15 Slow-Cooker Beef Recipes That’ll Impress at the Dinner Table (2024)

FAQs

What is the best beef for slow cookers? ›

Chuck roast is one of the more popular slow-cooker options because of how tender and flavorful it becomes after several hours of cooking on low.

If you take an extra 10 minutes to sauté the aromatics before scraping them into the slow-cooker, the finished dish will have deeper flavor and better texture. (And some new slow-cookers allow you to sauté right in the insert, so you don't have to wash a separate skillet.)

“Beef may be tough in the slow cooker if you haven't added enough liquid, or haven't cooked it for long enough,” Kristen Carli, M.S., R.D., owner of Camelback Nutrition & Wellness, tells SELF. “For cuts of meat, the fattier cuts are often the ones that get juicy and tender.

If you are making a slow-cooked recipe that calls for ground beef, like chili, beef stew, or meat sauce, browning the meat beforehand makes a huge difference. Ground meat should always be browned in a skillet and drained before adding it to the slow cooker with the other ingredients.

However, Crockpots generally have ceramic or porcelain pots, while most slow cookers have a metal pot. As with a lot of cooking appliances, the biggest difference comes from the distribution of heat.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that ribs (beef or pork), brisket, shoulders (pork or lamb), and pork belly are all fantastic candidates for low and slow cooking. But there are more! Chicken thighs, though they also thrive in high-heat applications due to their small size, BBQ wonderfully.

Yes, you most certainly can cook raw meat in the slow cooker! You put it in “cold”, with whatever liquid your recipe calls for, turn it on either “low” or “high” depending on your recipe (I usually start it on “high” for a couple hours, then turn it to “low”), and in 6–7–8 hours, it's now COOKED meat!

A perfectly cooked beef joint makes a wonderful centrepiece for a Sunday roast or Christmas dinner. To cook it until it's so tender it falls apart, you'll need to choose a joint like chuck and blade or beef brisket and either braise, slow roast or slow cook it for at least a couple of hours.

The secret to making tender roast beef:

It's all about cooking low and slow. With a cut of meat like this, a longer cook time will give you better, more tender results. Ideally, all roasted meats would be seared on all sides in a hot skillet to develop a golden, delicious crust.

Why is my roast still tough after 8 hours? ›

There are several reasons why this could have happened even after so much cooking. First, your choice of a rump roast could be a factor since cuts from the hind quarter are very muscular and, since muscles are the most resistant to breaking, this cut is quite stubborn when it comes to becoming tender.

The difference between "High" and "Low" on slow cookers seems to differ with every brand and model. One thing that is consistent, though, is that food takes seven to eight hours to reach a simmer point (around 210°) on low; versus three to four hours on high.

Onion - the One Ingredient You Must Pre-Cook Before Adding to Your Slow Cooker! Never add onions to a slow cooker dish that you haven't sautéed first – I find you get that slight raw onion flavour throughout and it just ruins the dish for me. I really think it's worth the extra effort.

Mince made from the tougher cuts of meat is best used in dishes requiring slow cooking. Mince from a prime cut, such as tail of the fillet, is usually reserved for serving raw in dishes such as steak tartare. Usually reserved for slow cooking in either steak and kidney pudding or Cornish pasties.

Cuts that have a lot of fat running through them add moisture and flavour to the dish. Marbling between the muscles, not the surface fat, indicates a good cut for slow cooking. Cuts of beef used for slow cooking include beef cheek, short rib, feather blade and oxtail.