About
Fix-It and Forget-It 5-Ingredient Favorites

Too little time to cook?

Worried about your skills in the kitchen?

Fix-It and Forget-It 5-Ingredient Favorites can be your steady kitchen companion.

This packed-full collection has more than 700 recipes, each with 5 or fewer ingredients.

And each recipe’s instructions spell out every step so you won’t get stranded along the way. This book makes cooking manageable.

Think of Fix-it and Forget-It 5-Ingredient Favorites as your inspiration and encourager. All of its recipes come from home cooks. These are their favorite dishes, loved by families and households across the country. So get out your slow cooker—or cookers—and choose from these flexible, forgiving, and absolutely scrumptious recipes.

What qualifies as a 5-ingredient recipe?

1. Any recipe with 5—or fewer—ingredients.

2. Water does not count.

3. Salt and pepper count as one ingredient.

4. Ingredients listed as optional do not count.

5. Non-stick cooking spray does not count.

6. The “base” over which the recipe is to be served (for example, crackers or chips, rice, pasta, or potatoes) does not count.

A word about slow cookers

These great little appliances can vary considerably in their heat intensity and speed of cooking. Older models often require more cooking time than newer ones. That’s why we give a range of cooking times for many of the recipes. Experiment by using the shorter cooking time first. Then make a note right on the recipe page itself about what you discovered works best for your cooker. Personalize this cookbook!

Variables to keep in mind

Ideally, you should fill your slow cooker about ⅔ full. You may need to increase the cooking time if you’ve exceeded that amount, or reduce it if you’ve put in less than that.

• The fuller your slow cooker, the longer it will take its contents to cook.

• The more densely packed the cooker’s contents are, the longer they will take to cook.

• The larger the chunks of meat or vegetables, the longer they will take to cook.

If you put ingredients into the cooker straight out of the refrigerator, you may need to add 20-30 minutes to the cooking time.

If you put frozen meat into the cooker, you should add 4-6 hours of cooking time on Low, or 2 hours on High.

If you’re using a slow cooker at an altitude over 3,500 feet, you will need to cook its contents somewhat longer than the recipe states. Allow time to experiment, and then write what worked next to the recipe.

If you want to check that the meat in your slow cooker is fully cooked, use a food thermometer:

• Beef should reach an internal temperature of 170° F;

• Pork should reach an internal temperature of 180° F;

• Poultry should reach an internal temperature of 190° F.

Don’t miss the Quickie Go-Alongs at the back of the book

If you want to round out a meal that has a slow-cooker main dish, turn to the “Quickie Go-Alongs” chapter beginning on page 253. Most of these recipes have more than 5 ingredients, but I added them because they meet two important tests: 1. They’re quick to prepare; 2. They are irresistibly delicious. Don’t miss them.

The pass-it-on tradition

Good cooks love to share their recipes. They don’t possess them; they pass them on. This collection is rich because of all the home cooks who generously offered their favorite recipes, so that all of us could fix satisfyingly delicious food at home. Thank you to each of you who has shared your gems. This book holds your precious food traditions, and we are all grateful.

So relax and let this collection of 5-ingredient recipes be your friendly kitchen companion. Mark your favorites—but don’t hesitate to keep trying new ones.

Fix-It and Forget-It 5-Ingredient Favorites makes it possible for you to sit at the dinner table together, with your family and friends, around absolutely tasty food, no matter how wild and crazy your day.

—Phyllis Good