10 Slow Cooker Hacks You Need To Try | Allrecipes

Think your slow cooker is just for soups and stews? Think again. From cheesy lasagna to decadent desserts, here are 10 slow cooker recipes that might blow your mind. I'm going to start with one of my favorite tricks, cooking a whole chicken in the slow cooker. This is something my grandmother taught me and what's mind-blowing about it is that this is a one ingredient meal. It is just the chicken and whatever seasonings you want to add. I love this recipe so much that for my wedding, instead of giving out candies or other kind of party flavors at the end, what I gave was a spice blend and a little baggie with a recipe for cooking a whole chicken in your crock pot. Okay, and that was 22 years ago. All you have to do is just season it liberally inside and out. I'm doing like a salt, pepper, garlic blend. I'll put some extra on my board because once I start touching the chicken, I don't like to touch my spice bottles. A little lemon pepper and a little garlic powder. So this is really going to taste like a rotisserie chicken or just a good, you know, cooked chicken. The only difference will be it's not going to get a crispy skin on the outside and that's because we're cooking in a moist environment. Tis what it is. The chicken will be flavorful and juicy. I will forego the crispy skin for this recipe because in exchange, you get the easiest recipe of all time. Okay, that's it and plop it right in your slow cooker. Recipe one, in the slow cooker in under a minute. This is one you can start in the morning and let it go on low for six, eight hours or crank it up on high. It'll be ready in three and a half to four hours. I'm going on high because I've got a lot more to show you. My baby's ready. I mean, come on now. Look at all the juice it made and we put in nothing. The prettiest it's going to look is right here, right now. This is more of a meal prep chicken. This isn't your, you know, centerpiece chicken and it's going to be so tender. I mean, it's going to literally fall off the bone. That's why what we do is just shred it up. Same thing you would do if you went and bought a rotisserie chicken. You're going to shred off the meat and use it for multiple recipes, right? I've given you plenty of those. So if you were having this for dinner right here, right now, you would do, you know, you could just cut up your chicken, put this juice, put the, put it all over rice. Perfect. I'll show you how we like to eat it. When you get some crusty bread, I like to put a little nail on it and you put your delicious chicken right on top. I mean, if I'm going to do the perfect bite, may as well. A little crack of pepper. Forgot something. Oh my gosh, so good. You can drizzle over a little of your liquid gold. Simplicity at its finest with a one ingredient dinner. This is nostalgia for me. Cheers to my wedding gift. Did you know you can whip up a delicious comforting pan of lasagna in your crockpot? I kind of forget about this trick, but when I am researching like surprising things you can make in your slow cooker, number one answer, lasagna. So I've got my meat sauce going. Of course you can use whatever your favorite lasagna recipe is for this. We have an excellent crockpot lasagna recipe at Allrecipes and that's the one I'm using. So the meat sauce is going and now I'm going to mix together my cheese mixture. My dad used to always put cottage cheese in lasagna, so you can do ricotta if you want to, but this has more protein. Mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Just mix all that together and then we just start layering. There's enough flavor, saltiness in the cheese mixture. You don't have to season it up. Just going to spray the sides of the crockpot. Going in with a layer of our sauce. Then you're going to go on with lasagna noodles. At this point a double layer and then you can break them to fit as needed. Some cheese mixture and more sauce. You're probably thinking, Nicole, you probably should have boiled those noodles first, but I'm not because that's not what it says to do. I guess that's why it feels so wrong because when you really have to tell yourself, trust the process, then you just let it go on low until the noodles are tender. Four to six hours. Smells like a sundae, but it could easily be a busy Wednesday. The big question will be, are the noodles cooked? We already know this is not a square cutting situation. Okay, this is more of a scoopable lasagna. Oh, went all the way through so the noodles are cooked. Look at that. Well, I'll be darned. There are layers upon layers in there. It does cook a little more around the edges than on the inside, but that gives us all plenty of edge to enjoy. You can see the noodles. We put double layer. They're all cooked. They don't look too mushy either. It is hot. The flavors have come together layer by