If you're trying to adapt a regular soup recipe to your slow cooker or improve one you've already made, here are a few slow-cooking tips to help you make the best soup ever.
1. Ingredients to Add at the Beginning
Some ingredients stand up to, and benefit from, longer cooking times more than others. All of these can be added at the very start of cooking.
• Vegetables - Onions, root vegetables like potatoes and carrots, winter squashes, tomatoes, celery, cauliflower, and broccoli
• Meats - Lean cuts from the shoulder and rump of beef, lamb, goat, pork, whole chickens, chicken thighs, and chicken legs
• Spices - Most spices can and should be added at the beginning of cooking, though I find that rosemary can become bitter over the longest cooking times and is best added at the end.
2. Ingredients to Add at the End
These are quicker-cooking ingredients that wouldn't hold up over hours of cooking and add some fresh flavor to a slow-cooked dish. Add all of the following ingredients in the last 30-45 minutes of cooking.
• Vegetables - Softer vegetables like peas, corn, bell peppers, and spinach.
• Meat - Chicken breast, fish, and other seafood. Check the chicken breast for doneness at the end of cooking and give it a little more time if it's still pink in the middle.
• Pantry Items - Rice, noodles, and other grains. You can add these already cooked, though uncooked grains are helpful for soaking up excess liquid and it makes them more flavorful. Beans can cause some debate; personally, I like to add them at the end of cooking so they retain some firmness, though they can be added at the beginning if that's easier for you.
• Dairy products - Milk, yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese. Coconut milk is also best added at the end.
3. Cut All Ingredients to the Same Size
This ensures that all the ingredients will cook at basically the same rate.
4. Take the Time to Brown Your Ingredients
With our busy schedules it's tempting and sometimes necessary to just dump all the ingredients in the slow-cooker and press "go." This is perfectly fine and will give you a nice warm dinner to come home to.
If you have a few extra minutes and want to take that soup up to the next level, brown the veggies and sear the meat before putting them in the slow cooker. You'll be rewarded with richer, more intense flavors in your soup.
5. Use Less Liquid
There is very little evaporation in the slow cooker. If you're adapting a regular soup recipe, it's likely that you won't need to use all the liquid called for. Put all your ingredients in the slow cooker and then pour the broth over top. It should cover the vegetables by about 1/2 inch. If you have excess liquid at the end of cooking, remove the lid for the last 30 minutes to let some of it evaporate.
6. Place Longer-Cooking Ingredients on the Bottom
Meats and root vegetables will take longer to to become tender than, say, cauliflower. Nestle those items around the bottom and sides of the slow-cooker, where they will have more direct contact with the slow-cooker's heating element.
7. Choosing a Cooking Time
Recipes with meat like chili and pork shoulder are best when cooked for six hours minimum or up to ten hours. Vegetarian recipes are best cooked for around four hours, but can do a minimum of two hours or maximum of six hours (after which the vegetables start to get unpleasantly mushy).
Keep these key tips in mind when putting together your slow-cooker recipes and you can't go wrong. A slow-cooker is also a tool like any other and you'll get better at cooking with it the more you use it.
What are your favorite slow-cooker soups and tips for cooking them?
Related: 10 Winter Dinners from the Slow Cooker
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Does anyone have any tips for cooking with a vitamix clay pot slow cooker? Some of my soups come out perfectly and some are not so good and I cant figure out why.
I have to disagree with the carrots and celery, at least for soups that are going to be cooking for a while. I've found that they can get a bit mushy when added at the beginning. I like to put them in about halfway through so they are fully cooked but retain a bit more texture.
I put chicken breasts in my slow cooker and cooked them on low for about 12 hours... They were AMAZING! Tender, shredded chicken.. mmmm....
Good tips... I love mushy celery (strange?), foodefafa, so I cook that for as long as possible.
"... give brown the veggies..."?
Ever since my grandmother told me that the key to clear chicken broth is low and slow, I have been making my chicken soup in my slow cooker. My favorite is my version of Panera Breads' Lemon Chicken Orzo soup. I do things a little differently. I cut some celery and yellow onions in large chunks (to be pulled out when the cooking is done) with a whole chicken and some purified water (if you saw the water that comes out of my faucet you would too) and let it go on low for about 8 hours. Before it is done, I saute some celery (and the leaves), carrots, onion and garlic (salt and peppering after each addition) until they are just done (because I like my veggies to still have a little crunch). Once the 8 hours are up, I take out the celery and onion and pull the chicken off the bone once it has cooled a little bit. I add my sauteed veggies back in, along with the chicken, and a ton of chopped flat leaf parsley, cooked orzo and the zest and juice of AT LEAST one lemon. You can chill the stock after you cook it to remove the fat but I find when I use an organic or nearly organic (the Nature's Promise brand at Giant) that there isn't a lot of fat to skim (like 1/16-1/8") so I just leave it in. The broth ends up being VERY light and "bright"...and delicious.
I don't know how your slow cookers work but mine have always add a weird taste to cooked meats no matter what recipe I used. Then I started to use the slow cooker condoms that you can buy in the plastic wrap and foils aisle of the grocery store. Problem solved! It must be some reaction between the ceramic liner and the ingredients that cause the funny taste. Since I started using them, I've found that I'm not the only person to have noticed it. So, I highly recommend the condoms if you taste something weird too.
Not soup, but I just made the BEST slow cooker meat, I thought I'd share for other crock pot fans.
Kalua pork. (I got the recipe online, but don't recall the source, to whom I apologize for that...) (I hosted a luau themed birthday party where this was featured.)
a five to six pound pork butt roast
Stab repeatedly with the tip of a knife! (Great stress reducer!)
Rub with about 2 T coarse salt, ideally a mix of pink and black Hawaiian salt if you can get it. (I found both at Home Goods, by weird luck!)
Drizzle with about 1.5-2 T liquid smoke.
Cook on low for 16-20 hours, turning meat over once about halfway through...
Shred with forks.
Eat with sushi rice or on Hawaiian (or ordinary) dinner rolls.
Really simple but So Delicious!
Lol at slow cooker condoms. I'm going to start calling them that.
Seriously! Slow cooker condoms. Awesome. =D
Am I the only person who uses the crockpot for meals when I'll be gone all day? Sure, there are times when I make stuff in my crockpot while I'm home to add things at the halfway point, but most of the time I slow cook things, it's because I'll be at work for 12 hours and want dinner to be ready when I come home. I know to add some things at the end, but when a recipe calls for certain ingredients to slow cook for four hours, and then add some other ingredients, I usually write it off because--to me--that's not the point of my crockpot.
I agree...especially for chicken recipes, if it says to cook less than 6 hours on low, I totally bypass it. I work 9-5 during the week and while I don't have a long commute time, it does add a good hour to the end of any recipe that says to cook 7-8 hours on low. Often if I am able to find a chicken recipe that says to cook 7-8 hours on low, I'll use frozen (or partially thawed) chicken to help keep it moist by the end of the cook time. I don't mind if a recipe says to throw in some peas or something 30 minutes before serving time, but like you, if the recipe calls for stuff to be added half way through, it just doesn't get made in my home!
I've found the best way to make chicken in the crock pot, especially for broth, is to start with a frozen whole cut up chicken. I put the dark meat pieces on the bottom, where the liquid will go, and the breast meat pieces on top. The pieces on top cook slower because they're only exposed to the heat of the crock pot, not the hot liquid on the bottom, so they don't overcook - and, since most of the flavor is in the dark meat and bones, the liquid that's cooked in the bottom part is amazing!
What happens if I add milk and sour cream at the beginning?