Crock-Pot SCV655B Slow Cooker, Aluminium, 300 W, 6.5 liters, Black

Product Information

When we tested its slow cooking mode we found that it's almost too good at retaining moisture. Recipes that came out more saucy in some slow cookers were a little less rich because it's also designed to be an airtight pressure cooker. That can be remedied though by adding less liquid or taking into account the liquid that will come out of meat and veggies when you add them. Heat retention: how the cooker holds heat for safety on the worktop and whether the food catches or burns They also calculate the energy consumed by each model to see how economical they are, and measure the moisture lost when cooking to ensuring your dinner won't end up dried out. Some things can deter us all from cooking. Having to transfer food from a pan to a pot, cleaning up or that annoying puddle of water you get from putting the lid down on the worktop when it comes to the best slow cookers. If that's you, you need this model, which can act as a cooker and a serving pot that you can plonk down straight on the dining table.

This function starts your cooking off on a high setting before automatically reducing the temperature to the low setting for the remainder of the cooking time. You can place the cooking pot in the dishwasher or wash by hand fairly easily. The Ninja Foodi Multi-Cooker also has a basket insert and can be used to air fry other treats when not in use as a slow cooker. Is this the future of slow cooking? We think so. Cook up a delicious and nutritious storm from our range of slow cookers. Alongside work and daily life tasks, cooking a fresh dinner from scratch can often feel daunting at the end of the day. A slow cooker is the perfect hassle-free way to make hearty meals whilst you’re at work or completing daily tasks. Ready to be eaten when you get home, as the slow cooker completes all the hard work for you - like magic! Does your slow cooker have good heat distribution? Some can suffer from hot spots that cause drying out in corners or at the base. Uneven heat is something that’s more likely to occur in larger bowls. The inner pot needs to be at room temperature before you start cooking. If you've kept a slow cooker dish in the fridge, you must wait for it to warm up before turning it on.

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Slow cookers range in size from a compact 1.5 litres to a 6.5-litre bowl, so be sure to choose the right size for the way you intend to cook. As a rough guide, 1.5-3 litres will feed one or two people, 3-5 litres, three or four people and anything over five litres should suit a large family, with six litres or more ideal for batch cooks who like to fill the freezer. Alternatively, a larger cooker is great for those who like to eat what’s leftover for lunch the next day. When you make a one-pot dish, you usually start by searing the meat or sautéing base ingredients such as onions and garlic. Most slow cookers don’t let you do this, but there are a few that do. Some, such as the Morphy Richards Sear and Stew Digital Slow Cooker 460015, simply have a metal pot that’s sturdy enough to heat on your own hob (gas or electric, not induction). The Ninja Foodi Multi-Cooker is certainly mighty, but if you like your gadgets it could be a great investment. You can of course just use this multi-cooker as a slow cooker, for which it has a generous 6 litre capacity, but you can also take advantage of the sear setting to brown meat and veggies before slow cooking for a more rich flavour. When testing these slow cookers we were keen to try out each of their main cooking settings, so while a more simple manual slow cooker was used to make a stew or simple curry, we pressure cooked meat and steamed fish in the more complex slow cookers on the market. When slow cookers came with digital settings we attempted delay-start recipes and tested how easy they were to use. This function can be found on the majority of slow cookers, helping to retain the temperature of your food without cooking it further – handy when you’re struggling to round up the family!

Design: Are you looking for a simple, budget-friendly option that just slow-cooks (but does it extremely well) or something more versatile that sous-vides, pressure cooks, bakes and roasts too? Do bear in mind that the more technological the slow cooker, the higher the price. An increasingly popular way of cooking, sous-vide is a French term that simply means ‘under vacuum’. You place your food inside a sealed pouch and then pop it into a temperature-controlled water bath to cook. You can activate a keep warm setting to keep your food ready for as long as six hours after your cooking mode has finished. The sear mode took only a few minutes to pre-heat and we were able to brown our onions before adding curry ingredients, which delivered a lot of extra flavour.The slow cooker's 'reduce' function was useful for bubbling away excess liquid after slow cooking.

Enjoy one-pot suppers and family favourite dishes such as pulled pork and chilli with these easy-to-use cookers

The advantage of this is not leaving all that lovely seared flavour behind in a pan, and it reduces washing-up. Finally, look for a slow cooker with a transparent lid, so you can keep an eye on your food’s progress. Lifting the lid of a slow cooker while it’s in use lets out heat and steam, prolonging cooking time. It’s always best to be able to see what’s going on without doing so. Are slow cookers easy to clean? Slow cookers vary considerably, so follow your manufacturer's manual for guidelines on temperatures and cooking times. This will come in handy if you’re out for the day. Once the timer you set has been reached, the cooker will either switch off or automatically shift to the ‘keep warm’ setting, depending on the model, so you come home to dinner that's ready to serve.