Don't Waste Time! 7 Facts Until You Reach Your Pressure Cookers

Best Tips for Slow-Cooker Meals & Casseroles


Instead of heavy, calorie-rich dishes topped with fatty cheese and crumbs, we turned into the slow cooker for
Hearty but healthy casseroles. While not every successful casserole follows the same hard-and-fast rules, there
Are a few general guidelines to bear in mind. Here is what you ought to know.
Prepare Your Slow Cooker
Most slow cookers have a hotter side (typically the back side, opposite the side with the controls) that can
Cause dense casseroles like baked ziti to burnoff. To solve this issue we lined the slow-cooker insert with an
For recipes that we wanted to lift out of the insert intact, we first lined the slow cooker
With a foil collar, then lined it completely with foil.
The Way to Make a Slow Cooker Foil Collar
Fold sheets of heavy-duty aluminum foil until you have a six-layered foil rectangle that measures roughly 16
inches long by 4 inches wide. (Depending on the width of the foil, you will need either two or three sheets of
foil.) Then press the collar into the back side of the slow-cooker insert; the food will help to hold the collar in
place during cooking.
How to Make a Slow Cooker Foil Liner
Line the slow-cooker insert with a foil collar, then fit two large sheets of heavy-duty foil in the slow cooker,
Perpendicular to one another, with the extra foil hanging over the edges. Before serving, these overhanging
Edges can be used as handles to pull the food from the slow cooker fully intact and transfer it to a platter for
serving.

From the moist environment of a slow cooker, There's no opportunity to push moisture as there is in an oven,
So excess moisture in the form of sauce or liquid that has leached from vegetables can cause havoc when it
Along with controlling the amount and depth of our sauces
And fillings, in some cases we also found it important to precook vegetables to be able to drive out moisture.
EVERYONE'S FAVORITE
Spaghetti with Meatballs Florentine
This healthy twist on classic spaghetti and meatballs features tender, lean meatballs made ultraflavorful with a
Mixture of spinach, garlic, and Parmesan and a robust marinara.
Don't Overcook Slow-Cooker Casseroles
Our casseroles have comparatively short cooking times; differently, we ended up with mushy pasta, dull

You'll find a range of cooking times for casseroles; be sure to follow our advice
On the settings and times for vibrant flavors and cooked casseroles.
Pasta: Raw or Cooked?
When making slow-cooker casseroles with pasta, how you handle the pasta makes a huge difference in the
Success of the dish. For baked ziti, raw or partially cooked pasta did not work, but toasting it with oil at the
Microwave did, and it prevented the pasta from becoming bloated.
Percent power, and stirring it occasionally, gently toasted the pasta; notice that only a percentage will look toasted
and blistered.
Use Cheese Smartly
Many healthy casserole recipes wouldn't be complete without some cheese to enhance taste. Low-fat options
Like light cheddar gave our fillings the richness we wanted but became waxy when used as toppings, so we
Folded the cheese in the filling instead. For a cheesy finish we often chose to utilize a full-fat cheese (with the
Exclusion of mozzarella where part-skim worked fine), or a hard cheese such as Parmesan or Asiago, or a gentle
Cheese naturally low in fat like queso fresco or feta.