64 Slow Cooker Recipes That Will Make Your Life Easier

Getting dinner on the table can be a chore — especially when you're trying to time everything just right to make sure all of the food is ready at the same time. Yet if you have a slow cooker, life is so much easier.

Slow cookers can make a wide range of foods. In many cases, the results are better than if you made the recipe on the stovetop or in the oven. You can whip up sides like mashed potatoes and green bean casserole, as well as sauces and proteins like cheese-stuffed meatballs. And let's not forget all of the delicious soups, from tortilla soup to white chicken chili. Using a slow cooker can give you more kitchen space when you're making a big meal without any sacrifice on flavor. Plus, there's the major upside that most slow cooker recipes are set-it-and-forget-it recipes that involve little prep work.

Regardless of how much time you have to get dinner ready, these easy and delicious slow cooker recipes will make your next meal a snap (and, importantly, have people coming back for seconds).

Few foods can warm you up on a winter day like chili. This no-fuss white chicken chili recipe uses chicken, onion, garlic, corn, sour cream (or cream cheese), and Great Northern beans — a nutty type of white bean that holds up to slow cook times. The prep work for this recipe is kept to a minimum, but the payoff is large.

The main work (if you can call it that) for the chili is dicing the garlic and onions. From there, it's just a matter of adding the chicken breasts, chicken broth, and other ingredients straight into the slow cooker. If you'd rather use a different cut of chicken, feel free. Just opt for boneless and skinless pieces because they're much easier to shred.

Like other types of chilis, you can throw in pretty much whatever spices you like. Garlic salt and chili powder are good choices, but feel free to get creative. After shredding the chicken, top with something bright green like cilantro, green onions, green chilis, or jalapenos along with a dollop of sour cream and cheddar cheese for a pop of color and flavor. The hardest part is waiting for the chili to finish.

Recipe: White Chicken Chili

This recipe is the perfect sauce for spaghetti and meatballs, chicken Parmesan, baked ziti, and anything else you douse in marinara. Going the homemade route means you know exactly what's in the sauce. That means no extra additives or extra sugar. And when you use a slow cooker, you don't have to worry about doing a whole lot of extra work — this recipe only takes about five minutes of prep.

Marinara is best when highly customized to your taste. Still, you'll need some basics: garlic (canned works, though fresh garlic tastes better), onions, and tomatoes. Whatever is next is up to you, but some good options include garlic powder, sweet paprika, fennel seeds, bay leaves, basil, and, of course, salt and pepper.

The recipe takes around eight hours on low or four hours on high to cook. As soon as the timer rings, there's the option of serving the sauce chunky — meaning you have no extra steps — or using an immersion blender for a smooth and velvety sauce.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Homemade Marinara

Slow cookers are a reliable kitchen tool for those of us who recognize quality Italian (and Italian-American) recipes take time. Case in point: these mozzarella-stuffed meatballs.

This recipe uses a protein — turkey is one option, though ground beef or ground pork works as well — string cheese, breadcrumbs, and basic spices. It also calls to cook the meatballs in a tomato sauce (the marinara recipe above is a great option).

Though this cheese-filled recipe is a little more involved than your standard slow cooker recipe, it's not by any means difficult. Other than waiting for the slow cooker to work its magic, you only need to shape the meatballs with little bits of string cheese and optionally broil the meatballs beforehand to give them a slight crust. So while there's only around 30 minutes of prep time for this recipe (and an additional four hours of waiting), there is some stuffing and light cooking involved. Still, the sauce and the meatballs all cook together, making it easy to simply pour over your spaghetti and get to eating.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Mozzarella-Stuffed Meatballs

Pork chops typically fall into the category of pan-fried or grilled. The main downside of those methods? It's far too easy to end up with dry pork chops. Using in a slow cooker results in chops that are just as good without having to worry about turning your piece of meat into the Sahara desert.

This three-ingredient slow cooker pork chop recipe leans on a simple cut of meat and some pre-mixed seasonings to create a dinner that's as delicious as it is easy. Bone-in pork chops are the best option, whether you opt for the inch-thick pork chops or the double-cut. From there, a basic seasoning (ranch seasoning is ideal, though a condensed soup like cream of mushroom works as well) and a gravy (store-bought chicken gravy is more than adequate) is all you need. The canned and pre-mixed additions keep the recipe simple, though there's always the option to add your own seasoning blend if you're feeling adventurous. Just cook for six to eight hours, and you have the easiest meal you could ask for.

Recipe: 3-Ingredient Crock Pot Pork Chops

When it comes to spaghetti and meatballs, it's all about the sauce. Thankfully, it's not actually all that difficult to make the perfect homemade sauce (meatballs included) using a slow cooker.

