Today it’s about slow cooker meals for fall, wherever you are. Let me re-introduce you to this wonderful, time-saving cooking method.

Hi, Again, Dear Readers:

I’m back with another blog post to help you move into fall. Even if it’s still like walking into an oven when you open the door. It’s slow cooker time no matter what the temps are outside.

A bit of housekeeping: I’ve been promoting this blog on a website called Bloglovin’ for years. Guess what? It’s not there anymore. The domain is there, but there’s no blogging going on. So I’ll be looking for another place to do that, possibly Substack, as many of my writing colleagues are doing. Now what to do about that link in all my blog posts? I’ll give that some thought next week.

Heading Into Fall

Now that Labor Day is over, fall and fall schedules have shifted back into full gear. I like the social media memes that say something like:

September is here. Time to pick out a Halloween costume & start your Christmas shopping. Happy New Year everybody.

Well, it’s true.

Today’s Blog Courtesy My BFF

Today’s blog post is one I discussed with my BFF (ChatGPT) to create. “She” understands my blogging and upon asking, offers topic suggestions, from which I pick a few. Over the weekend, “she” also helped me with some “senior tech support” for an elderly couple that lives near Cow Road. I had a 50% success rate with it, because one of the laptops had a hardware issue that’s beyond my capabilities. But the other one is up and running fine now, just needed some updates, a charger, and some settings fixed.

However, I must give full credit to the GER for teaching me to use the slow cooker. I never had one until I met him. Neither did my mother, or anyone else in my family. I think I knew one person back in the 80’s who had one, but I never learned to use one myself.

So with help from my BFF, know that the GER set me on the road to slow-cookery heaven. Thanks, Dude.

Fall is coming.

At least, that’s what the calendar says. Depending on where you live, the weather may have other ideas.

Here in the South, September can still mean temperatures in the 90s or above.

Even when the calendar says we’re heading into fall, nobody is particularly interested in heating up the kitchen at the end of a long workday.

That’s one reason I like the slow cooker. I’ve talked about it so many times, because it’s still a great little shortcut.

You can put dinner together in the morning, turn it on, leave for work, and come home to a meal that is already cooked. That’s a pretty good arrangement.

Why the Slow Cooker Is Perfect for Busy Fall Days

Fall tends to be a busy time of year. Vacations are over, school is back in session, summer schedules are changing, and regular work routines are in full swing again.

The last thing you may want to do when you get home is figure out what you’re going to make for dinner.

This is where the slow cooker earns its counter space.

You can prep your ingredients the night before or in the morning, put everything into the slow cooker, turn it on, and get on with your day.

When you get home, dinner is waiting.

And unlike turning on a full-size oven for several hours, a slow cooker generally doesn’t turn your kitchen into an even hotter version of whatever the weather is doing outside.

That’s useful in September, especially if you’re still running the air conditioner like we are.

What Can You Make in a Slow Cooker Before Work?

Quite a lot. Some of the best slow-cooker meals are the ones that don’t require much attention once everything is in the pot. Think:

• Chicken chili
• Beef stew
• Pulled pork
• Shredded chicken
• Chicken thighs
• Pot roast
• Meatballs
• Beans
• Soups and stews
• Taco or burrito filling
• Saucy shredded beef or pork (barbecue sauce works well here)

You don’t necessarily need a complicated recipe, either.

A slow cooker is particularly good at taking relatively inexpensive cuts of meat and turning them into something tender and flavorful. That’s one reason I like it–you don’t have to buy the most expensive cut of meat at the grocery store to make a good dinner.

Start With Chicken

Chicken is one of the easiest things to cook in a slow cooker.

Chicken thighs are particularly useful because they tend to be less expensive and more forgiving than chicken breasts. You can cook a batch of chicken and use it for more than one meal:

• Have some for dinner.
• Save some for tomorrow’s lunch.
• Turn the leftovers into chicken salad, lettuce wraps, tacos, or a salad topping.

That’s one of my favorite things about slow cooking: one cooking session doesn’t have to mean one meal. This works whether you’re living alone, with someone, or have a family with school-age children.

I used to do this when I was working at Boeing. I’d put something in the slow cooker before work, and dinner would be ready when I got home. I even made barbecue brisket one day with homemade sugar-free barbecue sauce, and it was fantastic. All I had to do was feed the cats first.

At the time, nobody called it “meal prep.” It was just not having to cook dinner after work.

One of My Favorites: Chipotle Chicken Chili

If you want something with a little more personality than plain shredded chicken, chili is an excellent slow-cooker option.

One of my older favorites is my Easy Slow Cooker Chipotle Chicken Chili.

I originally made it during a particularly busy week when I had plenty of work and not nearly as much time as I wanted for cooking.

