Gourmet from the Slow Cooker

When you hear “slow cooker,” do you picture the old crock pot your mom had that produced meal after meal of sloppy, bland chili or chicken? It’s time to rethink the slow cooker. With some gourmet shortcuts, you can take a few minutes in the morning for prep and come home to a kitchen that smells delicious.

One of the most common complaints I hear is that time is too short in the morning. I know that I choose sleep over pretty much everything else, but some of these recipes take literally ten minutes or less to toss in. You just need to make a quick trip to Williams Sonoma.

I recently discovered their line of cooking sauces and life is good! I started with the Pulled Chicken Starter. At first I panicked because I had allotted ten minutes to prep before I had to run out the door. Obviously, I hadn’t read the label because it said to quarter a chicken and brown it and then put it in the slow cooker with the sauce. That wasn’t happening, but I didn’t have time to change my plan. I took four frozen skinless, boneless, chicken breasts out of the freezer, threw them in the pot and covered them with sauce. I turned the temp to low and left. About 4 hours later, I gingerly lifted the top. It smelled wonderful. I used two forks and “pulled” the chicken so that all of the meat would soak up the flavors of the sauce. By dinner time, I served it with coleslaw on buns. It was a huge hit. I can’t imagine how using a whole chicken and browning it would make it better… just more work.

Encouraged, I tried the Balsamic and Carmelized Onion Braising Sauce. This one called for sauteeing chicken and then adding the sauce before baking it. What did I do? The same thing as the Pulled Chicken. This time, I didn’t “pull” the mean, but cut it into chunks to serve over rice. It was quite tasty, but the cabernet wine flavor was too strong for some. If you don’t like wine based sauces, you may want to avoid this one.

These sauces are not just for slow cooking. I found one made for FAST cooking! I needed a quick, last minute dinner for my family. When everyone’s plans change at the last minute, mom is left holding the dinner plate. I was able to brown some ground beef that I had in the freezer, add the Williams Sonoma Sloppy Joe Starter (It had been a long time since I’d had a sloppy joe), simmer for a few minutes and everyone had a delicious sandwich in under 30 minutes.

Gourmet doesn’t have to mean difficult. It also doesn’t have to be fancy. The sloppy joes could easily be served as quaint sliders for a picnic or as the main dish for a vintage themed dinner.

Take a look for some gourmet sauces and starters to see if you can use them in your slow cooker or for a last minute meal. Even if you don’t use them right away, it’s handy to have them around just in case!