If you’ve got a slow cooker, raise your hand. Yep, we thought so. Almost everyone. Over 80 percent of U.S. households own this appliance. To put that into perspective, more people in America own a slow cooker than own a coffee maker.
And it’s not just households. We live in rural New England, near a small general store—the type that serves coffee and pastries all morning, and lunches until mid-afternoon—with loggers, retired bankers, plumbers, and trust-fund ne’er-do-wells sitting higgledy-piggledy around the room at wooden tables. There’s always a slow cooker or two on the counter, stocked with some spiky chili or a warm, smooth vegetable soup.
If truth be told, the slow cooker is the best device for preparing a deep, complex stew; a hot-breakfast-is-ready-when-your-alarm-rings miracle; a dinner-is-ready-when-you-get-home wonder; a surprisingly successful cake or steamed pudding; and fare as diverse as a dried-fruit compote (perfect on ice cream or oatmeal) or a hot toddy punch that’ll knock your lights out when you need them so knocked.
Even so, why did we decide to tackle a slow cooker book? We got tired of recipes that cut us out of the mix. For years, we had a 7-quart model. (Yes, for two people. Yes, we’re big eaters. If you invite us over, double your recipe.) We’d look through books and articles to discover that, while some of the recipes were made for the bigger models, most were made for the 4-quart slow cookers—despite the fact that these smaller guys represent just one slice of the bigger pie. We couldn’t very well make such puny fare in our ginormous machine. So we slimmed down and bought a 2½-quart model, mostly for oatmeal and hot cereals on cold mornings, but also to keep the servings more in the range of normal. Again, our slow cooker didn’t fit most of the recipes out there. A standard braise swamped it. Slow cooker recipe yields didn’t seem to be changing, despite the fact that so-called nuclear households were shrinking (just 2.48 members these days), while blended and extended families were steadily growing. That 4-quart, mid-range model is no longer a one-size-fits-all for the American scene.
So we decided to do something about it. We decided to write a book in which almost every recipe can be made by a range of models: small ones that are 2 to 3½ quarts; medium ones that are 4 to 5½ quarts; and large ones that are 6 to 8 quarts. We set aside a year, blew off our waistlines, and crafted a book that can be used by anyone, no matter what model is in the cabinet. And thus, almost anyone who has a slow cooker can use almost all of these recipes.
We’re not leaving anyone out—or ignoring any situation. Maybe you, too, need a smaller model for those nights when the house has quieted down to just the two of you—and none of your old recipes work. Or maybe you need a gargantuan vat of a slow cooker meal because you’ve suddenly found yourself in a world of potluck dinners and church socials. We hear your pain. We’ve got your back.
If you’re new to this game of cooking (welcome!), or if you’ve just received your first slow cooker as a wedding or graduation gift (congratulations!), you’ll want to start simple: a classic Minestrone or perhaps Garlic-Roasted Chicken Drumsticks, or Mushroom Sloppy Joes. If you’re an old hand around the kitchen, someone who knows the difference between parsley and chervil, you’ll want to head for the Oxtails Braised in Red Wine with Carrots and Prunes or even the Pork Mole Rojo with Plantains. In any event, let’s start cooking.
It’s true: you won’t see many slow cookers on the top food shows. But you will see them in many professional kitchens around the country. Chefs love the way the appliance blends the flavors of a soup or sauce, then holds the concoction at a safe temperature for hours.
You need to get in on the game. There’s no other appliance that retains as much natural moisture in dishes—not your oven, not your grill, not your smoker. No wonder, then, that slow cookers make the best braises, the creamiest soups, and the finest stews. Think of this appliance as an old-fashioned take on ultra-modern sous-vide cooking: hours at a low temperature under a tight lid. Chicken comes out moist and flavorful every time. Carrots stay plump and juicy. Pulled pork is outrageous.
