones go brittle and flake really easily, so watch out for bits as you serve.
Get a load of seasonings - try Aldi or Lidl aisle of doom, they stock all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff. Get stock cubes in all the flavours, and all those bottles and jars of chutney and sauce, and "goop" that nobody ever knows what to do with them, and experiment.
You can do sweet too, rice pudding, or chocolate rice pudding is delicious. Bread and butter pudding is easy too.

@PomBearWithAnOFRS that is a lovely way of experimenting with different ingredients.
Thank you
Looking forward to seeing what i can come up with now.

Do veggies generally end up OK? They won't go soggy or anything?

I use cornflour to thicken slow cooker recipes, hadn't used it before but it really helps.

Our fav recipe at the moment
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/slow-cooker-chicken-korma
Also pulled pork is amazing and easy.
Yes to cornstarch to thicken anything.
Slow cooked Greek chicken is amazing too! Make the hummus in the blender
Do you have a delayed timer one? If not get a plug that is delayed as I find chicken that is done over 6ish hours gets horrid.

Cornflour? So do I mix it with water, and add at the start?

Slow cooked greek chicken sounds amazing. Is there a recipe please?

I dont have a delay timer, however I am at home, so could pop it on after lunch?

Pork ribs with a jar of rib sauce and some water.
Serve with mash and coleslaw.
Brown some cheap beef after dusting with flour, add potatoes and carrots, a can of Guinness and some stock. Thicker with corn flour and add peas when 1/2 hour to go.
Chicken with honey, mustard or honey lemon sauce. Serve with rice.
I love my slow cooker.

Stick a chicken in it, you can add lemon, time salt and pepper if you want but on its own is fine, buy a bag of supermarket salad, coleslaw and bread / wraps and let everyone make their own wrap / sandwich.

1 pack of pork ribs (Morrisons do the best INHO) put the in the SC as a sort of lining, wrap them into the edge.

Add a packet of passatta and a drained tin of beans, kidney or cannellini. I also add some chopped chorizo. Season and leave for 6 hours, pull the bones out and serve with crusty bread.
Experiment with adding peppers, different veg, different salami type sausages.

Any joint of meat - just put in the SC.

This one you will have to play with the quantities, I have 2 slow cookers and only do this in the small one.

Skinless chicken, it can be thigh or breast, chopped or whole.

Creme fraiche and condensed mushroom soup, for a small slow cooker one tub and one can is fine.

A handful of button mushrooms, just stick the lot in and forget about it for a few hours DO NOT season, the soup is quite salty.

Cooked breakfast? You can do it overnight or have it as an evening meal.

Roll bacon into cigar shapes and put on edge, put beans / mushrooms in a mug in the sc, put the sausages on end (you can put them in a mug if you want).

Steak (and mushroom or kidney) pudding.

Suet pastry
Steak, chopped.
Mushrooms or kidneys or both chopped
a pyrex dish, a small mixing owl is ideal
some fat
boiling water
oxo cube
flour
a teatowel
Optional - chopped onion.

Grease the inside of the dish

Roll out the pastry into a round, cut out a quarter. Use the 3/4 to line the bowl. Roll the 1/3 into a circle for the top.

Flour the meat(s) and put in the bowl add the veg and crumble in the stock cube. Put the pastry lid on the pudding and make a hole in the top of the pastry until it is full

Fold up the towel and put in the base of the sc. Put the bowl on top and boil the kettle.

Pour boiling water through the hole in the lid until it is full, pour the rest of the water around the bowl so it come up to about 3 inches.

You might want to put a folded foil strap under the bowl to make it easier to lift out.

I forgot the chicken and soup, you can also add leeks, sweetcorn or peas.

I sometimes do this and then the following day put it in a foil tin with a puff pastry led and then freeze for another meal.

I love mine. I make curries, stews, casseroles, whole chickens, pulled pork. Basically any meat is fab in a slow cooker and more tender too. I like a beef joint with largely chopped red onion with a red wine stock pot and rosemary cooked all day.

To thicken my sauces I just keep on high and take the lid off half hour before serving. If it's a stew I'll add some gravy granules before serving to thicken the sauce.

just a thought reading the ideas above - dont add too much liquid at the start as there is only limited evaporation in a slow cooker (not like in the oven or on the stove top that is).
Easier to add a wee bit of stock or tomato relish/soup/paste closer to the end if you need too.
Good luck

Pastry lid not led

Loving these recipes!

I do chicken breast, carrots, onion, garlic, chilli flakes, glass of white wine, stock ... will be trying cornflour with this also

Fry an onion and a carrot, brown off a piece of brisket or silverside and then deglaze with a glass of red wine. Add a star anise, black pepper and a very small pinch of salt. For fast cooking (starting at 0900 for 1300 sitting) turn it to high and pile tea towels on the lids until it boils. While the joint rests, tip out the liquid and make gravy with stewed mushroom juice etc.

This is my favourite at the moment

www.google.ie/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/a-one-pot-slow-cooker-curry-for-when-you-re-not-in-a-hurry-1.4084167%3fmode=amp

Chilli:-
Tip Frozen onion, frozen peppers and beef mince into slow cooker. Add half a jar of hot and sweet jalapeños (liquid and all), 2 crumbled bovril cubes, a splash of Worcester sauce, a sprinkle of thyme, a can of drained kidney beans and mix together.

Cook on low for 8 hours or so. Thicken with some gravy granules if needed.

Pulled pork:-
Put one pork tenderloin in the bottom of the slow cooker. Add some frozen onions. In a bowl mix together a carton of passata, pinch of chilli powder, mustard powder, some balsamic vinegar, and some brown sugar (experiment with quantities depending on how you like your BBQ sauce). Pour over the pork and cook on low for 6-8 hours. If the sauce is too thin, switch to high and lid off for last hour. Shred with forks and serve on brioche buns with cheese coleslaw and wedges.

It's hard to go wrong with the slow cooker. Just make sure you put in enough liquid, but not too much, and some cuts of meat (such as a beef joint) need cooking for a long time on a low temperature. Don't be tempted to rush it.

I use gravy granules to thicken sauces as I can't stand pure cornflour.

Good luck with it, OP. I love my slow cooker!

Oh, and two chicken breasts, one small (35cl) bottle of white wine, chopped spring onion and some chopped ginger - seven hours on low, and it's perfect.

I also do chopped chicken, coconut cream and peanut butter all stirred together it sort of thickens up and coats the chicken. I tend to cook everything on low for seven to eight hours, because that's how long I'm out at work for.

My current favourite, kids love it too - I leave out the oil (left it out by accident once and it made no difference) damndelicious.net/2013/11/02/slow-cooker-crockpot-honey-sesame-chicken/

The only vegetable I don't slow cook are leeks. For some reason they seem to taste foul. I always used them in stews etc on the stove, but when it's been slow cooked, they go mushy and "odd" somehow.
Everything else has always been nice.

Thanks for all the lovely ideas - lots to get me started
I shall report back once I've tested a few out.

@Espoleta I tried that chicken korma recipe today, a big hit with everyone thanks for sharing.