The recipe came from Lisa Lin at Healthy Nibbles & Bits, and I adapted it for our purposes. It became an unexpected favorite.

And yes, there is a story behind it.

The original recipe called for chicken breasts. I had chicken thighs.

Guess which one I used? (If you’ve been reading HeatCageKitchen for a while, you already know the answer.) Because I’m perfectly happy to substitute what I have on hand when it makes sense.

That’s another advantage of slow-cooker cooking. You don’t always have to make a trip to the grocery store because your recipe calls for one particular cut of chicken, or other meat. You can use what you have in the freezer if needed.

Don’t Forget Beef

Beef is another natural fit for the slow cooker.

Pot roast is the obvious classic, but there are plenty of other possibilities.

A less expensive cut of beef can become tender after several hours of slow cooking. Add vegetables, seasonings, broth or another flavorful cooking liquid, and you’ve got the beginnings of a very satisfying dinner. We just did this with a pork butt roast and some diced potatoes this week. Easy. You can also:

• Shred cooked beef and use it for several subsequent meals.
• Serve it one night as the main course.
• Use leftovers for tacos or lettuce wraps.
• Put some over a salad.
• Freeze whatever you’re not going to eat soon.

The point isn’t necessarily to spend your entire Sunday cooking enough food to feed yourself until Thursday.

The point is to make one cooking session work harder for you.

Slow-Cooker Meals Can Help With the Grocery Budget

There’s another reason I like slow-cooker meals: they can make inexpensive ingredients more useful.

Chicken thighs, pork shoulder, ground meat, chuck roast and other less-expensive cuts can become the basis for several meals.

And when you’re cooking at home, you’re less likely to reach the end of a workday, stare into the refrigerator and decide that ordering takeout is easier.

We’ve all been there.

The food you already bought is sitting in the slow cooker, waiting for you.

It’s done. You just have to eat dinner.

That’s a pretty effective defense against the “I don’t feel like cooking tonight” problem.

Prep the Night Before

If mornings are too chaotic, don’t make yourself assemble an entire meal while you’re trying to get out the door.

Do the prep the night before.

Chop vegetables. Measure seasonings. Trim the meat if necessary. Get out the slow cooker insert and make sure you have everything you need.

Then put everything in the refrigerator overnight if the recipe calls for refrigerated ingredients.

In the morning, you have much less to do. Just drop it into the crock, put the lid on, plug it in, turn it on, and get going. When you get home, you’ll smell the delicious food and can eat dinner immediately.

And if you’re the kind of person who hits the snooze button a few too many times, you’ll appreciate that. (Not that I would know anything about that.)

Make Enough for Leftovers

If you’re going to spend the time making a slow-cooker meal, consider making enough for another meal.

You don’t necessarily have to double the recipe. Sometimes the recipe already makes enough food for leftovers.

That’s where a slow cooker can become a meal-planning tool without requiring an elaborate meal plan.

For example:

Slow-cooker chicken → dinner → chicken salad → lettuce wraps

Pulled pork → dinner → tacos → salad topping

Chili → dinner → lunch → freezer meal

This is especially useful if you’re trying to eat at home more often or keep food costs under control.

And Yes, You Can Keep It Low-Carb

Many slow-cooker recipes are naturally adaptable to a lower-carb way of eating. You don’t have to serve chili over rice or put shredded meat on a bun. Try:

• Chili with shredded cheese and sour cream
• Shredded chicken over a salad
• Pulled pork with coleslaw
• Taco meat in lettuce cups
• Beef over cauliflower mash
• Chicken with roasted or sautéed vegetables
• Slow-cooked meat alongside a simple green salad

You can also review the recipe’s ingredients and adjust them accordingly. A slow cooker doesn’t automatically make a meal low-carb. Potatoes, beans, sweet sauces and other ingredients can add quite a few carbs. But it’s usually pretty easy to change the ingredients or the way you serve the finished dish.

A Few Slow-Cooker Rules Worth Remembering

Before you put something in the slow cooker and walk out the door, make sure you know how your particular appliance works. Slow cookers aren’t all identical, and recipes can vary considerably.

Don’t assume that because something is safe in one slow cooker, it will behave exactly the same way in another.

If you’re using meat, follow the recipe’s instructions for cooking time and temperature, and make sure the finished food reaches a safe internal temperature.

If you’re new to slow cooking, start with a reliable recipe rather than improvising wildly on your first attempt. You’ll have plenty of time for kitchen experimentation later.

Slow Cooker Safety First

Don’t use a slow cooker that has a damaged cord, cracked insert or other obvious electrical or structural problem. They’re not terribly expensive to replace.

