Tips for Cooking Meat in your Slow Cooker

A slow cooker is a great way to create savory meat dishes with rich flavor and delicious sauces and gravies. Here are a few easy tips for incorporating meat into your healthy slow cooker recipes!

• The key to using meats in any recipe is to ensure that you’re using good quality meats. Grass-Fed Beef, Pastured Pork, and Pastured Chicken are all great in a slow cooker! The great thing about using cleanly raised meats is that there’s no need to use preservative-filled ‘cream of’ soups or artificial seasoning mixes because meats like this taste amazing on their own thanks to the way they were raised. We order from Shady Grove Ranch and sell their meats in our office.
• When cooking a slow cooker beef roast, the best method is to defrost the roast in the refrigerator the night before. If you’re short on time, frozen will work just fine, but the meat will be a bit more tender if it’s fully thawed ahead of time. Put your roast in the bottom of the crockpot and sprinkle a little sea salt on top of it. Then add all of your veggies on top! We like to add carrots, celery, garlic, and onions, then sprinkle them with salt and pepper. There’s no need to add liquid unless you want your roast to be soupy. Grass-fed beef has its own excellent flavor and will produce its own drippings to create plenty of moisture and a great flavor! Cook on high for 6 hours or low for 8 hours and enjoy!
• How would you like to get about 3-4 meals as well as a gut healing delicious broth from one recipe? Slow cooking a whole chicken is the way to do it! Whole pasture-raised chickens can be expensive, so get the most out of your bird with this easy recipe! Put the whole chicken into your slow cooker and fill the pot with enough filtered water to cover the chicken. Add lots of herbs for taste! Fresh herbs make AMAZING flavor but if you only have dried herbs on hand then use those. Cook your chicken for 4 hours on high then remove it and let it cool enough for you to remove the meat. Pull off the chicken breasts whole for an easy meal then use the remainder of the chicken for chicken tacos, chicken salad, an easy shredded chicken dish, or soup!
• We aren’t done with that expensive chicken yet! Once you have removed all of the meat, put your chicken bones back into the crockpot to start a good hearty bone broth! You can add any vegetable scraps from earlier recipes like stems, leaves, corn cobs, peels, etc. or you can simply add roughly chopped up celery, carrots, and onions. Cook on low for 24 hours then strain and store it in the refrigerator for soups – or just to drink by itself. You can store your broth in a clean, glass container for several weeks in a refrigerator or about a year in a freezer.

You don’t need an elaborate meal with tons of ingredients to feed your family something healthy. If you’re using fresh vegetables, good quality meats, and tasty herbs then you have everything you need for a great dinner!