Recipes By Sarah Digregorio
132 recipes found
Slow Cooker Senate Bean Soup
This ultrasimple bean soup has been on the menu at the U.S. Senate Dining Room and served to senators and their staff for more than 100 years. Even as politics have changed, this soup has remained basically the same: navy beans simmered to creamy tenderness with ham hocks, butter and onion. Fittingly, there is no consensus on where exactly the soup came from: Some say it dates back to the early 20th century, when Senator Fred Dubois of Idaho passed a resolution making it a menu staple. This slow-cooker version has updated the classic slightly, with the addition of carrots and smoked paprika. If you’d like more vegetables (how modern!), stir in about 8 ounces of chopped kale before serving. As a nod to Idaho, this version contains a single russet potato, which gets mashed at the end of cooking and thickens the soup beautifully.
Slow Cooker Chicken and Creamed Corn
This easy stew has all the gentle pleasures of creamed chicken and creamed corn along with the zip of maque choux, a Cajun sauté of corn and peppers that is often enriched with cream. This slow-cooker recipe combines the best of both dishes for a rich braise, good on its own or served over buttered toast or biscuits. Because it is not as thick as a roux-thickened version, this dish feels right for corn season. It’s lightly creamy and full of sweet corn flavor thanks to the cobs, which cook alongside the other ingredients. There is no need for liquid; the chicken and vegetables give up theirs, making this essentially self-saucing. Add the reserved corn kernels just before serving so that they retain their sweet pop.
Slow Cooker Creamy Tomato Lentil Soup
A summer soup is not an oxymoron. Take this lively lentil soup, rich and aromatic from both fresh and cooked tomatoes, and basil. Adding fresh tomatoes and basil at both the beginning and end of cooking ensures you get both their mellow, sweet side as well as their fresh, zingy side. The tomato paste and cream lend their sturdy flavors in a way that’s reminiscent of vodka sauce, while the lentils almost melt away into the background. The slow cooker is actually a great warm-weather tool, because it doesn’t heat up your kitchen the way the oven does, and it uses very little energy. This soup holds very well on warm before you add the finishing ingredients, making the timing flexible and weeknight-friendly.
Slow Cooker Hoisin Garlic Chicken
Best friends of cooks who are short on time but unwilling to sacrifice flavor, boneless, skinless chicken thighs are slow-cooked to tenderness with hoisin, garlic and tomato paste for an incredibly easy, saucy braised chicken that is subtly sweet and just a little spicy. Make a big pot on the weekend and use it all week for topping rice or noodles, or stuffing in tortillas. You could even shred the chicken more finely and tuck it into a bun with hot sauce, like pulled pork. The ingredients go straight into the slow cooker with hardly any prep at all, making it doable in the morning before work or school. The finishing step of reducing the sauce is necessary to create an appealingly glazed, sticky texture.
Sheet-Pan Socca (Savory Chickpea Pancake)
Crispy on the outside and creamy at their core, socca are thin, olive-oil-rich chickpea pancakes. In Provence they’re often made on wide, flat copper skillets, but a screamingly hot sheet pan works extremely well, too — and makes an extra-large chickpea cake that can serve as a light dinner or an easy appetizer. Socca are usually not topped with anything more than black pepper; they are delicate and can’t support more than minimalist additions. However, a light scattering of toppings — like anchovies, pecorino and scallions here — makes socca qualify as a simple and delicious meal. A handful of chopped olives added before baking would also work, as would a garnish of torn slivers of prosciutto, draped on top just before serving.
Slow Cooker Garlic Butter Chicken
The seasoning of this rich garlic and herb braise is inspired by escargot butter, which famously makes everything delicious, and is easy to make with just a few impactful ingredients. A generous dollop of sour cream added before serving brings it all together and makes it feel a little fancy. Top bowls generously with croutons, which lend crunch and soak up the flavorful sauce, or serve with thick slices of crusty bread.