This spaghetti and meatballs recipe from Laura Sampson only takes about 10 minutes of prep time, which really just includes chopping a couple of vegetables and dumping ingredients into the slow cooker. You'll need about eight hours of waiting for the sauce to finish. Best of all, it's incredibly hard to mess this recipe up. All you need are diced onions and peppers, minced garlic, various spices, a can of crushed tomato pureé, canned tomato sauce, tomato paste, and some water.

For the meatballs, homemade or frozen work. Or, you can swap in some Italian sausage or other meat or meat substitute. It's a little like a choose-your-own-adventure novel, but a lot tastier.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Spaghetti and Meatballs

So many recipes for soups, stews, and other liquidy dishes call for stock, but truth be told, it's kind of a hassle to make. Who has all day to tend to a pot of simmering bones? It's far too easy to get distracted or bored and wander off, only to find that the liquid has all simmered away and the bones are scorched and stuck to the bottom. Try making stock from chicken (or any other kind of) bones in the slow cooker, instead. That way, you can simmer it all day long with no danger of the broth evaporating.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Chicken Stock

Ratatouille! We're all familiar with the name of this dish, thanks to the animated movie about a cute little rodent chef (and a few human ones, as well). However, not everyone has tried the dish itself, and some people may not even know what's in ratatouille. Let us explain: Ratatouille is a type of vegetable stew where zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes may feature prominently. These vegetables are slow-cooked into a tasty mélange, then topped off with cheese to create a dish that appeals to rats and humans alike.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Ratatouille

While cooking a whole chicken in the oven should be a fairly easy process, the problem lies in knowing the precise moment when it's done. The white meat may be overcooked and dry by the time the dark meat is done, or the thighs end up too pink when the breast is at peak juiciness. Why not take the guesswork out of cooking your chicken by using the slow cooker, instead? Not only does the entire chicken come out perfectly cooked and tender, but you can even multi-task by slow-cooking a few veggies to round out the meal.

Recipe: Easy Slow Cooker Whole Chicken

Portuguese cuisine may not be widely known in the U.S., and that's a real pity if this delicious bean soup is anything to go by. It's a hearty mixture of sliced chorizo, potatoes, pinto beans, and escarole, slow-simmered in broth and seasoned with cilantro and chili flakes. This soup makes for a meal in itself, but if you can't finish all six servings in one setting you can easily freeze any leftovers. Your slow cooker will come in handy once again to thaw and reheat that frozen soup.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Portuguese Bean Soup

Baked ziti is a pasta dish that, by definition, is baked, meaning you'll typically be using an oven. You can, however, prepare a very similar dish in the slow cooker. While your finished product won't technically be baked ziti, it'll still retain all of the important elements: the noodles, the marinara, and the gooey cheese. The best part? The pasta cooks right in the sauce, which means fewer dishes to be washed once you're done with dinner.

Recipe: Crock Pot Baked Ziti

There are quite a few different ways to cook eggs: you can boil them, poach them, fry them, or scramble them. Did you know you could also fix eggs in your slow cooker? While you probably won't want to haul out this bulky appliance if you're just making scrambled eggs for one or two, the crock pot can be a great way to scramble a dozen at a time, should you be hosting a breakfast party or making a large batch of breakfast burritos to stash in the freezer.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Scrambled Eggs

Oh, beef. Why must you be so tasty and yet so darn expensive? One way to enjoy that delicious meaty flavor without busting your budget is to stretch out a small amount of meat with a cheap, filling staple, which is exactly what we're doing here in this recipe for beef tips with noodles. This isn't a true one-pot meal since you start off by browning the beef and then making a sauce on the stovetop, but after the initial effort you can let the crockpot take care of business for a few hours until it's time to go back to the stove to boil up the noodles.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Beef Tips and Noodles

Some foods combine beautifully, but tacos and soup might not seem like a culinary match made in heaven. Tacos, after all, tend to be crunchy, while soup? Not so much. Sure, taco soup might sound like a soggy mess, but this slow cooker creation is nothing of the kind. It's actually just a hearty, slightly spicy, vegetable soup made with taco-seasoned ground beef along with corn, tomatoes and beans. Add tortilla chips on the side for dipping, and you'll get that satisfying taco crunch with none of the mess.

