Crock-Pot SCV655B Slow Cooker, Aluminium, 300 W, 6.5 liters, Black

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With so many different slow cookers out there, choosing the right one for you can be confusing. Here are a few questions you might want to consider. Slow cookers have got so much going for them, it’s hard not to love them. Not only will a good one save you time and effort in the kitchen, it’ll save you money too. Slow cookers transform cheaper cuts of meat into tender dishes and liven up economical healthy pulses, like lentils, beans and peas. Plus, while they can be on all day, it’s at such a low wattage that it will only cost pennies.

The controls tend to be similar on most slow cookers with a ‘low’ setting for longer, slower cooking throughout the day and a ‘high’ setting for faster cooking with similar slow-cooked results. An increasingly popular way of cooking, sous-vide is a French term that simply means ‘under vacuum’. You place your food inside a sealed pouch and then pop it into a temperature-controlled water bath to cook.READ NEXT: Create super-smooth sauces with these fab hand blenders Does it matter what the pot is made of? The inner pot needs to be at room temperature before you start cooking. If you've kept a slow cooker dish in the fridge, you must wait for it to warm up before turning it on. When testing these slow cookers we were keen to try out each of their main cooking settings, so while a more simple manual slow cooker was used to make a stew or simple curry, we pressure cooked meat and steamed fish in the more complex slow cookers on the market. When slow cookers came with digital settings we attempted delay-start recipes and tested how easy they were to use.

Rice and pasta dishes work best cooked on high for the shortest time possible. Always use easy-cook rice, rinsed well first – the more starch you rinse from the rice, the better the finished result. Slow cookers are also brilliant for less-than-confident cooks, easily creating all those meals that seem a bit scary on the hob. That’s because slow cooking develops the flavours of food for richer, tastier results. It’s not just dinners that slow cookers excel at making either. They make great porridge, granola, stewed apples, bread and butter pudding, fudge and dips. You can use your slow cooker to melt chocolate, as a Bain-marie. How much should I spend on a slow cooker? Design: Are you looking for a simple, budget-friendly option that just slow-cooks (but does it extremely well) or something more versatile that sous-vides, pressure cooks, bakes and roasts too? Do bear in mind that the more technological the slow cooker, the higher the price. Slow cookers with digital controls may also have a delay start, which is ideal if you’re out of the house for more than eight hours. This means you can start cooking at a time to suit you – while it’s hard to overcook recipes with a lot of liquid, this gives more freedom with dishes that could potentially start to dry out. A timer is another handy feature – this will either turn the machine off after cooking or put it into a limited time keep warm mode. This function starts your cooking off on a high setting before automatically reducing the temperature to the low setting for the remainder of the cooking time.

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Basic slow cookers won’t get hot enough to sauté meat or vegetables, so you’ll need to do this in a pan before transferring the contents to the bowl. However, more expensive models offer a different one-pot solution. This can either be bowls that you use on your hob or in your oven in place of a pan (some will even be induction compatible). They will need to be moved to the slow cooker base. Machines with a sauté function for high-heat browning can simply be switched to slow cooking. Some slow cookers will automatically shift to this mode after a programme has ended, while others require switching manually. Some things can deter us all from cooking. Having to transfer food from a pan to a pot, cleaning up or that annoying puddle of water you get from putting the lid down on the worktop when it comes to the best slow cookers. If that's you, you need this model, which can act as a cooker and a serving pot that you can plonk down straight on the dining table. The first thing you need to consider with any slow cooker is its capacity – each will list its bowl size in litres. Bear in mind that this won’t translate to the same amount of food, as you shouldn’t fill slow cookers to the brim. This gap allows your food to bubble and simmer properly. The usable cooking space will be around three-quarters of its bowl size, for example, a five-litre cooker can accommodate around four litres of food. Slow cookers vary considerably, so follow your manufacturer's manual for guidelines on temperatures and cooking times.