5 Quick and Easy Ways to Cook With Your Crockpot

With the help of a crockpot, you can put in minimal effort to create a thrifty and delicious meal for the whole family. The best crockpot recipes are hardly recipes at all; simply throw in as little as two ingredients and let them cook away while you are at work or attending to other responsibilities. These five quick and easy ideas are the most popular crockpot entrees. With as few as two-or-three ingredients, these ideas are economical but the slow-cooked meals will still taste impressive.

Three Ingredient Crockpot Soup

Some of the best crockpot recipes only have three ingredients! Soups are a great example of three ingredient crockpot recipes. Why buy canned tomato soup when you can make your own in the crockpot? Simply take a pound or two of fresh chopped tomatoes, 1 chopped onion and combine with a pint of chicken or vegetable stock. Simmer for 2-3 hours on low heat. Then puree with a hand blender or blend in batches. You can leave out the onion and/or add fresh chopped basil while cooking. If you like a creamy tomato soup, simply stir in some milk before serving. For more three ingredient crockpot recipes, give French Onion soup a try.

Whole Crockpot Chicken

Slow-cooking chicken in the crockpot with most crockpot chicken recipes has the added benefit of creating delicious, homemade chicken broth. Anyone who makes broth will tell you that store-bought broth just cannot compare to homemade. You can use the chicken for a number of crockpot chicken recipes, while freezing the broth in 1 cup batches for future use. To cook chicken and make broth, Cut a 3 ½ lb. chicken into pieces (including giblets) and cover with water in crockpot (about 4-5 cups). Add celery, garlic, onion, carrot, and fresh parsley. Season with salt and pepper and cook on low overnight or for 10-12 hours. Skim fat off the top of the broth, remove chicken and separate broth into 1 cup batches.

Crockpot Pulled Pork

Pulled pork is a classic dish for picnics and family dinners. With the help of the crockpot, you can make easily make a large amount of meat to serve on burger buns or rolls. For the easiest pulled pork crockpot recipe, simply combine two cups of your favorite BBQ sauce and 4 pounds of pork butt in your crockpot. Make sure meat is coated on all sides, cover and cook on high for 5 ½ hours. 

Crockpot White Chicken Chili

White chili, made with chicken instead of beef, is a delicious, healthy and economical dish to make in the crockpot. For the cheapest crockpot chili, use dry beans as they are perfectly suited to slow-simmering in the crockpot. Cover a pound of northern beans and chopped onion with chicken broth and simmer in the crockpot for 3 hours on low heat. Once soft, add chicken, chopped vegetables and herbs and simmer for another hour. 

Heart Crockpot Beef Stew

Heart crockpot beef stew is another easy way to feed the family with minimal effort and great taste. Simply cover a pound of stew beef and chopped vegetables (carrot, onion and potato) with beef broth (water and beef bouillon cubes) and cook on low for 6-8 hours. You can also add garlic and/or herbs such as bay leaves, thyme, or rosemary. Experiment with what works best for your favorite hearty crockpot beef stew.

Caley Walsh is an editor for the recipe and cooking website, http://www.RecipeLion.com Find tens of thousands of free recipes, cooking tips, weekly meal planners and more. Reader favorites include Crockpot Recipes, Pork Chop recipes, Budget Friendly Recipes and Chicken Casserole Recipes.

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Basic Slow Cooker Tips and Delectable Roast Beef Recipes

Slow cookers or crock pots are countertop electrical cooking appliances that maintain a low temperature for several hours. This enables cooking stew or pot roast without the need to check on it from time to time.

Amateur cooks will find it very easy to handle and maintain. All you need to do is to fill it up, and then turn it on. After several hours, dinner can be served. However, when using the slow cooker, there are some things you need to consider. It is best to get one that has a removable liner, making it very easy to clean. If you already have one with a non-removable liner, you can just use a cooking bag; then, use cooking spray on the inner liner.

Make sure you only fill your slow cooker ½ up to 2/3 full. The food will not be cooked properly if filled to the brim. However, if the liquid and food level is a bit lower, it will cook quickly.

You will find that the food along the bottom part of the slow cooker are moister and become cooked faster. This is because they are continuously immersed inside the simmering liquid. Since fats have a tendency to melt and cook easily when heated for a long time, resulting to an unpleasant texture, it is best to trim the excess fat formed and remove the skin from poultry.