layer right in our hero of the day. We are two for two. Even though this felt wrong, slow cooker lasagna is right. Any guesses as to what we're slow cooking next? Meatloaf. Kind of like the chicken. These large cuts or portions of meat can be made in the slow cooker. This recipe is called melt in your mouth meatloaf. I've already put together the meat mixture. It's got some mushrooms in it. Lots of flavoring. I'm just going to drop it right down into the slow cooker, but it's just good because like you can do these things ahead of time, but a lot of times when you want to make a meatloaf on a busy night, you get home at 5 30. You don't want to have to put it then in the oven because you've got a good hour to wait. This you could have done before you started doing all your running around and then it's ready when you're ready for dinner. And then before I turn it on, I'm going to go ahead and put the glaze on because that's what I do when I put it in the oven. So ketchup, dried mustard, a little brown sugar, and then some Worcestershire. I'm going to mix and I'm just going to spread this right over the top. This could go on low for five to six hours. I'm going high for two to three. Ready for some meatloaf. This worked beautifully. Oh yeah, see it worked. Is meatloaf the surprising thing you need to be making in your slow cooker? I would totally do this again because it just makes sense. This is something I would easily fix on a weeknight, but I don't necessarily want to pop it in the oven at 5 30 or six when I get home or we're eating too late. So to do this earlier in the day and it's ready as soon as we get home, that's an A plus. Slow cooker baked potatoes is a genius move, especially if you're having a dinner party or you're having steak night for your family. You can get your baked potatoes going early in the day and you never have to think about them again. Plus you don't have to leave your oven on for a long time to heat up the kitchen. So you just prepare them like you normally would your baked potatoes going in the oven. So I'm going to do a little oil. I've already washed them. Okay, don't worry. Prick them with a fork. This don't just take twice as long in the oven. They take like four or five times as long. These are pretty big potatoes, so they're probably going to end up taking, you know, six hours or so. This is a great idea for a dinner buffet too because you can get, especially sometimes you can get those smaller russet potatoes and just pack them in your slow cooker and then serve a variety of toppings. If you are doing a bunch and you've got layers of potatoes, you might want to rotate them throughout the day. I'm just going to do four today, but obviously you can fit as many as you can into your slow cooker. Lid on, crank it up. Have I started blowing your mind yet? Baked potatoes coming right up. This could be a really easy dinner solution. Have your potatoes going before you go to work. Come home, set out some toppings. Dinner is done. It's a hot potato, hot potato. Like you've never seen a baked potato before, but some butter, salt and pepper, cheese. This would also be fun. You could have one crock pot of chili and one of baked potatoes. Surprising things you should make in your crock pot. Number four is baked potatoes. Casseroles are the next thing coming out of the crock pot. You can use just about any recipe. I'm making a slow cooker cheesy loaded breakfast casserole. My friend taught me this and this came in clutch when we had all 15 of us at the beach house and I was in charge of breakfast. Here's what you're going to do. If you're doing breakfast for dinner, you could start this in the morning, earlier in the day, but if you want this when you wake up, you mix it together and then you put it on right before you go to bed. About a pound of shredded hash browns going into the slow cooker. Everything, this is just like dump and go situation. These are still frozen. That's on purpose because we've got a long time to let it cook. Then I've cooked two pounds of breakfast sausage with peppers and onions. You could also half this recipe if you don't need it to feed so many people. Also in with shredded cheddar cheese. Plenty of it. This would be good if you're having a big sleepover and you might need something to soak up your bad decisions. I wouldn't know but I'm just saying. All right and then we just make our egg custard and pour it over. For the egg mixture, obviously eggs, I'm doing a whole dozen. I'm gonna season it. The potatoes will soak up a lot of seasoning so be generous, but there's seasoning obviously in the sausage and the cheese. Then milk, you can also do half and half. Mix it really well. I did spray the sides of my slow cooker first just in case. It's not really going to stick just to help with the cleanup later. Mush it all down there. So ideally you would do this