Slow Cooker Tajín Chicken and Peppers
This easy braise is generously spiked with Tajín, the chile-lime salt that is often sprinkled on fresh fruit but can also be used as a punchy, one-stop seasoning for grilled chicken and salads. You can eat the stew in bowls, with tortilla chips on the side, or on top of rice, or use a slotted spoon to tuck it into tortillas for tacos, burritos or enchiladas. Mild or hot cans of roasted, chopped green chiles are usually stocked near the canned chipotles and pickled jalapeños, and are a versatile pantry item to have on hand.
Slow-Cooker Boneless Chicken Breasts
These simple, savory chicken breasts are money in the bank on a weeknight: Chop them for a salad, tuck them into quesadillas or tacos with cheese and salsa, add to a ready-made simmer sauce, or toss with pasta. The seasoning is punchy but neutral enough to work in many preparations, and you can easily tweak it to your taste by, for instance, slightly increasing the cumin and red pepper to make tacos, or decreasing the cumin and increasing the thyme to make a classic chicken salad. The real key to this recipe is checking the internal temperature of the chicken. White meat will dry out if overcooked, so pull the chicken out of the slow cooker when the thickest part of the breast reaches 155 degrees for about a minute, which will ensure juicy, tender meat that’s fully cooked.
Slow-Cooker Turkey Breast With Gravy
This browned and succulent, slow-cooker roast is largely hands-off and can solve several Thanksgiving conundrums, such as lack of oven space and a majority of white meat lovers at the table. Make it in addition to a whole turkey or as a substitute for it. The herbed dry brine helps to ensure moistness and flavor, but white meat doesn’t cut you much slack, so make sure to check the internal temperature: Pull the turkey out as soon as the thickest part of the breast is 155 degrees, or even a few degrees cooler. (Food safety is achieved by both heat and the amount of time the meat stays at that temperature, so the long cooking time plus carryover heat ensure safety here.) This recipe calls for a whole, skin-on, bone-in turkey breast. Standard slow cookers are between 6 to 8 quarts. If yours is 6 quarts, be sure to look for a breast on the smaller side, as anything more than about 6 1/2 pounds may not fit. If you plan to serve fewer people, see the tip for variations.
Slow-Cooker Chicken and Dumplings
Chicken and dumplings are a mainstay of the American South—though similar dishes exist worldwide—where there are generally two versions: stewed chicken with unleavened, chewy, noodle-like dumplings that are rolled out before being dropped into the broth; and fluffy leavened dumplings that are much like drop biscuits, which get dolloped on top of the stew, where they puff up as they poach. The dish works beautifully translated to the slow cooker because the chicken and vegetables can braise slowly, intensifying the flavor of the chicken broth. This variation uses leavened drop-dumplings with a touch of cornmeal for sweet-earthy flavor and buttermilk for tenderness and tanginess. This dish is traditionally made with a whole chicken cut up into parts, but this streamlined adaptation uses boneless, skinless chicken thighs.
Sausage and Peppers One-Pot Pasta
This one-pot pasta is inspired by New England-style sausage with peppers and onions, the kind sold outside Fenway Park: The soft, slightly charred vegetables sit in a tangle on a juicy grilled Italian sausage, served on a roll. Here, the onions and peppers get a quick, hot sauté to brown them. Use loose, raw Italian sausage (either sweet or hot), or use raw sausage in casings and squeeze the meat out of the casings and into the pot. The pickled peppers added at the end give a nice pop of tangy heat, but if you don’t have them in your pantry, just squeeze in the juice of half a lemon instead.
Mayo-Grilled Broccoli
Broccoli is delicious with a little char from the grill, but often that high, direct heat can render the vegetable tough and dry. Enter mayonnaise: The silky emulsion of eggs and oil sticks to the nubby florets and insulates them, ensuring that the broccoli gets tender, rich and sweet while also developing deep charred flavor and crispy bits. Plus the mayonnaise acts as a nonstick coating and seasoning, all in one. (It also works beautifully on grilled proteins.) Be sure to cut the head of broccoli into large, long florets, including the stem, and lay them perpendicularly across the grill grates so they don’t fall into the fire.