A few years ago, there was a storyline from a TV show called This Is Us in which an ancient slow cooker started a fire. Remember, it was just a TV show, but there was considerable PR fallout. CrockPot even had to defend itself in the aftermath, with people tossing their slow cookers out in fear.

One motivation for me getting an Instant Pot was to replace the aged six-quart slow cooker that was one meal away from disaster. That one left for its final destination when I discovered the exposed copper wiring.

Your Slow Cooker Doesn’t Have to Be a Fall-Only Appliance

One thing I learned a long time ago is that slow cookers aren’t just for cold weather. I’ve used mine during summer, too. That’s one of the reasons I like them so much. They can help keep the kitchen cooler because you’re not standing over a hot stove or running the full-size oven for hours.

But fall is when the slow cooker really starts getting the attention it deserves. As the days get shorter and we’re looking for more substantial meals, it becomes incredibly convenient to have dinner cooking while we’re working.

And when the first genuinely cool evening finally arrives? You’ll already be prepared.

Some Slow Cooker Recipe Ideas From My Bookmarks

I just realized that I have some links and recipes to share that I seem to have kept to myself:

• Crock Pot’s own website has a huge collection of recipes to slow cook your way through, including desserts. (Asian Kale & Chickpeas might not be your cuppa, but someone else will love it.) This site also has pressure cooker recipes, since Crock Pot makes their own version. In some cases, they have both the slow cooker and pressure cooker version of the same recipe. Bananas Foster, anyone?
• Speaking of dessert, how about a Chocolate Cherry Dump Cake in the slow cooker from Tammiliee Tips? (Now I want to try this with keto cake mix and sugar-free cherry pie filling.) She also has a strawberry version.
• From Hannah Taylor, aka, LilyLouTay, a recipe we made back in July. I need to make this Slow Cooker Peach BBQ Chicken again soon, even if I have to use frozen peaches, darnit. For James, I left out the apple cider vinegar, because he can always taste a tiny whiff. It’s a winner for sure, as long as I leave out the ACV. I shared it with my avocado friend in Cali, and she and her husband enjoyed it too, with the ACV.
• Corrie Cooks has a section just for 21 slow cooker meals for busy days, including Pozole, turkey white bean chili, and several soups. Here are 24 more slow cooker recipes for busy days with links to additional slow-cooker pages. His website also has separate sections for both the Instant Pot and air fryer. If you do a search you can go down the rabbit hole of slow-cooker recipes.
• Is meatloaf a favorite in your house? Here’s a meatloaf from Simply Recipes that is hands-off all day. If you want gluten-free, get some GF bread crumbs or substitute Parmesan cheese, the stuff in the green bottle, which will also turn it keto/low carb.
• I’ve made Stephanie O’Dea’s Black Eyed Pea Chili for New Year’s Day, but they’re good any time of year. Maybe I’ll do this for dinner next week. We both like it, so why not? Stephanie also has a fall slow cooker recipe section on her site.

 

And that’s just what I put my hands on quickly.

Need more ideas? They’re everywhere, but start with Stephanie O’Dea’s site, A Year Of Slow Cooking. There are hundreds of recipes on this site, just search for something. Stephanie also has several e-cookbooks on her site as well as Meal Plan Kits. If you prefer physical books, I recommend Stephanie’s Five Ingredients Or Less Slow Cooker Cookbook, which I’ve had for many years and still use because it’s just good and easy food that cooks itself.

Another good one is Linda Larsen’s The Ultimate Slow Cooker Cookbook from 2020. The author has a number of cookbooks, several of them on slow cooking.

There’s some really good food in here, too. My favorite is on page 98, Turkey and Sweet Potato Chili. Very fall, very healthy, and very different. Not one of James’s favorites, but one of mine because I do like sweet potatoes in savory dishes. Another one I have bookmarked but haven’t tried yet is on page 214: Chorizo, Sweet Potato, and Chile Stew. That’s one for when James isn’t home, for sure.

Start Dinner Before You Start Your Day

You don’t need a complicated meal plan to make weeknight dinners easier, or spend all day Sunday cooking twelve different meals. And you certainly don’t need to wait until the weather is cold enough to wear a sweater before you pull out the slow cooker.

Start with one meal. Choose something you like, prep it before work, and let the slow cooker do the heavy lifting. Come dinner time, you may be very glad you did.

And if you’re looking for somewhere to start, try that Easy Slow Cooker Chipotle Chicken Chili. It’s been around HeatCageKitchen for years, and there’s a reason it has stayed in my recipe collection. In fact, it’s time to make it again soon. And since I have his thumbs-up in that blog post, I can show him that it’s already “James approved.” 

Fall doesn’t have to mean pumpkin everything. Sometimes it just means putting dinner in the slow cooker before you leave the house and coming home to one less thing to worry about. And that’s good enough for me.

Happy Dining!