at night and wake up in the next morning so you'd want to do it on low, but if you're in a bigger hurry you can obviously cook it on high. We're not planning on spending the night here so I'm gonna go high. Our breakfast casserole is ready. While this was cooking, whipped up another casserole just to show you how versatile the crock pot can be when it comes to making casseroles. First, our specialty right here. Look at that. Pretend we just woke up. Finishing touch, some green onions. If you had company over and this is what they're having when they're waking up, they're going to be very happy. It's ready. You can serve it straight from the slow cooker. Look at that. Eggs, potatoes, sausage. You can serve it as a casserole, but the way I intended for it to be served, burrito style. What's great is that everything is already in here so it's just a matter of scooping it into a tortilla and rolling it up. This is the ultimate, most delicious breakfast burrito. You could whip up so many burritos from this one batch. It's amazing. Tony, you got some hungry people in your house? This is the recipe. It's just got it all going on. With the holidays coming up, this is one you're definitely going to want to remember. Just to give you another example, I give to you a cinnamon roll breakfast casserole. Sweet and savory. My point is, this method can be used to cook whatever your favorite casserole is. We'll link this recipe below since you didn't get to see me make it, but this is simply just canned cinnamon rolls with a little bit of custard. Makes up evenly and perfect. It's time for a little something sweet, don't you think? Slow cookers are perfect for crisps and cobblers. I have done the slow cooker peach cobbler at least a few times right here, so I feel like you've seen that, but I have not done this caramel apple crisp and for this time of year, it's the perfect situation. So it starts with a bunch of chopped apples. I'm doing Granny Smith. Just feels right. To the apples, I'm just going to go in with white and brown sugar and a little cinnamon. Mix that up really well so that it's all kind of coated and then as the juices come out of the apple, they're going to combine with the sugars and make like a little syrup. It's the smell of the season right there. This is caramel apple, so we're just going to take caramel sundae sauce. I'm just going to drizzle this over the apples and a couple tablespoons of melted butter at this point. Can't you just see how this is about to be amazing? All right and now for the crisp topping, a little cake box shortcut, box of yellow cake mix, some oats and then we're going to cut in a stick and a half of butter. You know I don't do things like that with a pastry blender. We're just going to use a box grater. Grate some in and then mix it together. You just want it to be like kind of crumbly all together. Pour this right on top. Obviously, we're not going to mix it and then this just cooks on high for about two and a half to three hours. This might be one that you're going to want to remember for Thanksgiving because your oven is working hard on that day. Smells so good and it is cooked. It is cooked. I don't know how crisp it is because I got a lot of moisture up on my lid. A trick to prevent that that I should have done is you can drape a kitchen towel over and then put the lid on. That way the towel will catch the extra moisture. Hindsight's 20-20 but I already can see it's going to be delicious especially these little pieces around the edge. For an easy dessert, this is going to be a winner. I can tell and I haven't even taken a bite. I mean it does look amazing and to have your house smelling like this for hours. You know this is one of my favorite perfect bites of all time. Apple pie meets apple cobbler meets apple crisp. We break out the slow cookers a lot this time of year for those chilies and stews but to add in a fall flavored dessert, it's a no-brainer. Nicole, what are you doing with all those onions? We're going to make caramelized onions in the slow cooker and then I'm going to show you two ways to use them. The thing about caramelized onions is people that love them love them but nobody wants to take the time to make them so the crock pot is the easiest way. This may look like a lot of onions but it cooks down to nearly nothing. As they cook low and slow, the natural sugars come out slowly and then when they hit the heat, they caramelize, they brown. This is a long process in the crock pot so cut your onions really thinly. This is a really affordable thing to do also because you can just cut a whole bag of onions for about four bucks. All you do, stick them in your crock pot and it's going to fill up your slow cooker. By the time we're done, it'll only cover up about a quarter of the way. Got about half a stick of butter. Just going to nestle that in. You could