Save Time and Money with a Crock Pot
If your crock pot has been sitting on your shelf for the past few years, you’re missing out on a lot of savings. Crock pot recipes have been gaining ground lately as a way to save time, money, and energy in the kitchen. And unlike many kitchen fads, it doesn’t compromise the flavor and quality of your meals. In fact, it does quite the opposite: it offers a world of possibilities for safe, healthy meals that even your kids would enjoy. Many think it’s hard to adopt meals for the crock pot, but it’s really pretty simple. Most traditional recipes are easily converted for slow cooking, and often with excellent results.
But first, how does a crock pot work? Instead of cooking food on bursts of high heat, crock pots use lower temperatures for longer hours. Because it’s electric, the overall costs are lower even when you leave it on all day. If you’re in a hurry, you just pop in your food in the morning, turn on the pot, and leave it to cook for the rest of the day. It can’t get much simpler than that! Here are some crock pot tips to help you save even more.
Choose the right pot
When buying crock pots, the first thing you should ask yourself is how often you’re going to use it. If you’re really into slow cooking and plan on doing it every day, you may want to invest in several pots of different sizes, so you can adjust meal sizes as necessary. But if you’ll mostly be cooking for the family, you can just get the biggest pot in the set. After all, nothing’s stopping you from cooking too much and just storing the leftovers.
If you already have a crock pot, a second one may be a nice supplement. Maybe you want to try more specialized dishes, or expect to cook for more than 10 people. A smaller crock pot (about 3 quarts) may be ideal for desserts, while a medium-sized one will work for sauces and appetizers.
Re-use your recipes
A popular feature of the crock pot is that you can "cook once, eat twice." This means that a single meal can be used for another, saving you a good deal of cooking time. Look for recipes that yield a lot of leftovers, such as crock pot ham. You can serve some for dinner and use the rest for the next day’s lunch, or toss a quick soup or salad to complete your next meal. It’s like having a free meal a day—and the savings will add up faster than you think.
Even leftover soups and stews can easily be stored in a crock pot. The simplest way is to just leave it in the pot, where it can stay warm until you want it. But if you’re saving it for the next few days, you can freeze the leftovers and reheat it when needed. This way, you use less energy and keep your food longer.
Use cheaper meat cuts
A lot of people spend hours trying to tenderize tough cuts of beef. Some would simply go for softer pieces, which cost about twice as much. Crock pots offer a smart solution: they soften the meat as you cook, so you get two things done at once. The slow cooking process effectively works the heat into the flesh, so you can get the perfect texture even with the cheapest cuts. And because of the low heat, you won’t be running up your electricity bill as you would with a standard pressure cooker.
You can also get the same savings for lamb crock pot recipes. Shanks and bottom round have the best flavor but often take too long on the stovetop. By slow-cooking your shanks, you get the same texture and flavor as more expensive cuts without spending as much. Try adding beer to your water—it acts as a tenderizer and flavor enhancer at the same time.
Layer your veggies
Unlike most people think, vegetables actually go very well in the crock pot. Many vegetarians slow-cook most of their meals to get more flavor out of their veggies. And if you use meat and vegetables together, you get a rich blend of flavors that can pass off as a one-dish meal. It’s a great way to introduce more vegetables into your cooking, as well as save money by buying less meat every week.
The only rule for slow-cooking vegetables is to put the heavier ones at the bottom. These include potatoes, carrots, and other root crops. They take longer to cook than most meats, so they have to be placed where it’s hottest. Put the meat in the second layer, followed by the lighter vegetables on top. Try this with a meat-based dish such as crock pot turkey breast, with a side of vegetables cooked in the same pot.
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