That said, you don’t need to try to do what a slow cooker can’t. You won’t find a roasted beef tenderloin here. Or fried fish. But you will find cakes—yep, a slow cooker holds that moisture so well that it can turn out some of the finest coffeecakes around. And it makes pudding in a flash, no stirring needed. If you really want to go over the top, wait until you try our recipe for Olive Oil–Poached Salmon. That alone might be a reason for this appliance.
There are no perfect solutions in this world, nor perfect appliances. But there are ways to get around the machine’s sticking points. Here’s how.
Times have changed since those first slow cookers came off the assembly line in the 1970s. More important, slow cookers have changed. For better meals in this post-disco world, we’ve got to make some adjustments.
By and large, twenty-first-century slow cookers run hotter. A friend of ours says that she can never get a low-bubble simmer in her new-model slow cooker. She’s resurrected her vintage, harvest-gold one from the back cabinet and now spends her life scouring garage sales to find replacement parts. Despite such heroic efforts to stave off progress, she might as well face the facts and modify her expectations.
In reality, temperature’s not the pressing concern; food safety is. Nobody should have a vat of chicken soup sitting below 140°F for hours: all sorts of bad bacteria will sprout to life. Since the cooking temperature of modern slow cookers was ratcheted up to address this problem, we need to make a bunch of modifications. Specifically, we need to
1. Up the liquid to compensate for a slightly more intense bubbling.
2. Completely forget about veal chops and other cuts of meat that dry out quickly.
3. Go for cheaper cuts like brisket and pork shoulder (which taste better anyway).
4. Set a more precise time marker on the recipe; the old days of the big swings in recipe timings (“cook on low for 9 to 12 hours”) are, like bipartisan compromise, a fond memory.
Modern slow cookers come in multiple sizes. As this appliance began to fan out across the land in the 1980s and ’90s, its size both grew and shrank to meet everyone’s needs. So what happens if you have a 4-quart and the recipe calls for a 6-quart? We solved that problem by offering almost all of our recipes in three sizes: a chart of ingredients that states what you need for a small slow cooker, a medium slow cooker, and a large model.
By the way, it’s not just math to convert a recipe to different size yields: some spices have an exponential affect. For example, you can’t just double or triple the ground cumin without annihilating other flavors. Likewise, doubling or tripling the oil can lead to a greasy mess. Two cups of broth may be right for a small cooker; eight cups would swamp a large model.
In modern slow cookers, the flavors meld, but not always in a good way. Frankly, a slow cooker stew can be like melted crayons. You start out with pink, green, blue, and yellow; you end up with brown. That doesn’t sound like a rousing endorsement (unless you like brown). But there’s no use in not facing facts—flavors can lose their spiky or shallow notes. A few tablespoons of minced oregano leaves will brighten a pot of ragù on the stove; they’ll dissolve into an herby haze in a modern slow cooker, little more than the notion of oregano. What’s more, bold flavors, whether acidic or sweet (tomatoes or carrots, as well as maple syrup and lemon juice) can TKO the lithe subtleties of thyme or parsley. Cinnamon will knock out black pepper; brown sugar, blueberries. In other words, the ends of the flavor spectrum vanquish the middle. So we put velvet covers over certain flavor sledgehammers, like salt, vinegar, or ground cardamom. And we goose the shy flavors to get them to speak. (We’re looking at you, thyme.) In fact, we goose more than we cover. Life’s too short for pallid food.
If you’ve got a 6-quart model and you need to feed four, with one serving of leftovers for lunch tomorrow, use the ingredient amounts for the medium slow cooker (4- to 5½-quart) in your model if (and it’s an important if) you’re making a soup, stew, or braise. However, you cannot swap sizes for gooey casseroles, baked goods, or puddings. Of those, you’ll just have leftovers for the days ahead.
If there’s one thing this book will do, it will help you build a better spice cabinet. You’ll need a good range of choices to complete some of these recipes. We may have nixed lots of gourmet ingredients in this book—no Shaoxing, no foie gras—but we didn’t stint on the dried herbs and spices. Slow cookers can wear them out; we beefed them up for battle.
