It’s exhausting to come home after a long day at work and cook a meal for the family. As such, kitchen gadgets like the slow cooker can make life exponentially easier. Ultimately, you can put all the ingredients for a meal together and leave it, coming back later to a hot, fresh, ready-made meal. In contrast, some foods aren’t recommended for use in the slow cooker, and here are 13 examples.
1. Don’t Put Dairy in the Slow Cooker
A chemical reaction occurs when milk and other dairy products reach certain warm temperatures, known as curdling. The proteins stick together and cause a lumpy substance. Although this process is required for making certain dairy products like yogurt or cottage cheese, it’s not ideal to use a slow cooker when making dairy-rich meals because it can ruin the dish. Particularly if you weren’t aiming to use the milk to make another dairy product. Such as those listed above.
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2. Pasta Dishes
Although some recipes are explicitly written to use in a slow cooker, avoiding pasta is generally a good idea. The reason for this is that eventually, the pasta will lose its shape and become sticky like paste. However, because there are recipes, adding pasta toward the end is essential. “My best suggestion when slow cooking is to begin with a few tried and true recipes from a trusted source, and then after you have your own machine figured out, you can experiment.” Explains Stephanie O’Dea, author of Make it Fast, Cook it Slow.
3. Avoid Rice in the Slow Cooker
Like pasta, rice is a starchy staple that becomes pasty or “gummy” when it cooks too long. Therefore, rice can be used in recipes specific to the slow cooker. However, it’s important to note the timing, adding the rice toward the end.
4. Couscous
Essentially, foods high in starches, like couscous, quinoa, potatoes, and the aforementioned staples all have the same result when used in a slow cooker. If they’re added too early, they’ll lose their texture and become pasty. Alternatively, things like potato soup may be enhanced when made in a slow cooker.
5. Bacon
While this might be an obvious item to avoid when using the slow cooker, it’s a popular staple worth mentioning. The reason it’s not recommended is because, like most things in a slow cooker, it won’t crisp. Alternatively, bacon is a great addition to give a dish more flavor and dimension, if you can past the soft texture that results.
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6. Avoid Seafood in the Slow Cooker
Seafood is a problematic food item to perfect. Not only does it increase the risk of foodborne illnesses, but it also has to be cooked just so as to be delicious. In contrast, when seafood is overcooked, it can become rubbery, a common side effect of the slow cooker.
7. Frozen Blocks
A slow cooker is designed to function at low temperatures over an extended period. As a result, the internal temperature is rarely high enough to thaw out large frozen blocks of food. Therefore, frozen foods should be cut or diced into smaller pieces, and chunks of meat should be separated before it’s cooked.
8. Slow Cooker Eggs
Eggs are surprisingly tricky to master, especially for those still expanding their skills in the kitchen. As such, it’s not the recommended method for cooking eggs, particularly hard-boiled eggs. However, for those more seasoned in the kitchen, numerous recipes are online for using a slow cooker to make excellent breakfast dishes.
9. Fresh Herbs
Like other foods on this list, herbs aren’t recommended in a slow cooker. However, like other foods on this list, they can be a nice addition to a meal when cooked properly. They lose their flavor, which might be the goal when making homemade broth. Furthermore, cooking fresh herbs in a slow cooker, rather than adding dry herbs to a meal, can cause them to become wilted, brown, or slimy. Typically, this results in an unappetizing meal.
10. Greens
Fresh greens like spinach, kale, or broccoli may also not be great after a soak in the slow cooker. They, like herbs, will become brown, wilted, or slimy, also losing valuable nutrients along the way. Note that some nutrition is still present in things like broth and the liquids from the meal.
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11. Skinless or Boneless
Meats like chicken breast are already relatively dry compared to darker, juicier meats. As such, the meat becomes tough and chewy. An excellent way to counteract the dryness is to use meat options containing bones or skin because they’ll add moisture and flavor.
12. Beans
Beans aren’t meant to be consumed raw because they contain lectin, a toxin that can disrupt the digestive tract. Fortunately, boiling them will remove harmful amounts of lectin, making beans easier to digest. Seemingly, making beans in a slow cooker should be ideal. However, the low temperatures prevent the beans from going through the necessary process of being boiled to remove the toxin.
13. Alcohol
The last item on the list of foods to avoid is alcohol. While not all the alcohol gets burned off when cooked, adding wines or spirits is best after the sauce has spent some time on the stove. Because stove temperatures are hot enough to burn off most of the alcohol. In contrast, because of the low temperatures of crock pots, they never get hot enough to burn off any.