The Crock Pot Blog

Party dips are fast and easy to make in a small crock pot. Here are a few recipe ideas for your next party. Use a smaller crock pot for these recipes such as a 1 1/2 qt. or a 3 1/2 qt. crock pot. The dip can be served right in the crock pot to keep it warm.

Bacon Cheese Dip

What You Need:

16 slices bacon, diced, fried and drained
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened and cubed
4 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup half-and-half
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon dried minced onion
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash hot sauce

How To Make It:
Put all the ingredients except bacon in a small crock pot and cook on low, stirring occasionally until cheese melts, about 1 hour. Taste and adjust seasonings, add bacon, and keep on low to serve.

Artichoke and Mozzarella Dip

What You Need:

1 lb. shredded Mozzarella
1 c. grated Parmesan
1 c. (8 oz. jar) mayonnaise
1 c. (8 1/2 oz.) artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
minced onions

How To Make It:
Combine ingredients in a lightly buttered 3 1/2 quart crock pot on high for about 1 hour. Serve with broken up French bread or wheat crackers.

Broccoli Cheese Dip

What You Need:

2 (10 oz.) boxes of frozen chopped broccoli
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1/4 c. sour cream
1/2 lb. Mexican Velveeta cheese
1/2 lb. reg. Velveeta cheese
1 tbsp. garlic salt

How To Make It:
Cook the broccoli as per package instructions and drain. Put the cubes of cheese in a small crock pot and heat to melt. Mix soups, sour cream, broccoli and garlic salt into melted cheese. Serve as dip with tortilla chips.

Chili Cheese Taco Dip

What You Need:

1 lb. hamburger
1 can chili (no beans)
1 lb. mild Mexican Velveeta cheese, cubed or shredded

How To Make It:
Cook hamburger in a skillet, drain well and place in a small crock pot. Add chili and cheese; cover and cook on low until cheese is melted, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally to blend ingredients. Serve warm with taco or tortilla chips.

Chili Dip

What You Need:

1 lg. jar (16oz) picante sauce, mild
2 cans refried beans
8 ounces sour cream
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1 lb. ground beef
1 onion, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
8 oz. Cheddar cheese, shredded
several jalapenos or mild chili, chopped finely, to taste

How To Make It:
Cook ground beef in a skillet with chopped onion; drain well. Combine everything together in crock pot and cook slowly until cheese is melted. Serve with favorite vegetables or chips.

One of the best features of the crock pot is how it does its job, cooking a full meal, in so little space. Unlike the oven and cook-top, the crock pot can be relegated to a corner and go about its business virtually unseen.

Cooking a meal or side dish with your crock pot also frees up your oven and cook-top for other dishes. How many times have you tried to plan a big meal and have to shuffle dishes in and out of the oven and around the burners?

Set it and forget it
The ‘set it and forget it’ crock pot method frees you up when cooking dishes that you may otherwise have to watch, stir, and keep from burning. The low cooking temperatures keep dishes simmering just right so you don’t have to worry about watching a pot boil. This low, even temperature takes the guess work out of many dishes you may have previously spent time fretting over.

Easy on the energy bill
Cooking a meal in a crock pot is also more economical when it comes to energy consumption. Heating up a crock pot, even considering the length of time, takes less energy than heating up a large oven or letting a burner stay on, radiating its heat out into the kitchen. The heating element in the crock pot is contained and is designed to heat only the insert that holds the food. You’re not spending money to heat a large space nor are you letting the heat escape into the room.

Check out our Crock Pot Store for great recipe books and slow cookers available through Amazon.com

A few things to watch
One of the downsides to crock pot cooking is there are just some ingredients that don’t work well in a slow cooker. For instance, dairy products. Making a cream or milk based dish becomes more complicated, involving extra steps and extreme caution so as not to curdle the milk.

If you’re not careful choosing and cutting up the food that goes into the crock pot, you may end up with food that’s either undercooked or overcooked. For instance, many cooks are used to coarse cutting vegetables for stew, but vegetables cook slower in the crock pot and may need to be cut finer, or cooked longer. Meat typically cooks faster than vegetables in the crock pot, making the size of the ingredients important.

