With snow on the ground and a chill in the air, nothing is more inviting than the thought of curries, stews and chilli. And there’s no easier way to make those dishes than by using a slow cooker. Chop up ingredients. Drop into pot. Come back when it’s done. Eat.
Amazon is selling the Crock-Pot CSC046 slow cooker for just £20, down from an RRP of £29.99. That’s already a decent price for an appliance from Crock-Pot, the brand that first developed the slow cooker.
Slow cookers have a number of advantages in the kitchen. They’re low effort to cook with and economical to use. Cooking a dish in a slow cooker uses less power than using your oven for the same task.
A slow cooker improves flavour, locks in nutrients and can make the most of cheap ingredients. Altogether, they’re one of the best small kitchen appliances for healthy, budget-friendly cooking.
The Crock-Pot CSC046 has some nice features, including a glass lid, so you can see your food cooking and avoid the temptation to uncover it to peek inside and let out all the heat.
It also has a black, dishwasher-safe stoneware inner bowl which you can lift out and serve from at the table.
As you might expect at this price point, it’s a very straightforward appliance. It has the three heat settings that tend to come as standard in slow cookers (high, low and keep warm) but lacks some of the more advanced features that you’d find in more expensive models, like a timer and cooking pre-sets.
Still, these aren’t essential to making good food in a slow cooker, as long as you’re happy to experiment and lean into the relaxed vibe of slow cooking.
The only thing we’d caution is a 2.4 litre capacity slow cooker is categorised as small. It’ll have a usable capacity of less than two litres, so this appliance is really only going to work for 1-2 people. It’s definitely not family size.
If you’re looking for something a little larger, Amazon also has a deal on the Morphy Richards 460020 Sear, Stew and Stir 3.5L slow cooker. It’s on sale for £29, down from £34.99.
It has an aluminium pot, which we don’t like quite as much as the stoneware but it’s still dishwasher-safe. It also has the advantage of a hinged lid, so you don’t need to look for somewhere to land it when you’re serving up.
Finally, if you need something to feed an entire family, or to batch cook food you can freeze and portion out over a week, Argos is selling the Crock-Pot 5.6 litre Time Select slow cooker for £69.99.
It’s a bit more advanced than the smaller model above: it’s also got pre-set cooking programmes and a timer. You can find out more about it in our review.
If you’d like to find out more about slow cooker benefits and features before deciding, check out our buying guide.
