What’s better than a delicious home-cooked meal? One that cooks itself while you relax and wait. With a little prep and a slow cooker, you can whip up dishes so flavorful they’ll earn you a round of applause. So, here are the top 20 recipes that will make dinnertime effortless and incredible for you.
Slow Cooker Beef Bourguignon
Here’s a meal so decadent it easily belongs in a candlelit Parisian bistro. That’s the magic of this slow-cooked masterpiece. For this fork-tender meal, beef simmers in red wine with mushrooms and onions. The flavors deepen with every passing hour. Mashed potatoes and buttered noodles go well with it.
Slow Cooker Pot Roast With Vegetables
This is the dinner that brings everyone to the table. It consists of fall-apart beef that has been slow-simmered with carrots and a rich, herb-infused broth. The slow cooker lets the flavors meld into nostalgic perfection. All you need when it’s ready is a fork and an appetite.
Coconut Curry Lentils
Velvety coconut milk and earthy lentils work with fragrant spices to prove that plant-based cooking can compete with its meaty counterpart in taste and quality. Thanks to the slow cooker, every taste comes with warming ginger and curry, and the result is a dish that’s cozy and equally exotic.
Buffalo Chicken Dip
Considering how cheesy and creamy this dip is, it’s safe to say it’s a game-day meal, but feel free to eat it for dinner. Slow-cooked shredded chicken gets smothered in Buffalo sauce and melted cheese until it reaches gooey perfection. Eat it with chips or celery—or with nothing.
Slow Cooker Short Ribs
Hours of gentle heat break down the meat until it’s meltingly tender, while a red wine reduction locks in deep, savory richness. Serve them over mashed potatoes for a restaurant-quality dish that’s effortless to make at home. Short ribs deserve patience, and the slow cooker rewards it.
White Chicken Chili
Perfection is sitting on a cozy couch on a cold night with a steaming bowl of creamy white chicken chili. This meal includes tender shredded chicken and mild green chilies. The flavors come together beautifully as the chili simmers. Take one bite, and it will make your cold night better.
Slow Cooker Carnitas
Juicy, slow-cooked pork meets a zesty citrus kick in this taco-night game-changer. The secret is to broil it quickly after slow cooking so the edges crisp up. Then, prepare your mouth for an awesome combination of succulent and crispy. You can even pair it with tacos or rice for a wholesome experience.
Vegetable Barley Soup
This is the kind of soup that makes you feel good from the inside out. It’s what you get when you slow-simmer barley with carrots, tomatoes, and other ingredients. This hearty, feel-good meal satisfies without making you feel heavy. It’s packed with vitamins and fiber. So, healthy eating also tastes good.
Slow Cooker Apple Crisp
Apples in a bowl with warm cinnamon and golden oat crumble taste like autumn after being slow-cooked. Add vanilla ice cream, and you may never bake apple crisp any other way again. As it bakes, your kitchen fills with an irresistible aroma to hint at what’s coming.
Slow Cooker Jambalaya
This is a taste of Louisiana minus the hassle. Andouille sausage and tender shrimp are mixed with bold Cajun spices in a rich, tomato-based broth. After slow cooking, the spices give smoky, spicy goodness to every part of the bowl. Serve over rice, and let the good times roll.
French Onion Soup
The ultimate warmth is achieved by dissolving caramelized onions into a deep, velvety broth. A crusty baguette slice and melted Gruyere are enough as toppings. This meal is further proof of how simple ingredients can feel luxurious. When in your mouth, you feel like you’re in a Parisian cafe.
Slow Cooker Korean Beef
Soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, and ginger meet to create an umami-packed sauce that clings to every part of tender shredded beef. After hours of slow cooking, the flavors deepen, and you get an incredibly satisfying dish. When not eating with rice, you can eat it in lettuce wraps.
Stuffed Bell Peppers
Without slow-cooking, this is already a classic, but slow-cooking makes it even better. Ground beef, rice, tomatoes, and warm spices are mixed and put in bell peppers that soften as they cook. Nostalgia and comfort hit at the same time when you start eating those stuffed bell peppers.
Mississippi Pot Roast
After hours of slow cooking, your humble chuck roast becomes something spectacular with the unexpected magic of ranch dressing mix, au jus, butter, and tangy pepperoncini. The buttery, fall-apart masterpiece explodes with flavor and keeps you obsessed. Five ingredients for one legendary roast is a good deal.
Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala
Yes, you can make your favorite Indian takeout at home. All you need to do is to simmer juicy chicken in a velvety tomato sauce that has been infused with warm spices and coconut milk. Have you ever tasted food made in a clay pot? That’s what this feels like.
Slow Cooker Gumbo
When you already have roux, shrimp, sausage, and chicken, the secret to a great gumbo is enough time to let it become smoky and spicy enough to warm you from the inside out. The more you leave it on the slow cooker, the more the flavors build layer by layer.
Mac And Cheese
The blue box can’t offer what this slow-cooked mac and cheese does. This one blends cheddar and cream into the creamiest, dreamiest comfort food imaginable. First, you escape the burden of stovetop stirring, and as you eat, you’ll enjoy pure, gooey bliss. You’ll never go back to basic Mac again.
Slow Cooker Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken
Here comes a tropical twist on classic teriyaki chicken with a sweetness and savoriness that’s impossible to resist. The chicken soaks up the caramelized sauce infused with fresh pineapple. It doesn’t matter how you choose to eat it—with rice or just like that—your taste buds will love it.
Italian Wedding Soup
In an Italian wedding soup, tiny meatballs and delicate pasta float in a rich, herby broth. Waiting by the cooker is necessary for all the flavors to pop out and blend into something special. Not every meal tastes like Nonna prepped it specially for you, but this one does.
Slow Cooker BBQ Pulled Pork
Patience makes perfect, and this slow-cooked BBQ pulled pork is worth the wait. The pork shoulder simmers for hours in a smoky, tangy sauce until it practically falls apart on its own. You can’t go wrong when you eat it with soft buns or crunchy slaw.
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