During the last 30 minutes of cooking time, you can remove the lid and cook it on high to thicken the juices and add more flavors. It is best to cook on High during the 1st hour of cooking so that the temperature would easily reach 140 degrees, ensuring food safety. When you are almost done with your cooking, you can turn the dial to Low.

Do not place frozen foods inside your slow cooker. It should be defrosted first before cooking it. This way the temperature would easily reach 140 degrees. It also protects the appliance from being damaged.

Use cheaper cuts of meat because this requires about 8 hours of low cooking. Aside from being able to save money, they have less fat, moist and they result to more tender meats.

Ground meat should be cooked inside a skillet prior to cooking it in the slow cooker. If you will be cooking seafood in a slow cooker, this should be added in the last hour of cooking; otherwise, it will become overcooked and it will showcase a rubbery texture. Take note, 1 hour on high setting is actually equal to 2 hours on low setting.

Only use small amounts of Tabasco sauce and cayenne pepper because they become bitter when they are cooked for a long time. It is best to add them during the end of your cooking time.

Make sure you only add tender vegetables such as mushrooms, tomatoes and zucchini on the last 45 mins. of cooking time. This way, you will not overcook them.

Dairy products, on the other hand, must be added only during the last 30 minutes of cooking time.

Prior to storage, take out cooked food from the slow cooker or liner. Since the slow cooker's liner is composed of thick material, cooked food will not be able to cool down quickly so as to prevent the growth of bacteria.

Only stir in spices during the last hour of cooking time. If you cook this for a long time, it will lose its flavor.

Carefully follow the layering instructions. Since vegetables are not cooked as easily as meat, you need to place them in the bottom of your slow cooker.

If you are using low temperature, do not lift the lid when you stir. This is because the heat will escape and extend the cooking time to 30 minutes more. You can check the cooking progress by spinning the cover so that the condensation would fall off, giving you a chance to look inside your slow cooker.

Here are some of the best Roast Beef Recipes you can cook with your slow cooker:

Roast Beef a la Mushroom Soup

Ingredients are 1 can of Cream of Mushroom Soup, small to medium shoulder or chuck of beef roast, 1 can of French Onion Soup, a dash of pepper and ½ can of water (for cleaning the soup can).

Procedure:

Place the first 3 ingredients inside your slow cooker. Mix the ingredients until thoroughly blended. Sprinkle a dash of pepper. Put the settings on Low and allow cooking for the entire night. The next day, remove the meat and prepare your gravy. If your gravy seems too thin, add about 1 to 2 tsp. of cornstarch with ¼ cups of cold water. Set the cooker on high. Stir in the mixture to thicken and serve.

Roast Beef with Gravy

Ingredients are olive oil, 3 to 3 ½ pounds Boneless Rump Roast, 8 garlic slivers, salt and pepper. You will also need a meat thermometer. For the gravy, you will need some beef stock or red wine and corn starch.

Procedure:

One hour prior to cooking remove the roast from the refrigerator at put it in room temperature.

Using a sharp knife, you need to cut about eight small incisions around your roast. You will place one sliver of garlic on each incision. Place one tablespoon of olive oil around your roast and then sprinkle it with salt and pepper. Put your roast on the oven rack with the fatty side up and a drip pan over a rack under the roasting rack. This way, you will not be required to turn the roast.

Brown your roast at 375oF for 30 minutes. Then, put it on 225oF. It would still 2 to 3 hours to cook but if it starts to drip and is already brown externally, use your meat thermometer to check its temperature. After this, pull your roast from the oven once the temperature reaches 135 to 140oF. Place it on an aluminum foil for about 15 minutes and carve to serve.

For the gravy:

Take out the dripping pan from the oven. Place it on the stove top while it is on medium heat. Collect the drippings, add water, beef stock or red wine. This will loosen the drippings off the pan. Then, dissolve one tablespon of cornstarch with water and add this on the drip pan. Stir it quickly as the gravy thickens. You can also add some butter, salt and pepper. Aside from this, you can also add some fresh thyme.

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Crock Pot - Pigs in a Blanket Cabbage Rolls Recipe

When it comes to crock pot cooking (using a slow cooker), I enjoy using mine all year long. One of the recipes I enjoy making in it are Cabbage Rolls, which are also known as Pigs In A Blanket.

This recipe does take some preparation time, but is well worth your efforts.

To Prepare Cabbage: Fill a large stock pot with water and bring to a rapid boil. Take the core out of each head of cabbage. Place head into boiling water, cover and cook for 5 minutes, remove from water immediately. With one head, start taking the leaves off, being careful not to tear them. They should be pliable, if not, place back into the water for an additional minute or two.