add a little salt right now. I find you get a little better caramelization if you wait till the end. That way the salt doesn't draw out the moisture too soon and they can brown better. At least that's what I do in the skillet so that's what I'm going to do here. Going high and it's still going to take all day. I just want to give you a little peek at the onions after this is just about three hours. See they've softened. No caramelization has happened yet but the sugars have started coming out of the onions and now they're going to start browning. Okay it has been many hours and these smell amazing. Caramelized onions. It does work. They are sweet and they are buttery. I can already tell. They have more liquid than what you would normally maybe have if you were making them in a skillet because it didn't really evaporate out but just look how tender. They smell so good. When they're done you want to season your caramelized onions however you like. Just a little salt and pepper for me. Melt in your mouth. This is going to be a two-for-one special because if you've taken the time and effort to cook all these onions we're going to put them to use in more than one way. So I'm going to take some out for burgers for whatever you'll need them for and the rest we're going to turn into french onion soup. So we've got our onions and they produced more liquid than normal. That's a good thing here. I'm gonna go in with some garlic, some dry sherry. This is what gives french onion soup its kind of iconic flavor besides the onion. I'm going in with some thyme. The leaves will end up coming off the sprigs. Also a bay leaf and then beef stock or beef broth. It's definitely the easiest way to make a french onion soup and now you'll cover it and go on high for another 30 minutes to an hour or just on low or just until you're ready to serve. Check your seasoning in case you want to add some more salt depending on what type of broth or stock you used. It's gonna be good. See it's all about working smarter not harder. This smells so good. Looks just like restaurant quality to me. Go ahead and top it traditionally and then let's not forget about the star of the show that came straight from the slow cooker. The perfect elevated burger topping. What's your favorite kind of onion on a burger? Raw or caramelized? Don't say no onion. A burger has to have onions. See how we did? Because the magic is that they're slightly sweet. They just kind of melt in there so you've got that savory salty crunchy crust of the burger mixed with the sweet buttery caramelized onion. Perfect bite and for the soup. Caramelized onions. Yes please. We only have a few more to go. It's been hitting it out of the ballpark. If you like hosting brunch you're gonna love this next one. You can make fluffy scrambled eggs in your crock pot. Why would you do that? First I thought why would we do that but then I started thinking if you're hosting a brunch and you're doing trying to do other things like cook the bacon or whatever you can get the eggs going and you can serve them straight out of here. They're going to be creamy. They're going to be warm and they're actually kind of perfect. I was kind of blown away by this one. So obviously you can do as many eggs as you think you need. I'm gonna, I'm doing a dozen. I would totally do something like those when my kids have a sleepover because they always wake up too late and I'm already done cooking breakfast and ready to get off the kitchen. Then I'm going in with some half and half. You want to make sure they're very well blended. You want to spray your insert and then go in with some butter. I've just got really softened butter. You could also just throw in melted butter and then you just pour your eggs in. I'm just gonna go a little salt. I'll add pepper later and then these cook on high for about an hour and 15 minutes. The catch is you have to stir them every 25 to 30 minutes. Okay after the second time that's when you'll know it's almost time so it only takes another like 10 minutes or so. It's been just about an hour and I'm about to stir it for the second time. You'll think, you'll think nothing's happening but look as you start to stir and see those scrambled egg curds are starting to happen. Okay I'm gonna go another 20 minutes and then we're gonna stir in the cheese too. Trust the process. We are getting very close. The more you stir them the smaller your curds are going to be which I like a really like kind of soft scrambled egg. See how it's happening pretty fast? The heat from the outer eggs will cook the inner part. So I would say we're about 75 80 percent there and this is when I like to stir in the cheese if you like cheesy scrambled eggs and we do in my house. One final stir. Okay let's take a look. Perfection. Some of you may look and be like oh those are still not done. First of all these are