3 Recipes With Slow Cooker And Weekly Menu

The slow cooker or slow cooker comes to recover the flavor of dishes made with time, over low heat. The stews and dishes made in this way have a different taste. But, with our modern lifestyle, we can hardly spend an entire morning making a lentil stew.

The best known are those of the Crockpot brand, which also give this appliance its name. Although a very common use is the cooking of meats, we can use it widely for vegan dishes. We can make all kinds of legumes, but also vegetable meats, including homemade seitan, preparations for creams, patés, even cakes!

Now that we are in winter, these types of recipes are more appealing than ever, so I have included some ideal dishes to cook with a slow cooker in the weekly vegan menu that I propose in this post.

• You can download the weekly slow cooker menu here.

The advantages of cooking in a slow cooker

The slow cooker is the exact opposite of the speed cooker or pressure cooker and has many advantages:

• Constant temperature and low consumption. The times are counted by hours and it is usual for the dishes to take about 4 or 6 hours to cook, many times 8. It is something that distracts, but the cost of electricity is low and what the slow cooker does is maintain a constant temperature.
• Two positions. They usually have only two temperatures, LOW and HIGH, and a keep warm function. At a low temperature, it cooks between 70 ºC and 95 ºC, depending on the model and type of preparation. Some do not even come to a boil in high temperature mode, although it is common for them to reach 150 ºC.
• Respect for food. It is precisely this type of cooking at a temperature position, without boiling, in a normal atmosphere, its main virtue. Despite the long cooking times, we will not find the vegetables or legumes undone. On the contrary, they will be whole and better maintaining many of their properties.
• It doesn’t need you to be watching. Another of the first advantages that we see in the slow cooker is, precisely, that it does not need us to be watching the fire. It is true that the first times we use it we must monitor it, as well as follow some simple instructions. For example, do not fill it to the top or place it on a surface that cannot be heated. The slow cooker should preferably be on a counter-type surface.
• You can program the cooking. Another advantage of use is timing. There are digital ones, which can be easily programmed, but we can also use an analog timer, which you find in any hardware store and is very inexpensive. So we can choose when it starts and when it ends. That amount of hours, which a priori may seem like a drawback, is what gives this simple appliance game. She cooks while we work or sleep, and we find the hot result ready for the office container or for dinner.

Your slow cooker can serve you perfectly to make a good amount of legumes from scratch. You will have to go through the soaking as in other types of cooking, and they will take much longer, usually between 3 and 4 hours, sometimes longer. For this reason, the usual thing is to go directly to cooking a stew or the ingredients of a nutritious cream of legumes. To have cooked vegetables it is much more common to use the pressure cooker directly.

Remember that there are many models with very different capacities, and that the recipes are usually written for the 3.5 or 5 liter models. Some need the crockpot to be oval or small round. Many people who love this type of cooking have more than one model, since the smallest ones are easy to store and are used to make compotes and sauces.

3 slow cooker recipes for your weekly menu

Here are some recipes for you to start falling in love with the slow cooker. With these quantities you can freeze and you will have several servings. I have included them in the weekly downloadable slow cooker menu that I propose to you this week.

Lentil soup

This is the type of preparation that will help you know if you like the slow cooker or not. It is also ideal to try because it does not require previous preparations, only soaking. It is what is known in the world as one-pot or “to’pa inside” and that is, literally, putting the ingredients in the pot once they are clean and cut.

Ingredients:

• 500 g of lentils
• 1 white onion
• 2 carrots
• 1 large leek
• 2 Italian green peppers
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 vegetable sausage of seitan or a calabizo
• 1 hour of laurel
• 1 teaspoon of paprika
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• Water

preparation:

1. Soak the lentils at least overnight, in plenty of water. We drain the lentils, discard the soaking water and rinse them.
2. We place the lentils in the bottom of the pot.
3. We peel the calabizo or the vegetable chorizo ​​if it has skin and we chop it. We place it on top of the lentils
4. We wash all the vegetables well and remove the skin and stems.
5. We chop all the vegetables, ideally cut into small cubes.
6. We mix the vegetables and place it all on top of the lentils.
7. In a glass of water, mix the soy sauce, paprika and olive oil. We add it to the pot.
8. We cover the vegetables with water and we only put one more finger. Cover and cook slowly for 7 hours. We do not stir.
9. You can turn it off and let it rest, after mixing everything, for a couple more hours with the residual heat.
10. Serve with a serving of steamed brown rice or reheated prebiotic potato.

It is very important to follow the indications for the amount of water. As there is practically no evaporation, the dish can be watery if we overdo it. It is a very common mistake, like overfilling the pot. The lentils are going to grow and if the contents are poured out it can reach the resistance and cause a short circuit.

Chili without meat

Mexican cuisine has some recipes that have already become universal. You can make a great vegetable chili using the textured vegetable protein that you like the most. I recommend that it be not very thick, but not the thinnest either. You can add more vegetables of your choice.

Ingredients:

• 300 beans or black beans
• 100 g small textured vegetable protein
• 1 red bell pepper
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 1 red onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 bunch of chives
• 1 level teaspoon of sweet paprika
• 2 level teaspoons of eaten
• 1 teaspoon ground cayenne or chili flakes
• 4 tablespoons of virgin olive oil
• Mild vegetable broth or water
• Salt to taste

preparation:

1. Soak the legumes for at least 8 hours. Then we drain and rinse them.
2. If our crockpot does not come to a boil, we heat water in a saucepan and boil it for 10 minutes. We also take advantage of the water and put it in the pot along with the beans.
3. Clean, peel and chop the vegetables, except for the onion and garlic, into medium or small cubes, depending on how we want to find them later. Save some chopped chives to decorate.
4. We place on top of the beans.
5. Peel and chop the onion and garlic, and brown them in a hot pan with two tablespoons of olive oil.
6. We let it cool down and we place it on top of the vegetables.
7. In a glass of water or broth, mix the spices, two tablespoons of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Here we can choose the level of spiciness. Better to stay short and add powder later. We can also make the recipe without spicy, changing it for pepper.
8. Add to the pot and cover the ingredients with liquid. We cook on low for 8 hours.
9. Check the amount of liquid at 6 hours, in case the type of textured protein has dropped a lot. The important thing is that the beans are bottom and covered.
10. Finally, stir and check that the legumes are ready. You can continue cooking with the residual heat, with everything mixed.

It is usually served with white rice or with corn tortillas. You can add avocado and pico de gallo sauce, similar to our salpicón.

Apple, pear and orange compote

You will be able to have delicious compotes for days thanks to your slow cooker. Don’t stay with the applesauce and experiment with other flavors.

Ingredients:

• 5 sweet seasonal apples
• 2 seasonal pears
• 2 oranges
• 2 tablespoons of panela
• 1 level tablespoon of cinnamon

If you like the compote sour, add lemon juice to the cooking.

preparation:

1. Peel (optional) and core the pears and apples.
2. We peel the oranges and separate the segments, removing the white skin.
3. We cut everything into small cubes.
4. We add all the ingredients to the slow cooker and mix with a wooden spoon.
5. We cook 3 hours on high.

If it is very whole, you can crush the compote once it has tempered.