Cabbage Rolls

2 large heads cabbage

2 to 3 lbs. lean ground beef

1 large onion, chopped

6 cups cooked rice

1 hot pepper, finely diced

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon salt

1 can tomato soup

1/2 can warm water

Fry the lean ground beef and chopped onion in a large skillet over medium heat until it's not longer pink; drain grease. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cooked ground beef mixture with cooked rice, diced hot pepper, paprika and salt, set aside.

On a clean surface, such as a cutting board, place 2 to 3 tablespoons of meat mixture onto the center of the cabbage leaf. Overlap the sides of the leaf and roll. Repeat until your meat mixture is completely used up.

Place rolls into your slow cooker (crock pot) and pour the can of tomato soup over top along with a 1/2 can of warm water. Turn the dial to high heat, cover and slow cook them for 4 hours or until done.

If desired, you can freeze the left-overs for up to 6 months in your freezer as this recipe will make approximately 25 to 35 cabbage rolls. 

Shelly Hill has been working from home in Direct Sales since 1989 and is a Manager with Tupperware. Shelly enjoys cooking and baking for her friends and family. You can visit Shelly online at http://www.workathomebusinessoptions.com or her recipe blog at http://wahmshelly.blogspot.com for additional free recipes.

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Crockpot Dessert Ideas

Slow cookers are good for making desserts as well as entrees, side dishes and appetizers. You can make cakes, fruit-based desserts, and even dipping sauces in the crockpot. If you are going to serve a hot dessert or dipping sauce, you can simply uncover the slow cooker and leave it plugged in so the sauce stays warm.

The Best Caramel Dip

To make a caramel dip, which is great with bread pudding, pound cake, apple wedges, or ice cream, you need to combine two thirds of a cup of whipping cream with a fourteen ounce bag of caramels in the crockpot.

Cover and cook on low for half an hour or until the caramel has melted. Stir in a couple of teaspoons of rum or half a teaspoon of rum extract, as well as half a cup of miniature marshmallows and cover the slow cooker again. Cook the mixture for half an hour more.

How To Make Spiced Fruit

You will need four pounds of canned fruit to make this one and you can choose from pear slices, peach slices, pineapple tidbits, mixed fruit, maraschino cherries and more. If the fruit is in syrup, drain it, but if it is in natural juice, you can keep the juice. Add the fruit to your slow cooker, along with a teaspoon of ground nutmeg, a tablespoon of cornstarch, a teaspoon and a half of ground cinnamon, four tablespoons of butter and half a cup of brown sugar. Add some fruit juice if none of your canned fruit is in natural juice.

Cook on high for three hours or on low for five hours, and then serve this dessert with sour cream or heavy cream. You can also serve it as a breakfast side dish and this recipe makes enough to serve eight people.

Cherry Cobbler Recipe

This tasty recipe is very easy and serves six people. Use a three and a half quart crockpot. If your slow cooker is bigger, you can use a lightly buttered souffle dish inside the larger slow cooker instead.

What You Need:

16 oz cherry pie filling
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 egg
3 tablespoons evaporated milk
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 sweet muffin mix or cake mix for 1 layer cake

How To Make It:

Put the pie filling in a greased crockpot and cook it on high for half an hour. Stir together the nuts, egg, milk, cinnamon and muffin mix or cake mix, then spoon it on top of the hot pie filling. Cover the crockpot and cook for two to three hours on low.

Crockpot Pecan Brownie Recipe

Another great idea is slow cooker pecan brownies. To make these, add quarter of a cup of melted butter to a two pound coffee can, then swirl it all over the sides and base. Sprinkle half a cup of chopped pecans on top.

Make up a family size package of brownie mix with the ingredients called for on the package and add another half a cup of chopped pecans to it. Pour this batter into the coffee can and put it in a crockpot.

Use eight paper towels to cover the top of the can and cover the crockpot. Cook for three hours on high without removing the lid until an hour has passed. Let the coffee can stand for five minutes, then carefully unmold the brownie mixture. Serve hot.

Some people say that crockpot desserts are among the best crockpot recipes because they are so easy and they mean you can concentrate on the entree, knowing the dessert will slowly cook itself. There are also a lot of savory easy crockpot recipes that you can make.

The Best Crockpot Recipes Start With Our Recipes - BestCrockpotRecipes.net

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