Crock pot meals are best when using fresh meats and vegetables. So, if you live in an area in which you must rely more on canned foods, the texture in a crock pot will be disappointing. Because canned foods are already processed, they may become quite soft and mushy in the crock pot. Picture cooking canned peas for 8 hours, even on such a low heat. Yes, you can add the canned veggies in during the last minutes of cooking time, but if the idea is to walk away and have dinner ready when you come home, it sort of defeats the purpose.

The ultimate time saver
Because you can walk away from the meal, the crock pot becomes the ultimate time-saver in the kitchen. Once preparation is done, you have the freedom to do other chores, or even leave the house. Crock pots do the cooking part of a meal for you. So, what are you waiting for? Just set it and forget it.

This is a light, summer style pork roast recipe prepared in the crock pot.

What You Need:

3 lb. boneless pork roast
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 can (8 oz) crushed pineapple
dash ground ginger
salt and pepper to taste

How To Make It:
Put the pork roast in a glass bowl.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients, and then pour over the pork roast.
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
When ready to cook, put the pork roast in a medium sized crockpot, and pour marinade over.
Cover and cook on low heat for 6 to 7 hours.
Remove pork roast to platter and spoon sauce over when serving.

Tips:
Use fresh pineapple and ginger if available.
Server with fresh cooked rice.

Guest Post by Elizabeth Kelly

What can you do when it’s too hot to cook? With temperatures rising every year, the last thing home cooks  want to do in the summer is heat up the whole house with a blazing hot oven. It’s a lucky thing that the slow cooker has come back into style. Nothing makes it easier to make a family-style dinner that is wholesome and filling, yet keeps the kitchen (and the cook) as cool as the proverbial cucumber.

Honey mustard chicken with vegetables is a great go-to recipe for a hot day. It’s wholesome without being too heavy, and it generally pleases a multitude of palates. Keep the chicken breasts whole and you can serve it as an entree by itself with a salad on the side.

If you cut up the chicken and serve it over rice or pasta, slow cooked honey mustard chicken is a healthy, low fat one-bowl meal, and what Mom doesn’t love one-bowl meals? That means easier cleanup!

Slow Cooker Honey Mustard Chicken and Veggies Recipe

• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into chunks
• 1 12 oz. pkg broccoli cuts, thawed and drained
• 16 baby carrots, sliced in half lengthwise
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp. fresh ginger or 1 tsp. ground ginger
• 2/3 cups Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup honey

Directions: Combine all ingredients in slow cooker. Cook on low 4-6 hours or high for 3 hours, until chicken is cooked through. Serves four.

Tips and tricks for Slow Cooker Honey Mustard Chicken

• If the carrots are extra thick, slice them into quarters so they cook all the way through.
• Add crushed red pepper flakes if you would like it spicier.
• Serve over regular rice, brown rice, orzo or penne pasta for variety.
• Add curry powder for an exotic twist.
• Kids may prefer the taste of regular mustard (and you might add more honey if they’re extra picky).

Guest post by Elizabeth Kelly

The slow cooker used to be reserved for cooking dried beans and tough cuts of meat, but in the last few years it’s come back into vogue as a go-to source for low-fuss meals of all kinds. Slow cookers are now used for everything from ratatouille to bread pudding.

One of the most versatile uses for the slow cooker is to use it for making baked potatoes. While technically the potatoes aren’t baked when you slow cook them –they’re actually steamed– they do come out with a perfectly moist texture.

The best part about making slow cooker baked potatoes is that they are almost impossible to overcook. You can leave them for up to 10 hours, meaning you can make them while you’re at work and come home to heavenly hot potatoes.

Top slow cooker baked potatoes with chili and low-fat cheese for an easy meal, or make them a hearty side dish. A baked potato and salad can also be a filling dieter’s dinner with no trouble whatsoever.

Slow Cooker Baked Potato Recipe

Scrub 4 or more potatoes and prick with a fork. Wrap in aluminum foil and place in an empty slow cooker (do not add water). Cook 8-10 hours on low, or 2 1/2-4 hours on high.