Salmon and Kimchi Skillet
Sautéing kimchi brings out its mellower side: a delicious, cabbage-y sweetness. In Korean cuisine, stir-fried kimchi (kimchi-bokkeum) is a classic staple served with rice. In this recipe, the kimchi is cooked in a fragrant mix of butter and toasted sesame oil along with just a touch of sugar, making a four-ingredient seasoning and sauce for salmon filets. Often, jarred cabbage kimchi is already chopped into large bite-size pieces, so you can simply empty the jar into the skillet. If your kimchi has very long or unwieldy pieces of cabbage, you may want to use kitchen scissors to snip them up in the jar (or chop it on a cutting board). Serve the salmon and kimchi with rice.
One-Pot Miso-Mascarpone Pasta
This six-ingredient pasta is reminiscent of an intensely creamy and savory mac and cheese thanks to just two ingredients: umami-rich miso and milky-rich mascarpone. The dish comes together quickly with pantry ingredients and with no need for chopping or grating. It is delicious simply as it is, but it’s also easy to add your own flourishes: Top with chile crisp, store-bought fried shallots or both. Or, make it more of a complete meal by adding mushrooms: Before starting, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in the pot and saute eight to 10 ounces of chopped mushrooms over high heat for about 8 minutes. Then add the water, miso, salt, oil and pasta and proceed with the recipe from Step 1.
Slow-Cooker Picadillo
This is a simple, slow-cooker version of picadillo, a beloved comfort food popular across the Caribbean and Latin America. (“Picadillo” roughly translates as “mince,” referring to the use of ground meat.) Its deep flavor comes from sautéed aromatics and tomatoes, simmered gently with ground beef and spices. Raisins and green olives give this Cuban-inspired version its distinctive sweet-salty-tangy pop, and here, they are added toward the end of the long cooking time so they retain their intensity. Picadillo is traditionally served with beans and rice, but you could also scoop it up with tortillas, or use it as a filling for empanadas or enchiladas. Some versions of picadillo include slivered almonds, so feel free to stir in about 1/4 cup of slivered almonds just before serving, or sprinkle them on top as a finishing touch.
Slow-Cooker Masala Dal
This recipe, which is adapted from “Classic Indian Cooking” by Julie Sahni (William Morrow, 1980), a treasury of foolproof recipes for home cooks. Masala dal is a staple of Indian cuisine and one that has infinite variations, but the basic technique is to simmer legumes until tender, then finish with a swirl of a tadka, ghee or other fat that’s infused with aromatics like onions, cumin seeds and chile. In the original recipe, the dal is boiled on the stovetop, but in this adaptation, the split peas are cooked in the slow cooker, which works beautifully, and has the advantage of making the timing a bit easier, as you can throw the peas into the slow cooker in the morning, and they will hold well until dinnertime. The success of this dish hinges on two key steps: First, be sure to beat the legumes to a creamy purée with a whisk before adding the tadka. Second, cook the onions on a higher heat and until darker in color than you might think: Ms. Sahni calls this technique “brown frying,” and it is not the same as making French caramelized onions, which are cooked lower and slower. As in cooking caramel candy, the last five minutes are critical: Stir the onions constantly and be aware they can burn quickly. Serve dal with basmati rice or Indian flatbreads such as naan.
Sheet-Pan Garlicky Shrimp and White Beans
Everything — the shrimp, the beans and the garlic bread — cook together on one pan for an under 30-minute meal that requires very little cleanup. Canned cannellini beans get a little crispy in the high heat and their mellow creaminess serves to bring the other ingredients together, but you could also use any cooked bean you have on hand. The only real bit of work is making a pungent paste of garlic to spread on the bread, but if you are really pressed for time, just rub each piece of bread with the cut side of a garlic clove. (The flavor will be milder.) If you keep shrimp and bacon in the freezer, just thaw the shrimp in a bowl of warm water while you prep the garlic bread, and no need to defrost the bacon; just cut it up and use it frozen.
