Some receive one as a wedding gift and let it collect dust, but many home cooks know just how easily a slow cooker can be utilized to cook an incredible meal in an easy fashion. You can load your slow cooker with ingredients in the morning, press a button, and return to a delicious meal when you come home that night.
Another great feature of a slow cooker is its ability to make food that tastes as good as favorites from your local restaurant. The slow and low way in which the device cooks allows for flavors to really come together. Below are recipes for creating nine restaurant favorites in a slow cooker.
Mac and Cheese
To have Mac and Cheese at home can be as easy as grabbing a box from the pantry and boiling some water. But when you go out to a restaurant, the Mac and Cheese is so much more decadent and delicious. One of the best ways to ensure that the macaroni melts well with all that gooey cheese is to cook it slow and low.
As this recipe from spendwithpennies.com explains, the pasta needs to be pre-cooked before going into the slow cooker. What elevates this meal to the next level is the way it combines two cheeses, condensed soup, mayonnaise, and sour cream to create a restaurant-quality dish.
Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Pulled pork is an amazingly delicious dish that has only become more popular over the years and is now featured on the menus of plenty of restaurants. The thing about pulled pork is that it can only become as tender as it is by cooking for a very long time. And the slow cooker is perfect for making tangy pulled pork sandwiches, like this one from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe.
This dish requires more time than most slow cooker recipes, staying in the machine for nine hours on a low setting. All that time in the crock pot, though, is allowing the pork to simmer and become fall-off-the-bone tender.
Potato Soup
Few things are as warming and comfortable as a hot bowl of potato soup on a cold day. The reason why these soups can taste so good while eating out if that the potatoes have time to really simmer in the broth and take on the flavor. This recipe from givemesomeoven.com not only recreates this sort of soup, it does so without using heavy cream.
In place of heavy cream, this recipe calls for Greek yogurt and 2% milk. That doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of flavor as it includes 6 slices of bacon as well as four tablespoons of bacon grease. Additional toppings like green onions, sour cream and, of course, more bacon, can also help to enhance the flavor.
Vanilla Cheesecake
The slow cooker is an excellent tool for making all kinds of soups and roasts, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be used to make other things as well. A crock pot can be used to whip up delicious desserts and one big restaurant will come out fantastic. People who have a sweet tooth might want to take a look at this recipe for Vanilla Cheesecake from the Magical Slow Cooker.
One of the reasons this recipe works so well is the graham cracker crust that cooks at the bottom of the machine. Another impressive quality of this recipe is that the dessert will be ready after only two hours in the slow cooker. While the cheesecake is already vanilla flavored, toppings like strawberries can make it even better.
Baby Back Ribs
It might be messy, but it’s certainly fun going to town on a full rack of ribs while dining out. Ribs are expensive at restaurants and can be more affordable to make at home. And one of the best ways to do so is by popping them in a slow cooker.
This recipe from Cooking For My Soul drops the ribs in the slow cooker for 6 hours, allowing them to slowly become succulent. While this specific plan calls for a dry rub, you can also substitute in your own favorite barbecue sauce.
Salsa
One of the best things about going to your favorite Mexican restaurant is when they bring out the chips and salsa that you would love to replicate at home but can’t seem to figure out how. But if you are in the mood for something at home that’s better than what comes out of the jar, Flavorful Eats has a great recipe.
The nice thing about this recipe is that it is simple, but has all the ingredients that make salsa great: fresh tomatoes, the savory flavor of garlic and the heat from jalapenos. Your guests will never be able to believe that you made this at home.
Chili
I am sure there are some people out there who would consider it sacrilege to make chili in anything other than a huge stockpot. But those people are missing out on how easy and delicious is can be to make fantastic chili in the slow cooker. This recipe from Cooking Classy shows you how.
The dish has all the hallmarks of a classic chilli, including ground beef, cumin, paprika, and cocoa powder. But rather than hanging out near the stove all day, you can let the crockpot do the work for you. This recipe does call for kidney beans, but those could be left out if that is your preference.
Creamed Spinach
When out on a special occasion dinner at a steakhouse, creamed spinach is a must-have as a side. The way it tastes when paired with a filet mignon is fantastic, but the meal is quite simple to make. You can follow the instructions for making it at home via Recipes That Crock.
Of course, creamed spinach needs to be creamy, and this recipe accomplishes that by utilizing cream cheese, mushroom soup and even sherry. The meal should be made with frozen packs of spinach which only make it more affordable.
Sesame Beef
The prospect of trying to prepare one of your favorite meals from your local Chinese restaurant could seem pretty daunting. But the slow cooker can help combine the flavors so that you can replicate certain dishes. Like in this recipe from budgetbytes.com.
This recipe is not only tasty, but incredibly economical. While it may not cost that much to put together, the recipe does not skimp on the flavors, adding in fresh ginger, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, and topping off the dish with green onions.
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