24 Easy Slow Cooker Recipes With Less Than 20 Minutes of Prep
These dishes cook slowly, but their prep is quick and easy.
Antonis Achilleos
The beauty of a slow cooker is how it simplifies meal prep, yet some require a few too many steps to earn the "easy" label. We sifted out the truly easy slow cooker recipes—ones without a lot of stovetop simmering, frequent stirring, or too much kitchen time—yet turn out a fantastic dish. Each recipe can be prepped in 20 minutes or less, hands-on, so you’re free to let the slow cooker do its thing while you do yours.
Related: 34 Easy Slow Cooker Recipes for When You're Craving Comfort Food
Crockpot Pulled Pork Tacos
With just 15 minutes of hands-on prep followed by 8 hours of cooking, these tender tacos seem like a labor of love, but are truly quite simple. Salsa is the key to this flavorful pork, so choose your favorite brand (or make your own) for top-notch tacos. Set up a toppings bar for efficient DIY assembly.
Slow-Cooker Chicken and Pasta Soup
Nothing hits the spot quite like homemade chicken soup, even when you're not under the weather. This simple version starts with fresh chicken thighs for that legit from-scratch flavor and requires just 5 minutes of hands-on prep.
Slow-Cooker Deep-Dish Pizza
This pizza proves that pretty much anything can be made in the slow cooker! Just stretch pre-made pizza dough over the bottom, and then layer with sauce, cheese, and your favorite toppings. Go ahead and delete your pizza delivery app, and make this your new pizza-night go-to.
Slow-Cooker Soy-Braised Chicken
Inspired by the flagship dish of Filipino cuisine, chicken adobo, these braised chicken thighs slow-cook in vinegar, soy, and brown sugar for incredible flavor. Add bok choy at the end for an element of freshness, and serve over rice for the ultimate comfort food.
Slow-Cooker Spinach Lasagna
If you’ve never baked a lasagna in your slow cooker, now’s the time! This vegetarian recipe takes just 15 minutes to assemble its layers—spinach, cheese, pasta, and sauce—and cooks in 4 hours.
Slow-Cooker Chicken Mole Chili
Chocolate, raisins, cinnamon, and Mexican spices bring out the richness of this chicken mole dish. Served with sliced avocado plus garnishes like radish and cilantro, you can pull off this elegant dish with just 15 minutes of prep.
Slow-Cooker Spaghetti Squash Ragù
You'll have to first brown the ground beef stovetop, but everything else in this recipe—including spaghetti squash halves—gets the slow-cooker treatment. After about 6 hours, when the squash is fork-tender, they're removed, scraped into strands, and served in a bowl topped with sauce (and optional cheese). Cooking the squash with the sauce is efficient, and makes for easy serving and cleanup.
Slow-Cooker Chicken Taco Soup
The ultimate weeknight dinner, this soup coalesces a bunch of hearty pantry ingredients in the slow cooker—frozen corn, canned black beans, and canned tomatoes—to stew all day for a satisfying, flavorful soup. Top with tortilla chips, cheese, and a wedge of lime. For a twist, try swapping out corn for canned hominy, or white beans for black.
Slow-Cooker Pork Ditalini Stew
This elegant stew uses pork shoulder to create a silky, meaty experience that’s worth inviting company over for. The small ditalini pasta, tomatoes, and spinach make the dish a full meal: no sides necessary.
Slow-Cooker Chicken Congee
This classic Chinese breakfast can be cooked overnight for a warm and savory morning treat or cook it all day for a comforting dinner. Try topping the rich, umami-forward, chicken porridge with a fried or poached egg.
Slow-Cooker Vegetarian Chili With Sweet Potatoes
This plant-based chili—full of sweet potatoes, peppers, and two types of beans—is the perfect steamy bowl for the end of a cold day. Use it as a great topper for baked potatoes or nachos, too!
Slow-Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala
This Indian-inspired stewed chicken can cook on high for 3 to 4 hours, or low for 7 to 8, whichever suits your schedule. It’s rich, full of tangy sauce, and can be enjoyed with rice, naan, or both.