Slow Cooker Harissa Bean and Couscous Stew
This weeknight-friendly stew is loosely inspired by North African tomato and bean dishes, like loubia. The stew has minimal prep, aside from soaking the beans, so it’s easy to throw into the slow cooker in the morning. Just before serving, it’s enriched with pearl couscous and a generous dose of zippy parsley. Harissa pastes differ in flavor and saltiness; taste yours before using it to make sure you like it, and adjust the amount of salt added at the end if necessary. You can always stir in more harissa before serving for extra spice. Orzo or ditalini can be used instead of couscous.
Slow Cooker Italian Wedding Soup
Italian wedding soup has many variations, but it is characterized by a rich broth, hearty greens and bite-sized meatballs. It’s a beloved part of the Italian-American canon, derived from minestra maritata, or married soup, which is not a soup served at weddings, but meaning that meat and vegetables are joined together. For this easy slow cooker version, instead of taking the time to make meatballs, use loose Italian sausage rolled into balls. (If you can’t find loose sausage, buy it in casings and then just cut the casings open, discard them and use the meat inside.) Italian wedding soup often features a small pasta, like couscous or ditalini, which makes for a heartier, less brothy soup. If you are using the optional pasta, use 7 cups of broth instead of 6.
Slow-Cooker Beef Stew
This super-simple beef stew features spoon-tender chunks of beef and a sauce that gets a deep, dark flavor from stout beer and maple syrup. The recipe calls for carrots, parsnips and potatoes, but feel free to swap in similar quantities of other root vegetables, like turnips and rutabaga, cut into large pieces. But do make sure to avoid precut stew meat from the grocery store, which is often unreliable and cut too small. A chuck roast that you cut yourself is a far better option. You can also make this on the stovetop or in the oven: Season the meat with salt, then sear it in 2 tablespoons vegetable oil over high heat in a Dutch oven. Add the rest of the ingredients, stir to combine, cover and simmer on low (or in a 325-degree oven) for 2 to 3 hours until the meat is very tender and move on to step 2.
Salad With Stone Fruit, Blue Cheese and Chicken Skin
Chicken Skin Tacos
Nate Gutierrez, the chef and owner of Nate’s Taco Truck and Nate’s Taco Truck Stop in Richmond, Va., could not stop snacking on the skin left over from his roast chickens. So, he decided to make chicken skin crisp on his flattop and offer it in a taco. The chicken-skin tacos sell out whenever they are on the menu. This recipe is adapted from his work: chicken breasts are cooked, the skin crisped and the meat shredded, and the whole thing stuffed into a tortilla. Top at will.
Slow Cooker Hot Honey Ribs
These simple, snackable ribs are slow cooked until they are very tender. Then the ribs are brushed with spicy honey, and broiled for 2 minutes to caramelize. Don’t worry that the ribs go into the slow cooker without liquid; the heat is gentle enough that the ribs do not burn, and the meat releases liquid as it cooks, so it braises in its own spiced juices. (You could also make these ribs in a pressure cooker by following this recipe.) One thing to note: Red chiles taste best in this recipe because green chiles are less sweet and can taste grassy. Any spicy red chile will work beautifully, and red-pepper flakes work in a pinch. If you prefer green chiles, however, you can use them.
Slow Cooker Chipotle-Honey Chicken Tacos
These may be the easiest tacos you ever make, but you’d never know it. The recipe hinges on just two ingredients: canned chipotles and honey, which slowly caramelize together for a glossy and incredibly tasty sauce. You may hesitate because there's so little liquid in the slow cooker with the chicken, but don't worry. That's how it's supposed to be. It allows the sauce to get a little sticky, which is exactly what you want. (Get the pressure cooker version of this recipe here.)