• Lift the lid as little as possible. Modern slow cookers restabilize the temperature more quickly than old models, but peeking is still discouraged unless you see a problem.
• Stir only when the recipe asks you to. The less action, the better.
• Don’t overfill the cooker. Half to two-thirds full is best, although some soups can fill it up more without dinging their success.
• Thaw frozen ingredients. Use frozen or even partially thawed ingredients only when specifically requested by the recipe.
• When in doubt, overseason but undersalt. Slow cookers eat the flavors of herbs but amplify the taste of salt.
• Treat the cooker gently. To keep ceramic inserts from cracking because of abrupt temperature changes, place a kitchen towel under an insert before setting it on a cold, granite counter.
• Clean the cooker thoroughly between uses. Don’t use steel wool. We fill ours with water, set it aside to soak, and then wipe it out before putting the canister in the dishwasher. Read the instructions for your model to see if it’s dishwasher-safe.
When we set out to develop the recipes for this book, we laid down some ground rules—which we came to see as the book’s promises.
Only real food. Yes, slow cookers came on the scene in a time of canned this and cream of that. The appliance moved on, adding features and becoming energy efficient. Unfortunately, many recipes didn’t. They still call for processed ingredients: dry soup mixes, taco flavorings, and other chemical miasma.
We shun most processed food. Yes, we occasionally call for canned broth, tomatoes, and even some frozen vegetables. But we’ve left out most convenience products and condiments that would up the fakery of these dishes. We’ve read the labels and decided on products that are no different in their convenience form than if we’d made them ourselves. So pickle relish and prepared horseradish are in; marinated chicken tenders and fat-free Italian dressing are out. We’ve gone real—or as real as we can without milling flour and canning tomatoes. There’s no “cream of” anything here. But we’ve kept our rule in check. For example, a bottled Italian dried spice blend is no more than the sum of the dried spices themselves. It’s in.
Only ingredients from your local supermarket. These recipes do not require a trip to a high-end grocery supermarket or a specialty grocery store. We don’t call for ajwain seeds or goat shoulder. Sure, there are Asian-style braises here, even a massaman curry; but we only call for the Asian condiments found in the typical international aisle of a North American supermarket, like hoisin sauce, rice vinegar, coconut milk, and soy sauce. But that doesn’t mean we can’t produce a tongue-snapping, Sichuan-style dish.
We live in backwoods New England. The closest grocery store is a long drive down country roads. It’s not a high-end store but also not a mom-and-pop joint; it’s a large supermarket that caters to a rural population. We geared every recipe to that store. Yes, there may be a few things at our supermarket that aren’t at yours. But we doubt it, unless you live in an even more rural spot than we do. (Do you, too, stake flapping plastic bags on tall poles to chase the moose away from your elderberry bushes?)
Modern American dishes. This is a book for a distinctly American appliance, but that doesn’t mean we have to stick to hamburger casseroles. These days, we live among many cultures, each with its own tradition. And we can relish each other’s food: Chinese braises, Indian curries, Southern stews, Yankee pot roast, Jewish brisket, Polish sausage. Our recipes run the gamut of American cultures, from the new to the old-fashioned. In that way, we can celebrate the new American century.
Only basic kitchen gadgetry. When slow cooker recipes step away from the cream-of-whatever, they can devolve into culinary esoterica. We’re always amazed at recipes that require us to build some sort of aluminum-foil pyre inside a slow cooker. Frankly, we don’t see the point. Yes, we might be able to lift a chicken out of its juices as it roasts. But if truth be told, we’re not really worried about air circulation in a slow cooker. It’s not worth the time to raise a bird up when it will not get crisp in the cooker the way it would in an oven. Some of the meat will sit down in those juices as it cooks. But is that a bad thing?
We wanted the slow cooker to be the appliance at hand. Yes, some recipes require a standard blender or an immersion blender. No more than a handful ask for a food processor. And yes, a few baking recipes do call for one specific piece of equipment: a 1-quart, high-sided, soufflé or baking dish. But those items are available at our local supermarket among the cookware equipment. (Don’t worry: in many of these baking recipes, we advocate pouring the batter right into the cooker itself.) Let’s embrace convenience without compromising our principles.
