Slow cooker mistakes you'll want to avoid
Easy fixes

Removing the lid too often

Adding too much liquid

Not reducing alcohol first

Curdling dairy products

If your recipe includes dairy, such as cream or yogurt, add them right at the end, long enough for them to heat through fully, around 30 minutes. This also applies to coconut milk or coconut cream. Cook them for too long, the fats will separate and curdle.
Soggy pasta

Not all foods are cooked to perfection in a slow cooker and pasta is one of them, along with asparagus and fillets of fish. Instead, cook pasta on the hob until it's al dente, then drain it and run under cold water to prevent it cooking. Add to your slow-cooked sauce just at the end to heat it through. Or, follow a specific slow cooker recipe, like this chicken fajita pasta, which is cooked quickly, on a high pressure.
Forgetting to brown meat first

Overspilled food

Lacking "herby" flavour

Mushy vegetables

Overcooked food

Uneven cooking

If your ingredients are unevenly cooked, you didn't layer them correctly. Begin with root vegetables at the base, which will be closer to the heat of the slow cooker. Adding meat on top of the vegetables will ensure the meat juices drip into the vegetables, adding more flavour to your sauce.
Lacking flavour

Tough, chewy meat

You were so looking forward to that meltingly tender, slow-cooked piece of meat, but it's as tough as old boots. Luckily there's a simple solution to this problem. You probably cooked it on too high a setting for insufficient time. Remember, long and slow is the key here. Try our smokehouse ribs recipe – beef ribs are cooked in a spiced marinade for around six hours, for perfectly cooked meat.
Rubbery, tough chicken skin

Even if you cooked chicken pieces in a casserole on the hob, you won't have that deliciously crisp skin you find with a roast or grill. There are two options here – remove the skin before cooking and blast in an oven separately or once cooked, put the chicken under a grill until the skin has crisped up.
Forgetting to sauté onions first

You'll have a much better flavour if you sauté the onions for your recipe first, before adding them to the slow cooker. Otherwise you may end up with the taste of boiled onions, rather than the soft sweetness you are looking for. In this recipe for aubergine masala, the onions are sautéed with spices to intensify the flavour, before being slow-cooked.
Food is consistently over-cooked

Sauce is too fatty

If you have a large slick of oil on the surface of your finished dish, there are a couple of options to remedy it. Firstly, you could skim it off with a large spoon. Otherwise, if you're using a fatty cut of meat, such as lamb shanks or brisket, trim as much of the fat off as you can before cooking. Or try a leaner cut which lends itself to slow-cooking, like the leg of lamb used in this Lebanese recipe.
Dry, overcooked meat

If you have this problem, it's likely you under-filled your slow cooker to less than half full. Try to always keep it two-thirds full. Your slow cooker may also be too big for the recipe, so think about doubling up the recipe, then freezing half of it.
Soggy cheese and breadcrumb topping

Using the wrong cut of meat

Keep your fillet and sirloin for the grill! The beauty of the slow cooker is that you use cheaper cuts of meat, such as beef chuck or shin, or chicken drumsticks, which need long, slow cooking to become tender. Expensive cuts will just dry out and become tough with an extended cooking time. Try our recipe for slow-cooker beef chilli made with braising steak.
Thin, watery sauce

Converting a recipe incorrectly

If you want to use a classic slow-cooked recipe from the oven to make in your slow cooker, as a general rule you would reduce the liquid content by about half. Otherwise the result may be too watery. Until you gain confidence, try to use recipes specifically written for a slow cooker. Our recipe for fall-apart beef short ribs in Vietnamese pho, with spices and aromatic herbs, is a great place to start.
Unevenly-cooked meat and poultry

If you consistently have this problem, your ingredients haven't been equally layered and not submerged in sufficient liquid to just cover them, to ensure they will be cooked evenly. Try our recipe for barabcoa beef tacos, where brisket is slow-cooked in stock for meltingly tender, perfectly cooked meat.
Add fresh herbs at the end

Hard to clean

Long, slow cooking can takes its toll when it comes to washing up. Either use an oil spray or kitchen paper dipped in oil to fully coat the inside bowl of your slow cooker to prevent sticking.
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