We're firmly into slow cooker season now which means I'm rooting around for recipes, tips and tricks to make my prepped dinners tastier and easier to pull off.
If there's one celebrity chef who has long championed using one of the best slow cookers to cut out the faff it's Jamie Oliver, whose no nonsense cooking approach is the perfect antidote to the January slog.
And it turns out, he has one simple piece of advice when it comes to using a slow cooker that I've been failing to follow for years. Here's why this mistake might be making your slow cooker meals take longer and how to fix it.
Jamie Oliver's simple slow cooker tip
Cutting out superfluous ingredients and simplifying recipes has long been on Jamie Oliver's cooking agenda and a slow cooker is the perfect appliance to do that yourself at home too.
In Jamie's article on tips to nail your slow cooker recipes, he suggests picking cheaper but flavoursome cuts for your stews and one-pot meals as well as browning your chosen meat beforehand to boost the quality of the finished product.
But the tip that I related to most was in fact the most simple: leave your slow cooker alone whilst its working.
I confess I've been making this mistake for many years – I constantly check on my dinner by lifting its lid and doing a taste check every so often. This, according to Jamie, isn't an outright diaster, 'but every time you lift the lid the cooking time will increase'. And as Jamie says, 'if the lid stays on the moisture in the pot is retained'. That's essential if you want succulent slow cooker results.
Jamie's other tips are seriously worth heeding too. He advises picking the longest setting your slow cooker has if you can (usually 8 hours over the standard 4) as it will 'give all those flavours even more time to develop and the result will be even better'.
I've tested many slow cookers in my time as Ideal Home's Kitchen Appliances Editor and I've always found that going as low and slow as possible yields the tastiest dinners.
I recently tested a truly standout slow cooker that has the perfect features for following Jamie's tips, the Ninja Foodi PossibleCooker, and my five star review of it is testament to how useful it is for easy meals.
Now that I know I need to cut out obsessively checking on progress inside my slow cooker the glass lid on the PossibleCooker is going to be even more useful. Alongside its 8 functions and multiple timer settings, it's a great tool for seriously getting into slow cooking.
With the ideal design to prevent losing moisture, this slow cooker is also handily equipped with an oven-safe removable pot that you can serve straight to the dinner table.
I'm gearing up to spend the rest of January bulk prepping with my trusty slow cooker and thanks to Jamie's tip, my mealtimes are set to benefit. Are you looking to get ahead with batch cooking this winter?