Recipes, like a good party, are a group effort. We’ve all got to chip in.
Follow sensory cues, not timings. Since these recipes have been calibrated for more than one size of slow cooker, we considered giving no timings whatsoever, even for browning or searing or steaming ingredients. After all, if you’re cooking a small batch of a stew, you might first need to soften 1 cup of onions on the stove—which might take you under 5 minutes; if you’re working on a large batch, those onions might increase to 3 cups—and the task suddenly jumps to 10 minutes or more. But then we took a deep breath and realized we didn’t need to rewrite the rules of the cookbook game. So we offer the timings as a range: “Cook until translucent, between 4 and 10 minutes.” The real cue here is the visual one—translucent.
Experiment the second time, not the first. Will every recipe be to your liking? Of course not. But hold off on manipulating the ingredients until you’ve made the dish once. You’ll have a better understanding of how it stands. We also hope you read and cook the recipes with a pen in hand, marking the book to remind you what you’ve done.
Read the ingredients carefully. Where possible, we have tried to list the things you’ll need as they might appear on a shopping list: 1 tart medium green apple. However, life doesn’t always work out in round numbers and neat quantities, so we’ve also listed some ingredient amounts that are not whole items—like 3 tablespoons chopped tart green apple. That’s certainly less than even a small apple would yield, and so it has been stated as a volume amount, rather than its supermarket amount. In that vein, we’ve also given some ingredients in weight, not volume: for example, 2 pounds peaches, peeled and pitted. Here, we’ve assumed you can use the scale at the supermarket to get the correct weight. When a little more or less of something would have no effect on the results, we’ve felt free to go with the market equivalent: 2 medium carrots, chopped. But when we’re trying to balance flavors carefully and accurately, we’ve been far more precise, asking you to chop and then measure what you’ve got: ½ cup chopped carrot.
Don’t confuse fresh and dried herbs. After twenty-one cookbooks (not counting those for celebs), we’ve come to think of fresh and dried herbs as separate ingredients. Yes, there’s a longstanding cookbook tradition that says you can use half the amount of dried for fresh. But you can’t. Dried tarragon is more like licorice than its fresh kin, which has grassy and lemony overtones; fresh sage is far more subtle than dried; and dried basil has a tealike taste that bears little resemblance to fresh, peppery basil leaves. We use dried thyme rather than fresh when we want a subtler, more sophisticated finish; we use fresh rosemary rather than dried when we want the more pungent, even savory, perfume of the former.
Brighten leftovers. Because the slow cooker shears off spiky notes from herbs, cools the heat of chiles, and mutes acids like lemon juice, reheating the leftovers can be particularly daunting. Storing a stew overnight blunts its flavors even more; freezing it, further yet. For a successful day-after meal, you need to perk it back up. Stir in a bit more of the herbs used in the original. Add a little more chili powder, a little more spiky chili sauce. Or take the easiest way out: stir a little lemon juice into the leftovers before you reheat them.
If you’ve got a nonstick slow cooker, modify your tools. Some slow cookers have that special nonstick coating because the insert can be removed to set it on the stovetop and brown various ingredients. If yours is so made, you’ll need to use a nonstick-safe whisk or spatula; otherwise, you can nick the coating. In fact, even ceramic canisters should be given the kid-glove treatment. You can certainly scratch them when you cut a cake into slices while it’s still inside. Always err on the side of tools made to work with nonstick surfaces, even if you have a standard cooker.
It’s all about the lower temperature at which liquids boil: the liquids will bubble sooner without being as hot. Here are three ways to compensate:
• Increase the cooking time, sometimes by as much as 50 percent, depending on where you live. At very high altitudes, dried beans can take almost double the stated time.
• For soups, stews, and braises, start cooking on high for the first hour, then switch to low heat for the remaining time if the recipe calls for it.