perfect for me but this is definitely when you want to stop cooking. Either turn it off it will hold its heat for a while or change it to warm but you can still see they're soft, they're creamy but if you keep going they're going to be overdone. See they get extra fluffy this way too. You know I questioned this the whole reason for this in the beginning. Now I see why. Green onion. This is also now when I would add my pepper. Stir near perfect scrambled eggs straight from your slow cooker. Could be my top favorite ones of the day. I love this. Tis the season for cold weather and hot drinks. The slow cooker is perfect for making hot toddies or any hot beverage. We are making hot buttered rum because that sounded delicious and I've earned it. Starts with hot water, two cups of brown sugar, stick of butter, a little pinch of salt, some cloves. If this doesn't scream holiday I don't know what does. Cut some cinnamon sticks. Besides being delicious this is going to make your house smell incredible. You just let this go low and slow till you're about ready and then once it's cooked and come together and all that sugar is dissolved then we stir in the star of the show. Let's check on our hot buttered part. Smells like apple cider. It's just pure cinnamon. You see how that butter has started like floating to the top. Now let's add in the rum. You could always serve that on the side I assume. See all of that is not butter. It's just like the magic of the cocktail that it creates that look. Of course there is a little butter floating on top. This to me is like dessert or an after dinner cocktail you know. Top it with some whipped cream, a little fresh grated nutmeg. Cheers to our crockpots. Oh that is lovely. It's warm and I don't mean temperature but you get that warm spice from the clove and the cinnamon and even that nutmeg on top mixed with the butter. I mean it's like a warm baked dessert. Despite the fact that there are two cups of rum in there it's not very boozy. It's an A+. Our final trick is fit for a party. Dessert fondue right from your slow cooker. This is one of those things I saw on Pinterest and I was like that's so cute and I was like that looks kind of hard but then I thought about it. I was like that might be the easiest dessert you could make all year so that's what we're going to do. So you get your slow cooker. Every slow cooker is different so some are round some are oval and then you get as many heatproof jars as will fit in your slow cooker. For me it's five so I can have five toppings. So you just fill it with any meltable favorites. Of course you got to have just straight up chocolate going in. Also going to do some white chocolate. Why not butterscotch. Then chocolate peanut butter. I thought about doing just peanut butter but then I found this little mix. Then why not marshmallow fluff. When this gets all melty. Some s'mores situations. This one could get messy. You knew that was coming. And essentially what we are creating is just one big double boiler. Now what you have to do is you have to add a little coconut oil to anything that has a chip in it. Chocolate chips, the white chocolate chips because this is going to help kind of keep it runny and then keep it from burning too because you're adding this extra little fat in there. So to the chips you know about a tablespoon. As it gets going you'll stir it about halfway through just until everything's melted. Once you see everything starting to get hot and start to melt that's when you're going to want to turn your slow cooker to the warm setting. Even on low it can get a little too hot in there. Essentially this is just one big water bath. So we're going to pour water in taking care not to get any in the jars and then you're going to want to go at least halfway up the jars. So we're going to go on low. Another thing you need to do is put some paper towels or a clean kitchen towel over the top. We are creating a moist environment. You don't want the water that gathers on the lid to drip down back into this. Tuck them in nice and tidy and turn it on low. I'm gonna go get my little dippers and we will get the party started. Let the party begin. An array of dippables. Listen the crock pot can get a little hot. The thing with melting chocolates if they get too hot you know they start to cook and bake. So just turn your crock pot to low as soon as it starts warming up. Creamy, warm. This is just a fun idea. And then I think you know the drill. Take what you want to dip. This could get dangerous. Peanut butter chocolate pretzel. A plus 100. This my friends is a very sweet ending to the slow cooker sensation. 10 new and somewhat mind-blowing ideas for you to try out next time you break out your slow cooker. If you have any more mind-blowing tricks for your kitchen appliances let me know. Come on y'all this is about to get fun. We've earned it.