Recipe: Easy Slow Cooker Taco Soup

Tacos al pastor are a dish with an interesting history. If you remember even a little of your high school Spanish, you may be aware that "al pastor" means shepherd-style, but these tacos are made with pork, not lamb. What gives? Was the term "swineherd style" seen as too off-putting? As it turns out, these tacos were adapted from a shawarma recipe brought to Mexico by Lebanese immigrants. Where the pineapple comes in, we're not quite sure, but we're all for it. In our recipe, the pork is slow-cooked in beer while chipotles in adobo lend some smoky heat.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Al Pastor

Cream cheese chicken, whoa! You had us right there at the title. Not only do you get a triple alliteration word score, but any dish with these two ingredients can't help but be doubly delicious. What makes it even better is that this is such a simple recipe, requiring just 5 ingredients. Besides the chicken and cream cheese, you need only pasta, a few cans of condensed cream-based soup, and some chicken broth. The chicken, broth, and soup simmer in the slow cooker until done, the cream cheese is stirred in at the end, and then all of this creamy, cheesy, chicken-y goodness is poured over cooked pasta to make for a super souped-up mac and cheese.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Cream Cheese Chicken

Chicken and rice is one of those universally popular dishes. There are plenty of variations of this combo, ranging from a fairly bland chicken and rice soup to a tasty stir-fry. On the more flavor-packed end of the spectrum is where you'll find this Mexican-inspired slow cooker chicken and rice. Here, both ingredients are simmered in a taco-spiced tomato sauce along with black beans and corn. You can always add some diced chiles to the crock pot, though, if you want your chicken más caliente.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Mexican Chicken and Rice

If you've been looking for a good cochinita pibil recipe, you've obviously come to the right place. If you have no idea what cochinita pibil even is, though, you're going to wish you'd found out sooner! It's basically a Mexican version of pulled pork, but the pork gets a flavor boost from lemon, orange, and lime juice. Not only do these citrus fruits lend the dish a delicious tang, but their acidity also makes the meat incredibly tender. Making this dish in the slow cooker will allow the meat to marinate as it cooks for some effort-free multitasking.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Cochinita Pibil

Chicken tinga is a Mexican dish that may not be incredibly well-known in America, but its simplicity allows it to be a building block for classics like tacos and enchiladas. It's kind of like the spicy chicken version of pulled pork, and cooking it in the crock pot allows the meat to infuse with the flavors of the fire-roasted tomatoes, chipotle peppers, and other spices and seasonings used in this recipe. Serve it over rice or wrapped in a tortilla, or sandwich it inside a bread roll to make a chicken tinga torta.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Chicken Tinga

Pulled pork sandwiches are an American classic, but you know what's also a great choice? Swapping the pork for chicken, a meat that's lower in both fat and calories. This easy crock pot recipe is made with boneless chicken breasts (substitute thighs for a more budget-friendly version) simmered in a scratch-made barbecue sauce. No worries, it's super easy to make! All you need to do is stir together some ketchup, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce and season the mixture with paprika, onion powder, salt, brown sugar, and pepper. If you want a super-simple two-ingredient dish, though, you can swap out this mixture for a store-bought barbecue sauce instead.

Recipe: Slow Cooker BBQ Chicken

Duck confit sounds like the kind of complicated gourmet dish you can only get in a fancy little French bistro. As it just so happens, it's not at all difficult to prepare at home. The hardest part is probably sourcing the duck legs! In addition to the meat, all you'll need are a few pantry staples: olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and thyme (fresh if you have it on hand, but if not, dried will do nicely). Season the duck legs, cook them in the crock pot for a few hours, then finish them off in the oven to crisp up the skin. Très délicieux!

Recipe: Slow Cooker Duck Confit

Lasagna is one of everyone's favorite pasta dishes –- after all, who can resist layers of noodles, sauce, and cheese? The poor cook stuck putting the darn thing together, that's who, as it takes a lot of work to prepare the traditional way. In this recipe, a few shortcuts will make things easier. For one thing, you can use store-bought marinara sauce. For another, there's no need to cook the lasagna noodles separately as they'll have plenty of time to soften up while the slow cooker does its work.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Lasagna

Creamy clam chowder is one of the all-time soup classics, but this chowder takes things a step or two further by including a wide variety of seafood in addition to the clams: shrimp, mussels, calamari, crab, lobster, chunks of fish, or whatever you have on hand as long as you've got a nice mixture of different types. For simplicity's sake, you can even use a frozen seafood mixture. This soup also includes extra veggies, as the potatoes typically found in chowder get supplemented by corn and celery.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Seafood Chowder

When we think of meatballs, we often picture Italian-style ones served with a side of spaghetti, or IKEA's Swedish specialty with its gravy, lingonberry sauce, and potatoes. While these types of meatballs are delicious, we do this dish a disservice by limiting it to only two varieties. Why not explore a new style of meatball, like these Tex-Mex ones? They're flavored with chiles and cheese and would go great with a side of tortillas, beans, and rice.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Tex-Mex Meatballs

