Can You Overcook In A Slow Cooker?

If you’re new to using a slow-cooker, you may be wondering whether you can overcook your food in it. Throw in the ingredients in the morning and forget about it until dinner time. There’s nothing that could go wrong, right? Well, it’s not really that simple. So, to tackle the question at hand, can you overcook in a slow cooker?

Although slow-cookers are designed to cook at lower temperatures for long hours, you might still overcook meals if guidelines aren’t followed properly. Incorrect settings for an extended period of time will overcook your food. Slow-cookers usually turn off automatically after 24 hours, but leaving food in for that long isn’t recommended. The hotter the setting is, the faster the meal will cook in it.

However, there are more unspoken things you should know about when using a slow-cooker to make your favorite dish. So, let’s talk more about whether you can overcook in a slow-cooker.

How Many Hours Can You Cook In A Slow Cooker?

It depends on the meal that you’re cooking. Some items can be left for almost half of the day while others are only a few hours. Even though modern slow-cookers have an option to leave food for 24 hours, it doesn’t necessarily mean you should.

Items that take a bit more than 15 minutes in an oven or stove can be cooked in a slow-cooker for 4 hours on low or an hour on high. Foods you cook for 30 minutes to an hour can be kept inside a slow cooker for 5 to 6 hours if left on low or a bit more than 2 hours on high.

Meals that require an hour or two to cook on a stove or oven, are generally kept for about 6 to 8 hours on low or 3 to 4 hours on high in a slow-cooker. Dishes that range from 2 to 4 hours to prepare will need no more than 8 to 12 hours to finish cooking on low or 5 hours on high. 

So, the bottom line is, the longer something would take to make through conventional methods the longer you can keep cooking inside the slow cooker. 

It also depends on the slow cooker you have. Not all models are the same. Some models can cook hotter than others. You should monitor the temperature of the cooker with a kitchen thermometer prior to adding your ingredients. Make sure that the cooker’s temperature is low enough for you to prepare your meal in it and safe enough to leave it unattended.

Prevent Overcooking In A Slow Cooker

Many new to slow cookers tend to make mistakes that cause the food to overcook. So, here I will be discussing some of those common mistakes so you can avoid them. 

Not Following the Recipe 

You can find specific recipes for slow cooking various types of food on the internet. So, make sure you follow them to the letter. 

Not following the instructions can easily cause overcooked or even burnt food. So, always make sure to follow the recipes to the letter.  

Taking a Peek

I know whatever you are cooking in your slow-cooker fills your house with a delicious aroma. Gather up your will though, because you need to resist peeking inside all the time.

Slow-cookers take more time to work their way up to the desired temperature than you might think. Lifting the lid for even the slightest of seconds would let out its hot air.

Peeking results in a reduced temperature inside the slow-cooker; adding more time to your dish to finish cooking. In fact, each time you decide to take a peek, you add 30 minutes to the time you need for your food to cook.

If your food isn’t being cooked properly, you might have to end up leaving it in for a longer time and eventually overcooking it.

Using the Wrong Size

Slow cookers come in different sizes. Some slow-cookers wouldn’t suit every recipe. Each recipe assumes that you’re using the same sized cooker that the recipe directs.

The slow cooker should be 2/3 more or less full. You will be left with overcooked food if it’s not full enough. And if it’s too full, you may end up with an overflow and an undercooked meal with a big messy kitchen.

Not Layering Correctly

It might be hard to believe, but slow-cookers don’t cook evenly in all parts of the pot. The items at the bottom cook faster. 

Putting meat at the bottom wouldn’t be a good idea as it will become far from overcooked by the time the other items finish cooking. So, foods that need longer cooking periods, like root vegetables, should go at the bottom of the pot. 

https://youtu.be/pdCMwXabrJE

4 Foods You Shouldn’t Cook in A Slow Cooker 

Though you may be a culinary expert, anyone who uses a slow cooker knows exactly how things can go downhill. From overcooked steaks that resemble the texture of a flavorless cloth to overcooked chicken breasts that taste as dry as a desert.

To make it easier for you to find out what you shouldn’t put in a slow cooker, I went my way to do some thorough research. These are the things I found that you should never cook in a slow-cooker.

1. Frozen Meat

Put the frozen beef cut back into the freezer if you don’t want dinner to be a nightmare. It’s a rookie mistake to willingly add frozen meat because the slow-cooker will not be able to heat the insides of the meat fast enough while overcooking the outside layers. 

Using a slow cooker to cook frozen meat will not only be a textural disaster, but it’s also unsafe for human consumption. If you don’t have the time or patience to thaw your meat, a slow-cooker probably isn’t for you.

2. Pasta

Who doesn’t like pasta? It’s a universally liked dish. But there are levels to slow cooking, and pasta certainly isn’t one of them. Pasta in a slow-cooker will get you nothing but a gooey paste that looks anything but appealing. To simply put it, your pasta will be more than overcooked.

However, if you are obsessed with adding pasta, you should throw it in the mixture 10 minutes before serving. Leaving it any longer will overcook it into a paste.

3. Crispy Bacon

Slow-cookers are designed to retain juiciness, which would be the exact opposite of crispy dishes like bacon. Do you want to overcook it into a rubbery texture and dull-looking bacon? Trust me, you don’t. Nobody wants overcooked, grey, limp bacon on their plate.

Rather than overcooking it in a slow-cooker, you could instead grill up a few bacon strips beforehand and serve them with your slow-cooked meal altogether.

4. Whole Chicken Or Turkey

Let’s say you found a pot that’s big enough to hold a whole turkey or chicken. Slow cooking either of those will get you a lump of meat that looks far from being appetizing. Even if you manage to make it look edible, it will still be an uncomfortable rollercoaster in your mouth. 

The whole thing will cook unevenly, from thick parts staying juicy to thinner areas feeling like chewing dry sand in your mouth. It’s just not a good idea to slow cook whole poultry.

If you want to know more about what you shouldn’t cook in a slow-cooker, then give this a read.

Conclusion

To avoid overcooking while using a slow-cooker, you just have to follow the correct instructions for the specific foods you cook. Ultimately, it’s cooking for the right amount of time according to the recipe, or making sure to steer clear of items that aren’t suited to cooking in a kitchen appliance such as this.