With the holiday season already upon us, many may have received kitchen appliances through an exchange gift or won a slow cooker from the Christmas raffle.
One of the essential appliances in every kitchen is the slow cooker. When you set your food inside it, enjoy the convenience of simply pushing a few buttons, and you will already have a warm, cozy meal waiting for you when you get home.
In addition to being simple to use, a slow cooker is perfect for preparing warm soups, casseroles, hearty foods, and stews that will stay to your bones for dinner on chilly nights.
However, despite the easy process of using the appliance, you could still be making certain errors that ultimately affect the flavors and textures of your food or waste some of your valuable time, money, and effort.
Therefore, read on to learn about these simple mistakes to ensure you get the most out of your cooking tech.
Do Not Reheat Food in the Slow Cooker
According to All Recipes, the slow cooker is only meant to cook your food, hence its name, and is not meant to reheat your food, as this can alarmingly cause health risks.
Considering the settings of the slow cooker, reheating food will take too long, and if your meal contains any microbes, the appliance's low and slow cooking may actually foster the growth of bacteria and other dangerous microorganisms, putting you at risk of getting sick.
Avoid Using Too Much Liquid
It may be inevitable to incorporate the liquid into the meals in your slow cooker, especially when cooking meat or poultry. However, too much liquid must be avoided when using the slow cooker.
Too much liquid will heat up in the slow cooker, evaporate as steam, and later be retained at the top of the lid and drop back into the food, making your supposedly perfect dish too watery.
Refraining From Opening the Slow Cooker's Lid
While taking a peek at your meal may be tempting, we advise you to resist the urge to open the lid and taste the unfinished dish. According to CNET, Slow cookers retain heat while slowly preparing food. Thus, the slow cooker loses heat every time the lid is taken off, and it takes some time for it to regain that heat.
There is no need to remove the cover unless the recipe specifically calls for it. And if you must remove the lid, do it only briefly and add a minute or two to the cooking time.
Avoid Overflowing or Underflowing
TheKitchn reports that recipes that are well-designed will never fill the machine more than 75% of the way. That much food will allow for adequate heat circulation for full cooking and maintain a constant temperature inside the pot to prevent things from boiling over or burning.
Do Not Add Dairy Products, Vegetables Too Early
It is best to add vegetables to the slow cooker one at a time rather than all at once because some cook more quickly or slowly than others or have a more delicate texture that may readily degrade under continued heat.
Additionally, dairy ingredients like milk and sour cream can burn quickly, so add them in the last few minutes of cooking to avoid curdling and ruining your dish or only when the recipe calls for it.