See how easy it is? It’s barely a recipe, but it may just change your life. You can load up the cooker with as many potatoes as you can fit in: most 3 or 4-quart models will hold as many as 10-12. Top your slow cooker baked potato any way you like, but keep in mind the healthy benefits of a simple, filling potato and choose one of these lighter toppings:

• Greek yogurt (thicker and richer than regular yogurt) and chives
• Chunky garden salsa
• Vegetarian chili
• Leftover stir-fried vegetables (Don’t be afraid!)
• Light creamed spinach
• Mediterranean style: light feta cheese, kalamata olives, chopped bell pepper

If you have a condiment you crave, try it on a potato, and don’t worry about anyone giving you funny looks. However you have your slow cooker baked potatoes, remember: you’ll cook them slow, but they’ll go fast.

Slow cooker recipe book from America's Test Kitchen

Did you know that onions garlic, and spices should be bloomed in the microwave for five minutes before they go into the slow cooker? This simple step intensifies their flavor and requires no extra work.

Did you know that a little soy sauce mixed with tomato paste adds meaty flavors to almost any stew and can often replace the tedious step of browning the meat? And do you know the secret to a moist slow-cooker chicken? Start the bird upside down to protect the delicate white meat from drying out.

The team of test cooks at America’s Test Kitchen spent a year developing these recipes, and what they reveal in this slow cooker recipe book will change the way you use your crock pot.

Check out this great cook book at Amazon.com

This is not exactly your traditional Irish style corned beef and cabbage recipe but if you don’t cook with beer, it’s a tasty alternative.

What You Need:

1 corned beef brisket
1 qt apple juice
1 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp prepared mustard
8 small potatoes
2 medium carrots, pared and cut into chunks
1 onion, peeled and cut into eights
1/2 head cabbage, cut into chunks

How To Make It:

Place all ingredients in large (6 – 7 qt.) crock pot.
If necessary, cut the beef brisket in half.
Stir to mix.
Cover and cook 4 hours on high, or 8 hours on low.
Remove meat and vegetables and some of the cooking liquid.
Slice meat thinly across the grain.
Serve with the vegetables and some of the liquid.

Tips:

Any leftover corned beef makes a great lunch sandwich.

This recipe for glazed ham is easy to make in the crock pot.

What You Need:

3 to 5 lb. cooked ham
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
3 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp cold water
1 tbsp cornstarch

How To Make It:

Place ham in a medium sized crock pot (3-1/2 to 6 qt.).
In a separate bowl, mix together the brown sugar, mustard, and orange juice.
Pour sauce mixture over the ham, cover crockpot, and cook on HIGH for 1 hour.
Turn crockpot down to LOW temperature and cook for 6 to 7 hours.
Remove the ham from crockpot and keep warm, and turn crockpot to HIGH.
Mix cold water and cornstarch in a small bowl until cornstarch is dissolved.
Whisk cornstarch mixture into liquid in the crockpot, cook until sauce begins to thicken, whisking several times.
Serve ham with thickened glaze spooned over slices.

Tips:

Serve with your favorite sides, such as mashed potatoes, carrots, etc.

This is a great recipe for pulled beef sandwiches that you make in your crock pot.

What You Need:

1 large sweet onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 (3 lb) beef sirloin tip roast, cut in half to fit crock pot if necessary
1 jar (16 oz) chipotle salsa
1/2 cup beer – or sub with beef broth
1 envelope beef onion soup mix
8 to 10 kaiser or other hard rolls

How To Make It:

Put the sliced onion in the bottom of a 6 qt. crockpot and lay roast on top.
In sa eparate bowl, put the salsa, beer, and onion soup mix, and stir until well combined.
Pour this sauce over the beef in the crock pot.
Cover and cook on LOW for 7 to 8 hours or until meat is very tender.
Remove beef to a platter and shred by pulling apart with two forks
Return the shredded beef to crockpot, stir and allow to reheat.
Serve on hearty rolls with a side of your choice, such as a salad.

Tips:

This recipe makes 8 to 10 pulled beef sandwiches.

It dosen’t get much easier than this recipe for black bean soup!

What You Need:

2 cans (15 oz size) black beans, drained and rinsed
2 andouille sausages, cut into bite size pieces
1 can (15 oz) fire roasted diced tomatoes with garlic (undrained)
4 cups chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste

How To Make It:

Combine all ingredients in a medium sized crockpot.
Set heat to Low and cook covered for 5 to 6 hours.

Tips:

Enjoy with chuncks of fresh French Bread.
To thicken soup up a bit, just mash a portion of the beans and mix well.