Slow Cooker Recipe Sanity Check

February 9, 2024 8:40 AM

I'm going to be using my slow cooker a lot more because of my new job. But several recipes call for me to saute some ingredients first before putting them in the slow cooker - something which I don't have the time to do in the morning (and it would wake up my later-rising roommate). I had the idea - how about I simply do that bit the night before, stash that in the fridge, and then dump it along with everything into the cooker the next day? Any reasons why I shouldn't, at least?

I don't mind if there's a mild impact on the taste if I do that, I'm happy to sacrifice that for convenience's sake.

posted by EmpressCallipygos to Food & Drink (22 answers total)

Would help if you said which ingredients.

If it's just onions and garlic and the like, it would be fine and probably would not noticeably affect taste. In fact, not sautéing them would also be fine but would affect the taste much more.
posted by dobbs at 8:46 AM on February 9

That's what I'd do - I can't imagine why that would impact taste at all - it's all going to be slow-cooked anyway.
posted by coffeecat at 8:47 AM on February 9 [4 favorites]

Will be fine. Maybe saute a batch your usual aromatics, freeze flat in a zippy bag so you can break off what you need.
posted by theora55 at 8:50 AM on February 9 [12 favorites]

That will be fine. Also, the sauteeing step is just a bonus - I grew up with non-saute'd slow cooker food and it's fine, you just lose a bit of the browned bits. If push comes to shove, just chuck it all in there and run!
posted by some chick at 8:52 AM on February 9 [5 favorites]

A large percentage of ingredients by weight go into a slow cooker cold from the fridge anyway so I can't think of a food safety reason why this wouldn't be fine, except maybe when it comes to partially-cooked red meat or maybe seared bone-in chicken parts or something.

If you have access to any of the slow cooker cookbooks from America's Test Kitchen (like Healthy Slow Cooker Revolution), they have some really smart advice on minimizing/improving advance prep. Their books are often in public libraries in the US.

A lot of their recipes are behind a paywall but I think this Slow-Cooker Beef and Garden Vegetable Soup is free as an example. It starts with microwaving onions, tomato paste, and dried mushrooms (in lieu of sautéing) and their test cooks found that they got the same result with raw chuck eye-roast as they did if they pre-browned it.
posted by bcwinters at 8:54 AM on February 9 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Would help if you said which ingredients.

For the specific recipe I'm looking at it's just the aromatics, but I've also seen this for meats needing to be seared and so I'm also asking in general. (i.e., if aromatics are okay, but it wouldn't really work too well for pre-browning meat, that's useful to know!).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:54 AM on February 9

You usually sear meat to add flavour. I'd still do that part if you can but it isn't a food safety issue if you can't. Aromatics, i wouldn't bother.
posted by TORunner at 9:06 AM on February 9

Zero problem. I have pre cooked ingredients like this before for slow cooking and it works fine.
posted by carrioncomfort at 9:12 AM on February 9

Best answer: Totally fine. You can go a step further and dump the non-seared ingredients in with the the seared ones the night before too, even in the crock itself. This will help to cool the seared ingredients down quickly and won't hurt otherwise. Then you just take out the crock and stick it in the crock pot on the morning.
posted by ssg at 9:57 AM on February 9 [7 favorites]

When I used my crockpot for day cooking during work, I tended to prep everything the night before and stick the whole shebang in the fridge, no problems there, highly reccomend.

I can't really think offhand of anything you would be cooking for several hours that wouldn't easily tolerate a night already prepped in the fridge with a cover.

