Thickening sauce in the slow cooker

sooty&sweep

Hi

If I'm doing a stew I often add lentils & pearl barley.
They both absorb a lot of liquid. The Orange lentils disintegrate & thicken the sauce.

Jen

[Deleted User]

If I make a stew I always used a colmans packet or similar and have had excellent results filing the packet with water, always seems to be the right consistency , not too dry and not too runny.


Rip the packet open, add cold water to the top, stir really well and add to slow cooker.

MandM90

Could you add half a mug of red split lentils? Extra protein and a great sauce thickener!

joedenise

If I'm cooking ba whole chicken I put it in the SC on top of 3 or 4 balls of foil and leave on all day. No liquid at all.

Would still need to boil some potatoes and veg but while that's doing the chicken is resting on a board which makes it juicier. Never had a dry chicken.

Denise

Wraithlady

-taff wrote: »

Made a beef stew last night put in liquid just under the level of veg/met, coloured the meat first and tossed in flour etc, end result, runny liquid and hard vegetables although the meat was very very tender.

I use mine for stews all the time, and not had that problem. A tip I read somewhere is to put the veg in first, covered by the meat - the vegetables take longer to cook and this way they get more heat.

gentlepurr

I tend to chuck in a couple of handfuls of oats, the cheapest porridge oats will do, and you cant notice them at all when you dish up, - cheap as chips xx

-taff

Wraithlady wrote: »

I use mine for stews all the time, and not had that problem. A tip I read somewhere is to put the veg in first, covered by the meat - the vegetables take longer to cook and this way they get more heat.

How do you do yours? Do yours come out thick or runny?

I used to have a little slow cooker and had the same result with that too...Are your stews thick? The whole thing was bubbling gently away in there...I did read that too and put in the onions, then the carrots, then the potatoes, then the meat which had been browned and tossed in flour. I put just enoguh liquid to come slightly under the meat..... no idea what I did wrong....

surfsister

Thank for the suggestions. I can't use creamed soup etc as I can't eat dairy, but the suggestions for thickening granules or instant potato are worth trying.
I couldn't reduce the liquid of the dish I cooked yesterday - it didn't even cover the chicken completely, but it was still really runny.

I use my slow cooker all the time and never had problems.

Do you add boiling stock/gravy to start and preheat the slowcooker? This helps with cooking time. Also don't open the lid during cooking time if at all possible as it loses the heat/moisture seal built up round the top in cooking and increases coking time. How long did you cook the chicken for my cooker will cook a whole chicken in about 6 hours with boiling stock.

Maybe you are adding too many veg with the meat?

Hope you work it oot as we have sued our cooker for 30 years and love it.

Tom99

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I cook a whole chicken, nothing added at all, breast down so it rests in the juice, 5 hours.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Then every last piece of meat falls off the bone nothing wasted and you have a nice jug of juice for the gravy.[/FONT]

joedenise

-taff wrote: »

How do you do yours? Do yours come out thick or runny?

I used to have a little slow cooker and had the same result with that too...Are your stews thick? The whole thing was bubbling gently away in there...I did read that too and put in the onions, then the carrots, then the potatoes, then the meat which had been browned and tossed in flour. I put just enoguh liquid to come slightly under the meat..... no idea what I did wrong....

You used far too much liquid. You only need about half of what you would use if cooking in a pan on the cob or in a covered casserole dish in tbe oven. The
liquid in a slow cooker doesn't evaporate like it does in other forms of cooking.

Denise