Your Favorite Slow Cooker Recipe

I have 2 cookbooks that I use: Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook, and Fix-It and Forget-It Lightly . I LOVE my slowcooker and use it at least 3 times a week. It's a huge time-saver and a must for busy moms! Really cuts the dinner time stress level down to nothing!

:-) H.

Here are my favorites for chicken, beef and pork:
This one is from www.allrecipes.com. It's called "Easy and Delicious Chicken" Serves 6
INGREDIENTS
6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 (8 ounce) bottle Italian-style salad dressing
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 cup chicken broth
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS
In a slow cooker, combine the chicken breasts and Italian-style dressing.
Cover, and cook on Low for 6 to 8 hours.
Drain off the juices, and shred the chicken meat. In a medium bowl, mix the soup, broth, cream cheese, basil, thyme, salt, and pepper. Pour over the chicken in the slow cooker. Continue cooking on Low for 1 hour.

Also from allrecipes.com
"Cozy Cottage Beef Stew" Serves 8
INGREDIENTS
3/4 pound beef stew meat, cut into 1 inch cubes
2 onions, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large stalk celery, minced
2 carrots, finely chopped
1/4 pound green beans, cut into 1 inch pieces
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, coarsely chopped
3 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 (14.5 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram
2 (14.5 ounce) cans fat-free chicken broth
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 (10.5 ounce) cans beef consomme
DIRECTIONS
In a slow cooker, combine beef, onions, garlic, celery, carrots, green beans, mushrooms, and potatoes. Pour in the tomatoes and tomato sauce. Season with bay leaf, pepper, thyme, and marjoram. Stir together chicken broth and flour. Pour chicken broth mixture and beef consomme into slow cooker, and stir.
Cover, and cook on Low 6 to 10 hours. Remove bay leaf before serving

And for pork, I don't know where this came from, but it's sooo easy:
Put a package of boneless pork ribs in the crock pot with enough beef broth to cover them about 3/4 of the way. (maybe 2 cups)
Cook on low for at least 6 hours.
About an hour before you want to eat, preheat the oven to 350, drain the meat. If your crock pot has an oven-proof stoneware insert (most do nowadays), put the meat back in the slow cooker and use two forks to shred/separate it. If no stoneware insert, put it in a baking dish.
Pour 3/4 bottle to a full bottle of BBQ sauce on it (Sweet Baby Ray's is our fave) and stir it around until all the meat is covered.
Put the meat into the oven for half an hour or so.

Serve it on hamburger buns.
The leftovers freeze nicely for later!

A pot roast usually goes in whole. :)

I use my slow cooker about once a week, right now anyway. I like my recipes to be easy, because when I'm putting the stuff in early in the morning I'm not fully cognizant.

Two favorites.

Fiesta Chicken

Put several chicken breasts in crock pot. Add 1/2 to one whole taco seasoning packet. Cover chicken with salsa (I use about half a jar of Pace medium). If chicken is frozen, stop there and turn on the crock pot. Cook on low all day (at least 7-8 hours, but longer is fine). If chicken is thawed, add about 1/2 cup of water. When you are ready to eat you can shred the chicken with two forks and serve with taco fixings. Extra can be kept frozen and used in taco soup or something.

Cheesy Chicken (from allrecipes.com); I just made this for the first time this week and my kids loved it!

Put some chicken breasts in the crock pot (I used two to feed 3 kids and two adults). Add a can of condensed cheddar cheese soup (two cans for 4 or more breasts) and 1/4 cup of milk (1/2 cup for additional chicken). Add garlic powder or dehydrated garlic to taste. Cook on low for at least six hours.

I served it with rice and green beans. The kids loved it and so did the grownups. We just mixed ours up in one bowl, rice, beans and chicken.

allrecipes.com has a database of slow cooker recipes.

OK this is a big coincidence I'm using my slow cooker right now to make a delicious beef stew so I have my recipe in hand. here you go, I hope you like it.

Ingredients needed:
- 2 pounds of cubed stew meat
- 1/2 a cup of all purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons of margarine(I used butter and tastes great too)
- 1 onion chopped
- 4 carrots sliced (medium size is ok)
- 3 stalks of celery sliced
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1 teaspoon of white sugar
- 1/2 a teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 a teaspoon of paprika
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- 4 cups of water

DIRECTIONS:
- Dredge beefs cubes in flour until evenly coated.

- melt butter in saute pan saute coated beef cubes until evenly brown.

- transfer beef to slow cooker and add onions, carrots, celery, garlic, bay leaves, salt, sugar, pepper, paprika, cloves, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce. pour in water and stir.

- cover and cook on high for 4 or 5 hours or slow for 10 hours. (I NEVER leave it that long , I've cooked it for 3 hours and tastes great too)

Note: sometimes I add diced potatoes because my husband likes it a little bit thicker so when the potatoes soften they make the stew thicker, if you are adding potatoes add 1/2 a cup more of water.

