Everyone has their favorite cooking tools and gadgets and mine is the crockpot (i.e. slow cooker). I love the crockpot. I use it almost every week in the winter. But I don’t discriminate with the seasons; I will bust out the crockpot in July as well because the convenience of it is applicable all months of the year.
There are several brands of the slow cookers but I prefer the 6 quart crockpot. I have a slightly older version but the features are the same where you can set a specific time in 30 minute increments and it automatically goes to “warm” when it is complete. One word of warning: I’ve found that “warm” still cooks the food so I have had things burn if they are on “warm” for too long. Keep that in mind if you have food sitting out with company over. Anyway, I think the 6 quart crockpot is the best size since you can still cook smaller meals but you can also fit a large piece of meat in it to feed a crowd.
Why do I love the crockpot so much?….the convenience. There are there so many “dump” meals for the crockpot where you can just throw some meat in and/or open up some cans and dump in the contents, turn on the pot and go on with your day. Some of my favorite dump meal recipes for the crockpot are:
Another convenience factor of using the crockpot is that you can come home to a fully cooked meal: what’s not to love?! This saves a significant amount of time each day because you don’t have to spend an hour or more cooking a meal when you get home. And I’m not sure about you but just about everyone in my family is “hangry” by the time we get home from work, school and daycare.
Crockpot meals also are usually large serving meals. So as long as you aren’t one of those people who hates leftovers, you are covered for several meals for your week!
I tend to make more time intensive crockpot meals on Sunday because I have more time for chopping and prepping. For weekdays I lean towards the “open cans” or “throw a hunk of meat in” kind of meals. Here are some of my time intensive crockpot meals:
In addition to the recipes I’ve already shared, here are my favorite “feed a large crowd” meals for the crockpot:
If I am having a party where I need to feed a bunch of people, you can bet that I will be making one of those meals. For this week though, I don’t need to feed a crowd, just my family of four. This weekend I will be at yoga teacher training all weekend so I won’t have much time to cook for the week. But I still need to get everything ready because I will be traveling for work next week so the crockpot will be my saving grace. Here is my meal plan for the week:
If you are looking for convenient ways to eat healthy, bust our your crockpot! It has been instrumental for us to consistently eat healthy.
I know the new hip tool is the instant pot (which I also have) but I still find myself using my crockpot more because I feel like the instant pot is “fake” fast. By the time you add in the warm up pressure building time + actual cook time + release time, it equals the same amount of time that it takes to use the stove. So that’s why crockpot usually wins in my household.
What is your favorite crockpot recipe or are you more of an instant pot person?
2 Comments
Wendy
I love the crockpot! I too bought an insta-pot but I miss the house filling with smells of the crockpot (instapost locks it in!). Thanks for the recipe links too. Always looking for new recipes!
Lindsay
Yes! That’s another +1 for the crockpot over the insta-pot 🙂