For searing or any "fussy" steps before cooking, I can't think of a time skipping this ruined the meal. You can sometimes tell the difference in the outcome but not always. I pick and choose if I'm doing any of that depending on how lazy I am or how expensive the ingredients are.
posted by love2potato at 10:24 AM on February 9 [2 favorites]

Best answer: In case you didn't see it, this thread might be helpful. Also, somewhere on AskMe, I became aware of the concept of freezer slow cooker meals, sometimes called freezer/frozen dump meals. Here's a long reddit thread with ideas.
posted by bluedaisy at 11:41 AM on February 9 [3 favorites]

I basically always always ignore the sear step and never regret it. Aromatics I think are particularly pointless to do, since they often break down so much in a slow cooker than the flavour benefit you'd get from pre-searing them is minimal. For meats, it could help the overall flavour and possibly help it stay together in once piece better, but honestly, it's fine if you just skip it altogether. It'll still taste basically just as good.
posted by urbanlenny at 12:40 PM on February 9

I always do the slow cooker pre-cooking the day before.
posted by Kriesa at 3:13 PM on February 9

It’s fine but I wouldn’t refrigerate the whole crock, as that would extend the time in unsafe temperature zone the next morning since it has to heat up the pot even more. Refrigerate the stuff in a different container or bag, and maybe save any canned ingredients etc lined up next to the crockpot, unopened, to chuck in the next day.
posted by slightlybewildered at 3:20 PM on February 9 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: It’s fine but I wouldn’t refrigerate the whole crock, as that would extend the time in unsafe temperature zone the next morning since it has to heat up the pot even more.

Honestly, because I have a Brooklyn kitchen-sized fridge there wasn't any way I'd be able to fit a slow cooker crock in there even if I WANTED to. :-)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:40 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]

Others gave good suggestions, proposal probably food safe. I wonder if you have considered doing *all* the prep the night before - Slow cooker could run overnight, instead of during the workday, put cooked dish in fridge in morning. Worse smells to wake up to...
posted by enfa at 5:13 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]

What you're proposing is totally fine! I've put everything I'm going to dump in the slow cooker together, (in several smaller containers if space is tight), stuck it in the fridge, and started everything on it's leisurely cooking 'journey' in the morning, with great success. You can toy around a bit with which recipes work better than others with this method, but I'd bet most will turn out just fine and even delicious!
posted by but no cigar at 5:21 PM on February 9

I took a tip from the America's Test Kitchen book and microwave everything that would be sautéed except meat. It does make a difference with tomatoes to me since they don't get a dry, high heat in the slow cooker.
posted by fiercekitten at 5:34 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I took a tip from the America's Test Kitchen book and microwave everything that would be sautéed except meat.

This is honestly fascinating me, but for reasons only partially related to my original question....

So they're saying microwaving is as good as sauteeing? Wouldn't you lose out on a little Maillard reaction and carmelizing in the aromatics, at least?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:59 PM on February 9

Best answer: So they're saying microwaving is as good as sauteeing? Wouldn't you lose out on a little Maillard reaction and carmelizing in the aromatics, at least?

My understanding is that the extremely long, wet, relatively low-temperature cooking process in a slow cooker leads to a loss of the compounds and flavors that were developed in the initial sauté anyway.

(I switched to pressure cooking and haven't looked back, but of course YMMV when it comes to timing your meal prep.)
posted by bcwinters at 5:57 PM on February 10 [1 favorite]

Best answer: the extremely long, wet, relatively low-temperature cooking process in a slow cooker leads to a loss of the compounds and flavors

Yes, according to the book the long, wet cooking makes the maillard reaction moot. I've made the sloppy Joe recipe a couple of times and it calls for sautéeing the ground beef but I use the microwave like a heathen and it's fine. It does call for mixing the meat with milk so we're already into food science territory before the microwave gets into it.

Sautéed is not the same as boiling which is why they microwave things like onions and garlic. Quick cooking really does make them taste different. But it doesn't have to hit a pan to get there.
posted by fiercekitten at 7:31 PM on February 10

Response by poster: Yes, according to the book the long, wet cooking makes the maillard reaction moot.

In a way, this is actually exactly why I asked the question in the first place - I was thinking more about "if I saute the aromatics and then throw them in the fridge, does that affect the maillard". But if the slow cooker's just gonna kill that anyway, then screw it.

So this helped tremendously. thanks!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:35 PM on February 10