Good luck !

Three of our favorites! We eat these each at least once a month. All of these use chicken and I buy the big bags from sams club/costco-just dump them in frozen & go back later to cut them up/shred them.

Taco Chicken

4-5 boneless chicken breasts, frozen
1 can of rotel
1 packet taco seasoning

Combine rotel and taco seasoning. Put chicken in crockpot and put rotel mixture over chicken. Cook on high for about 4-5 hours (or on low for 8-10) or until chicken is cooked (usually doesn’t take that long).
At dinner time, make up a couple of packets of spanish rice. (takes 20 minutes) Servie chicken over rice and top with some shredded cheese. We usually eat beans & a green salad with 1/2 ranch dressing adn 1/2 salsa, mixed, as the dressing.

CHICKEN W/BLACK BEANS & CREAM CHEESE

4-5 boneless chicken breasts, frozen
1 – 15 1/2 oz can black beans
1 – 15 oz can corn
1 – 15 oz jar salsa, any kind
1 – 8 oz package cream cheese

Take chicken breasts and put into crock pot. Add 1 can of black beans, drained, 1 jar of salsa, 1 can of corn, drained. Keep in crock pot on high for about 4-5 hours (or on low for 8-10) or until chicken is cooked (usually doesn’t take that long). Add 1 pkg cream cheese (just throw it on top!) and let sit for about 1/2 hour. ( can serve with noodles, brown rice or use in tortillas.) We usually just roll it up in flour tortillas-the yummy ones made fresh at Krogers are the best!

Great Tortilla soup (all you need is a canopener!)
1 can rotel
1 can Mexican rotel
1 can chicken broth
1 can beef broth
1 can ranch style beans
1/2 onion chopped
1 1/2 c water
2 tsp worschestire sauce
dash salt
dash sugar
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp lemon pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
4 chicken breasts, ok if frozen

combine in large crockpot and cook on low 8-10 hours. remove chicken and shred. return to crockpot and stir.
Good if topped with any of these: cheese, avocado, sour cream, chopped tomato, cilantro
freezes and reheats well

Any chili recipe is great in it too. I usually pair mine with cornbread.

I too have the fix it and forget it cook book and LOVE it! There are literally 1000's of reciepes in it. I got mine new at half price books for only $5.95 and it was worth every penny. About to go back and get the 2nd book too. I am also on cafemom and just joined a slow cooker group. I also like this receipe:

2 (1 ounce) envelopes dry ranch dressing mix
6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
12 ounces thinly sliced mushrooms (more if you want)
2 tablespoons butter
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can chicken broth
2 (10 1/2 ounce) cans condensed cream of mushroom soup
8 ounces cream cheese
2 garlic cloves, minced
salt
black pepper

Not the one? See other Interesting Crock Pot Chicken Recipes
Comfort Food Main Dish
Beginner Cook Main Dish
Chicken Breasts Main Dish
Mix together dressing mix, chicken, mushrooms, butter, and chicken broth in crock pot.
Cook on high 5-6 hours.
About 1 hour prior to serving, mix mushroom soup, cream cheese, and garlic; add to crock pot.
Cook on high for 1 more hour.
Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve over rice or noodles.

Clip the Michael's 40% off coupon and purchase the "Fix It and Forget It" cookbooks there. Haven't found a recipe I don't like in it.

R.-

A great one is Baby Back Ribs..I can't tell you how many people I have given this SUPER easy recipe to who have loved it.
Cut up a whole rack of Baby Back (so they will fit in the cooker)
Add a half to a whole bottle of your favorite BQ Sauce
about 1 cup of Orange Juice
Set it on low for about 5 hours or high for about 3 hours
They are so tender they are almost falling off the bone at that point.

Enjoy!!!
KC

My favorite recipe would be 1 pound of frozen boneless skinless chickenbreast with one BIG bottle of BBQ sauce. Leave on low 6-8 hours and yu'll have very tender bbq chicken.

K.

I throw a 2-3lb roast in there with some cut up carrots and potatoes and onions. A couple of hearty onion packets and water and let it go on low for about 7 hours or so and you have dinner! It's great when I use my bread machine and bake some hot fresh bread on the side. YUM.
C.

Homemade Gourmet has lots of quick and easy recipes/mixes for the slow cooker. All you need to add is 1 or 2 ingredients and the mix and you are good to go!
If you would like more info on recipes or having a 4meals in 4 minutes demonstration please visit my website at www.homemadegourmet.com/toni7197

I was just thinking about this today. I hope you get a lot of feed back. I hope this isn't an airheaded question to ask, but one of the responses said she put a 2-3 lb roast in the slow cooker - are you suppose to cut it up into chunks or leave it whole?