Slow-Cooker Puttanesca With Roasted Broccolini
A restaurant-worthy pasta dish with less than 20 minutes of prep? This tangy sauce is it. You have to cook the pappardelle pasta on the stove and roast the broccolini in the oven, but the minimal effort is well worth it. Buon appetito!
Slow-Cooker Open-Face Pulled-Pork Sandwiches With Tangy Broccoli Slaw
This recipe transforms a pork shoulder to fall-off-the-bone lusciousness in a tangy, BBQ sauce in as little as 4 hours (but the longer, the better). Meanwhile, quick-pickled red onion slices and a broccoli slaw benefit from several hours in the fridge so their flavors can meld and intensify. Assemble sandwiches on toast or rolls and enjoy!
Slow-Cooker Chipotle Short Ribs With Tangy Cabbage Slaw
Ribs cooked in a spicy sauce get the slow-cooker treatment in this recipe, but the white rice and slaw are a different matter. Cook the rice according to package directions just before serving. As for the slaw, if you're planning a busy evening, you can make it up to 12 hours ahead for stress-free serving.
Slow Cooker Frittata With Sausage and Waffle Fries
What caught your attention, a frittata in a slow cooker or waffle fries in a frittata? Regardless, this family-friendly dish makes for a great brunch, lunch, or dinner. Browned sausage goes in the crock atop layered waffle fries, followed by the cheesy egg mixture, all of which cooks for 2 to 3½ hours until lightly golden brown and completely set.
Slow-Cooker Pork With Peppers and Olives
This recipe borrows notes from Cuban cuisine to create a deep, flavorful stew. It's best accompanied by black beans and white rice, which soak up every last bit of its oniony, tomato-based sauce. Leftovers make a great pull-pork sandwich!
Slow Cooker Brisket With Melty Onions and Chimichurri
Victor Protasio
When there's a crowd to feed, brisket is the logical go-to: It's easy to cook, economical, and practically fail-safe. This recipe's cooking begins on the stovetop, where the brisket gets a nice sear in a hot skillet. Onions start caramelizing there, too, and then the skillet is deglazed with red wine so no flavorful bits go unincorporated. Serve with a homemade chimichurri and a tasty side.
Slow Cooker Chicken Tostadas
Put a twist on taco night with a tasty tostada! The chicken—boneless, skinless thighs—slow-cooks with onion, salsa, and poblano peppers for 4 to 5 hours. In the meantime, prep a pico de gallo (or use your favorite jar) to spoon atop the pulled chicken mixture and crunchy corn tostadas. Easy peasy!
Slow Cooker Mexican Beef Sliders
This beef dish requires no stovetop browning! Its boneless beef chuck roast goes right into the slow cooker—where it cooks with beef broth, onion, garlic, chipotles, adobo sauce, and Tex-Mex spices—until fork-tender, 7 to 8 hours. All that's left to do is whip up a coleslaw, starting with a store-bought coleslaw mix, that takes just minutes.
Slow-Cooker Asian Short Ribs
Every component of this satisfying meal—short ribs, cabbage, carrots, and sauce—cooks exclusively in the slow cooker. That sweet-savory sauce picks up Asian flavors from soy sauce, ginger, rice vinegar, and sesame oil, and tastes great spooned over everything.
Spiced Quinoa-Oat Slow Cooker Granola
When contemplating slow-cooker dishes, most of us don't think "granola," but we certainly should. The slow cooker is more forgiving and eliminates that "uh-oh" moment that comes after discovering burnt bits in the oven. Slow-cooking granola for 3 hours is also one of the most delightful air fresheners you'll ever come across!
Slow Cooker Shepherd's Pie
This recipe merges the flavors of that iconic stew from the British Isles with slow-cooker simplicity. Everything goes in the crock, including the beef chuck cubes (no browning required), a cup of dark beer, and whole potatoes, which eventually get mashed to serve as the stew's topping.
Slow-Cooker Curried Chicken With Ginger and Yogurt
Here's an example of a simple recipe that results in complex flavors. The only part of this Asian-inspired dish that cooks outside the slow cooker is the long-grain white rice. A yogurt stir-in and a sprinkle of scallion slices are the only last-minute tasks required before serving up this aromatic stew to eager diners.
Related: 6 Slow Cooker Cake Recipes for Desserts You Can Set and Forget
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