• Always use an instant-read meat thermometer for meat and poultry. Beef, pork, lamb, and veal cuts should be at least 145°F; any ground meat should reach at least 160°F, and any poultry, at least 165°F.
We always call for no-salt-added tomatoes and low-sodium broth. And the stated amounts of added salt are low, too. While we do know that excessive salt consumption poses a health risk, we’re making a culinary claim. Since there’s almost no browning inside a slow cooker, there are fewer complex flavors developed to balance the salt. Its flavor can then ride up over everything—and quickly. Standard cans of broth or tomatoes make stews and braises just too salty.
For all the ingredients, pay close attention to the wording. When you see 1 tablespoon chopped raisins, you’ll need 1 tablespoon after chopping. Likewise, 2 tablespoons minced oregano leaves means you’ll need to measure them after you’ve done your prep work with the knife. Drained canned diced tomatoes are measured after draining, not before. Packed brown sugar is measured after you’ve packed it into the measuring cup or spoon.
Because these recipes are sized for various slow cooker models, they often call for various volumes of standard ingredients—for example, 1¾ cups chopped yellow onion, rather than 1 large yellow onion, chopped. Because of that, your part may be a little more exacting when it comes to prepping ingredients. Here’s what we mean when we say:
| Roughly chopped | 1- to 1½-inch pieces |
| Chopped | ¾- to ½-inch, irregular pieces |
| Cubed | ½-inch, fairly uniform cubes |
| Finely chopped | ½- to ¼-inch irregular pieces |
| Diced | ¼-inch, fairly uniform cubes |
| minced | ⅛-inch bits |
Almost every recipe in this book has a set of specific components. Here’s what they mean.
Effort. We’ve divided these recipes into three categories, based on their difficulty: Not much, A little, and A lot. We arrived at these categories by taking into account (1) the work you do (the prepping involved as well as any out-of-the-cooker cooking) and (2) the payoff. Merely browning something at the stove often disqualifies a recipe from the Not much category, but not always; there are a few recipes where browning is so minimal compared to the supper payoff that the effort gets discounted. Making a spice rub for a brisket is not enough to kick the recipe into A little; opening a flank steak, stuffing it with vegetables, and rolling it closed is enough to bump the recipe into the A lot ranks. So look at the level of effort as a general guide and compare it to the following bit of information, the two in tandem. That is…
Prep time. This represents the time you’ll spend doing anything outside the slow cooker. Prepping includes chopping, mincing, and rubbing, as well as browning, marinating, and even hauling stuff out of the pantry. It also includes post-slow-cooker activities: deboning, straining, pureeing, and reducing. (But it does not include clean-up. That’s why you have children.)
Cook time. This is the time everything spends inside the appliance. Most recipes are exact: 8 hours on low, for example. A few, however, have ranges: 5 to 6 hours on low, mostly because of the way some cuts of chewy, tough meat get tender at their own rate. Some recipes offer two timings: 5 hours/8 hours, for example. In this case, we offer a time frame for cooking on low and also one for cooking on high. Finally, a handful of recipes, particularly in the fish chapter, have a qualification on the timing: 2 hours 20 minutes on high at most. In these cases, the fish will be done quickly once it’s added to the hot sauce—so you’ll need to stay in the kitchen and keep checking on the dish for the best dinner possible.
Keeps on warm. Most modern slow cookers have a keep warm setting that precludes the necessity of many of the old-fashioned time swings: 6 to 9 hours. If your model doesn’t have a keep warm setting, you’ll need to be a tad more exacting in the overall timing. We do not, for example, believe that dried whole wheat pasta can sit on low for 4 to 7 hours; at 4 hours, it’s good to go, and at 7, it’s mush. To that end, we’ve taken into account the various components of a dish—that pasta, as well as vegetables, go boggy and meatballs fall apart—to come up with some notion of how long the dish can sit before you get to it, once the appliance clicks to its keep warm setting.
