The idea of a slow cooker is to use it as a set it and forget it appliance. You just dump the food in and leave it alone for 4–8 hours. The problem with the long cook time is that you may not be ready to prepare at exactly the time you need to begin you cook. Could you simply turn off your slow cooker off for a while and allow it to finish cooking later on?
Should you stop a slow cooker and then restart it later on?
While it’s technically possible to stop and restart a slow cooker, it’s not recommended to do so because it allows the food, especially meat or dairy, to sit at room temperature. This creates conditions that bacteria thrive in, which could cause food poisoning to you and anyone who eats your food.
So, you may want to avoid turning the slow cooker off and back on again, but are there any other ways to accomplish what you’re trying to do? Let’s talk about those and also some details on why pausing your slow cooker is poor idea.
Why Avoid Stopping and Starting Your Slow Cooker
The important thing to be aware of with slow-cooking (or really any cooking) is the danger of allowing bacteria that can make you sick to multiply and spread on your food. Bacteria thrive in a temperature window called the danger zone, between 41°F and 145°F.
This means that your refrigerator is too cold for the bacteria to thrive, and your slow cooker is too hot. Be aware that some foods, like poultry, need to be brought all the way up to 165°F to be safe.
The bacteria are not killed by the cold, and some can survive cooking heat, the temperatures are simply too extreme for them to multiply. This means that even after refrigerating and heating, the food will still potentially have dangerous bacteria waiting for the right conditions to multiply and make you sick.
The food can safely sit in the slow cooker at heat more or less indefinitely, but once it comes off heat, there’s a ticking clock on either eating it or getting it cooled down again.
If you remove your food from the heat and allow it to sit at room temperature, the food will enter the danger zone, and any bacteria present will be able to propagate, increasing the chance of causing foodborne illness.
What Else Can You Do?
If removing the food from heat temporarily isn’t an option, then what other options do you have to manipulate the cooking time safely. Here are some ideas.
Let It Cook Longer
Most cook times on slow cooker recipes are more minimum times than exact cook times. Slow cookers are pretty forgiving, and many dishes may be improved by “overcooking” them in a slow cooker. The slow cooker will hold the contents at a particular temperature, making it difficult for anything to burn, and the lid traps moisture in preventing meat from drying out.
Generally, an extra hour or two in the slow cooker will not hurt anything. This goes double if your slow cooker has a warm setting, you can switch it to at the end to drop the cook temperature while still keeping the contents hot enough to avoid contamination.
If you need to cook even longer, consider switching the slow cooker from high to low, to give the dish a longer cook time.
If you’re worried about leaving the slow cooker on and unattended, there’s no reason to. Slow cookers are designed to be left alone. Experts say that most modern slow cookers can easily be left running for 24 hours without posing any fire risk. So, leave it running while you sleep, go to work, or run errands; it will still be cooking when you get back, and you won’t get salmonella when you eat it.
Start Later
If it’s possible, the simplest way to avoid switching your slow cooker off and back on again is to simply start it at the right time. Starting the slow cooker the right amount of time before mealtime will allow you to let it run without any interruptions. A little planning goes a long way with slow cooking.
Fully Cook and Reheat
It’s always better to overcook a little than undercook if your meat never makes it to a safe internal temperature, you’re much more likely to get sick. E. coli, Yersinia, and Salmonella, are all bacteria that need to be cooked out of meats. If you need to set your slow cooker aside for a while, it’s much better to do it after everything has fully cooked than before.
There are some rules with how to do this, however. You still don’t want to leave food out on the counter at room temperature, even if it’s fully cooked. You need to get the food into the refrigerator. It may seem easy enough to simply take the entire slow cooker pot off the heat and put it in the fridge, but this is a bad idea.
It will take too long for your refrigerator to get a big hot pot of food from cooking temperature down below 41°F. As the food cools, it could spend hours in the danger zone.
The best way to do this is to separate the food into individual-sized Tupperware dishes and then put each Tupperware dish into the refrigerator. The separate containers will release heat much faster than a single big pot will.
Once you’re ready to eat, do not reheat in the slow cooker. The slow cooker is too slow to reheat, and the food will rest too long in the danger zone. Use an oven, stovetop or, microwave to reheat and then place back in the slow cooker to keep it warm.
Use a Programmable Slow Cooker
The problem with most slow cookers is that you have to manually switch them from on to off. If you aren’t going to be around when the slow cooker needs to be switched, this presents a problem. Many new slow cookers have programmable timers.
If, for example, a dish needs to be cooked on high for 8 hours, you simply punch that into the slow cooker. After 8 hours is up, it will automatically switch to the warm setting, which will keep your food at a safe temperature and be hot and ready to eat whenever you’re ready to serve it.
Go Vegan
Meat and dairy products are the primarily culprits when it comes to foodborne illness. By cutting these elements out of your dish, you can make something much more tolerant of being cooled and reheated. If the ingredients are safe to eat at room temperature (think minestrone or applesauce), then the dish can be cooled and reheated safely.
Avoid Placing Frozen Foods Directly in the Slow Cooker
You’ve probably seen those pre-prepared freezer meals that are supposed to go straight from the freezer into the slow cooker. For the same reason you don’t want to stop and start, you want to avoid putting frozen foods directly into the slow cooker.
Again, the slow cooker isn’t going to be able to heat these foods up fast enough, causing them to pass through the danger zone temperature range for an unsafe amount of time.
To be safe, defrost frozen foods thoroughly before putting them in the slow cooker. Use a microwave or a sink full of warm water to quickly bring frozen foods up to a warmer temperature.