What Is A Slow Cooker?
A slow cooker, also known by the brand name Crock-Pot, is a handy appliance for the kitchen. It is mainly used in cooking casseroles such as soups and stews, but it can also be used for baking a loaf of bread. Because a slow cooker is so versatile, it has been used for years in America and England, but cooking with a slow cooker is also very popular in Asia.
A slow cooker consists of a metal casing with which the temperature can be regulated, often with low, high, and keep-warm settings. A ceramic or porcelain inner pan is placed in this, in which the food is prepared.
The whole is closed with a lid without holes so that no moisture can escape. As a result, all the moisture remains in the pan and much less liquid is needed to prepare your dishes.
A slow cooker has several advantages. First of all, the dish will taste better, because a slow cooker cooks the ingredients for a longer time, so that all the ingredients come into their own. The long cooking makes the meat extra soft and all the flavors will blend together better. Because cooking takes place at a lower temperature without moisture escaping, the meat will not burn.
The biggest advantage is that you can just leave while the slow cooker does the work.
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Why Make Pasta Sauce In A Slow Cooker?
In general, pasta is one of the meals that you can easily make when you don’t feel like cooking. It’s easy to put a delicious pasta dish on the table without too much effort. Cooking the pasta is done in a few minutes, but making the sauce is often the most work.
There are many ready-made pasta sauces that you can buy in the store. A very easy solution, but often these are not very healthy and they contain a lot of salt. It is therefore a lot healthier, often tastier, and actually very easy to make pasta sauce in a slow cooker.
Tips For Making Pasta Sauce In A Slow Cooker
A Little More Effort Is A Lot More Taste
It’s very easy to put all the ingredients you want to use in preparing the pasta sauce in the slow cooker, turn it on, and just wait. Nevertheless, the dishes become a lot tastier if you give them just a little more attention. If you fry the meat and vegetables in advance, the flavors will come out even better.
Adjust Recipes
You can easily adapt existing recipes by reducing the amount of liquid. Use about two-thirds of the liquid in your recipe.
The Bolognese Sauce In The Slow Cooker
This recipe is for a 3.5-liter slow cooker, but you can adapt it to the contents of your own slow cooker. This sauce can be used as a sauce for macaroni or spaghetti, but can also be used with lasagna.
Ingredients:
- Olive oil
- 800 grams of peeled tomatoes
- 500 ml sieved tomatoes
- 300-500 grams of vegetables
- 500-1000 grams of minced meat
- 1 onion cut into cubes
- 2-3 cloves garlic (crushed)
- 1 bay leaf
- Thyme
- Oregano
- Basil
- Salt and pepper
- Pasta
- Grated (Parmesan) cheese
Preparation:
- In a large frying pan, fry the onion in some olive oil and fry the garlic. Roll the minced meat in the same pan, and when it’s ready, put it in the slow cooker.
- Fry the vegetables in the frying pan until they get a little color and add them to the other ingredients in the slow cooker.
- Put the sieved tomatoes and the peeled tomatoes (without the liquid) in the frying pan and cook it through so that the sour taste is less and add it to the slow cooker.
- Add the spices to the slow cooker to taste.
- Turn on the slow cooker on low for 6-8 hours.
- An hour before the sauce is ready, check whether it is still very moist. If so, you can remove the lid so that some moisture evaporates and the sauce thickens a bit.
- The sauce is ready and can be eaten with the pasta, add some cheese to make it extra tasty.
- You can freeze what you have left.