Various slow cookers have varying temperature calibrations based on their factory settings, their age, and their repeated use. The keep warm on your model may be hotter than that setting on any of ours; your low may be lower than ours. If you find the oatmeal crusting around the edges of the canister, or if you find your short ribs are not ever done in the stated time, you’ll need to adjust accordingly.
Servings. Because we’re working with a range of ingredient quantities, we also give the number of servings in a range: from 4 to 10, for example. We’re two guys who can polish off a big bowl of short ribs each and still want a salad. Your appetite might be daintier—or heftier. Use our suggestion for the number of servings as just that: a suggestion.
These are probably the single most innovative piece of this book—and subject to confusion, as innovations are. Here is an example of a recipe chart:
2- TO 3½-QUART
1¼ cups water
¾ cup Coconut milk (regular or lite)
½ cup Steel-cut oats
½ Ripe medium bananas, chopped
2½ tblsp Chopped dried pineapple
2½ tblsp Unsweetened shredded coconut
2½ tblsp Packed light brown sugar
¼ tsp Vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
pinch Grated nutmeg
4- TO 5½-QUART
2½ cups water
1½ cups Coconut milk (regular or lite)
1 cup Steel-cut oats
1 Ripe medium bananas, chopped
⅓ cup Chopped dried pineapple
⅓ cup Unsweetened shredded coconut
⅓ cup Packed light brown sugar
½ tsp Vanilla extract
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp Grated nutmeg
6- TO 8-QUART
3¾ cups water
2¼ cups Coconut milk (regular or lite)
1½ cups Steel-cut oats
2 Ripe medium bananas, chopped
½ cup Chopped dried pineapple
½ cup Unsweetened shredded coconut
½ cup Packed light brown sugar
¾ tsp Vanilla extract
¾ tsp salt
¼ tsp Grated nutmeg
We should make two notes about these charts.
• Be careful not to accidentally switch between chart sections as you work. You can end up with too much or too little broth in a soup, for example.
• If you have a slow cooker that sits right on the column break—that is, it’s a 4-quart or a 6-quart model—you can use the amounts for the smaller slow cooker in your model (the 2- to 3½-quart quantities for the 4-quart, the 4- to 5½-quart quantities for the 6-quart), provided you’re working with a soup, stew, or braise. (Baking and casseroles are less forgiving.) What you can’t do in almost all cases is go the other way—that is, put the larger quantities into smaller models.
• Testers’ Notes. These bits of information will help you complete the recipe to success. We offer tips on ingredient preparation, tricks of the trade when it comes to working with certain items, and even alternatives that can customize the dish to your taste. Check out these notes before you start cooking!
• Serve It Up! We offer a range of suggestions for what to do with the finished dish, from garnishes to ideas for salads, soups, and sides that will round out the meal.
• Shortcuts. If we know of a quick but still real-food way to spend less time in the kitchen, we give it; for example, frozen mixed vegetables, jarred minced ginger, presliced bell peppers on the supermarket’s salad bar, or bottled spice blends.
• Ingredients Explained. Here’s where we provide a glossary for some of the ingredients: kale, red curry paste, short ribs, and white balsamic vinegar, to name a few. Long-time cooks will find some of this redundant; novices will most likely appreciate its help. These entries are cross-referenced throughout the book, but you needn’t look if you know.
• All-American Know-How. Here, we condensed our kitchen wisdom: how to cut up a chicken, how to clean leeks, how to store clams. Together, these will help this book become your cooking primer that focuses on America’s favorite appliance.
So that’s the story—all that’s left are the recipes. You might start with Oat, Barley, and Apple Porridge for a morning in the very near future. Or if you’re more in the mood for a main course, Pork Butt with Whiskey and Sage. Or Sticky Chicken Thighs with Apricots. Or Shell-less Clams Casino. Or shoot, just Mac and Cheese. Really, we can’t pick. You go ahead. Then write and let us know what happened. We’re at www.bruceandmark.com. With this many recipes to try, you’re about to hear a lot from us. We’d love to hear from you.