Mongolian beef may take its name from the home of Genghis Khan, but the dish itself may have been created by a Taiwanese restaurateur in the 1950s. Traditional it may not be, but it's still pretty darn tasty, and this slow cooker version is pretty easy to make. All you need to do to make it is to simmer a chunk of beef with carrots and onions in a broth flavored with ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, and brown sugar. Serve it over rice or noodles for a memorable meal with minimal effort.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef

Baked apples are kind of a plain-Jane dessert, but sometimes you need a break from over-the-top sugary confections and decadent delights. While these slow-cooked apples are technically not baked because no oven is involved, we're not ones to quibble over semantics when the fruit turns out so nice and tender. In this recipe, the apples are cored before cooking, which allows them to be filled with maple cinnamon-flavored oatmeal. Once they're done, you can keep things healthy by serving them topped with yogurt, or you could opt for a big old scoop of cinnamon or caramel ice cream for a more dessert-ier dessert.

Recipe: Super Easy Slow Cooker Baked Apples

Chicken pot pies, strange as it may seem, weren't actually born in the grocery freezer section. Long before those little foil pans were ever a thing, your great-great-great (etc.) grandparents may have been making chicken pies out of tough old hens that stopped laying. These days, you can make a much simpler homemade version using your slow cooker for the chicken and veggie filling, although the top crust (here made from canned crescent dough) still needs to bake in the oven to achieve a pie-like consistency.

Recipe: Easy Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie

Paella is a multi-ingredient dish made with sausage, seafood, vegetables, and rice. It can be complicated and time-consuming to prepare, but only if you want it to be. If you'd rather spare yourself some effort, though, you can always employ your slow cooker. The rice, veggies, and sausage simmer slowly for a few hours, then the shrimps and scallops are added toward the end so they don't get overdone.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Seafood Paella

If there was one thing neither Nostradamus nor Madame Cleo saw coming when they peered into their crystal balls to make predictions about the 21^stcentury, it was the meteoric rise of macaroni and cheese. This school cafeteria staple inexplicably became trendy some time after the turn of the millennium, and now there are entire restaurants (and even ice cream flavors) devoted to the dish.

So what has mac and cheese's star turn taught us, besides that when it comes to food fads, anything can happen and probably will? Well, we now know that the stuff that comes in the blue box isn't the be-all and end-all of cheesy pasta. In fact, with very little extra effort, you can make restaurant-quality mac and cheese at home in your slow cooker that's so easy-cheesy, you may never go back to the boxed kind.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Mac And Cheese

Lasagna is a truly wonderful creation –- just ask Garfield (the cartoon cat, not the 19th-century POTUS) –- but it can be a pain in the patootie to put together. You know what isn't, though? This slow cooker version made with frozen ravioli. Just dump a few bags of these in the ol' crock pot along with some store-bought marinara sauce and shredded mozzarella. Okay, so you'll have to spend maybe a minute or two layering the ingredients, but after that, you can just let the slow cooker cook. Slowly. In 4 hours or so, your dinner will be done and all you'll need to do is scoop it onto your plate and dig in.

Recipe: Easy Slow Cooker Ravioli Lasagna

When autumn is in the air –- or even before the first hint of fall –- people start proclaiming that pumpkin spice latte season is here. Let's not forget about apple cider, though! This tarter, more refreshing beverage is another fall favorite, and one that's not only healthier than PSLs but a whole lot easier to make. The slow cooker is by far the best appliance for mulled cider, since not only does it allow the spices and seasonings to really permeate the apple juice, but it will keep the cider warm for hours if you plan on serving it to guests.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Apple Cider

If you're a true pitmaster, you may make your pulled pork out of a whole pig that you've smoked all day in a custom-built pit. If you're, well, just about anybody else, you may prefer the convenience of making it in a slow cooker instead. It's just so darn easy! In our recipe, pork loin goes into your crock pot with an envelope of onion soup mix and a few cups of beef broth and comes out a few hours later tender, delicious, and ready to shred. Plop your pulled pork on a bun and dress your sandwich up or down as you choose.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Red beans and rice sounds pretty plain, but the Creole dish by this name is anything but. In our recipe, beans are simmered in the slow cooker along with andouille sausage, onions, peppers, celery, and spices including chili powder, cayenne, paprika, and cumin. This is not a true one-pot dinner as the rice is cooked on the side, but once you put everything together, the meat, veggies, and carbs make the dish a complete meal.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Red Beans And Rice