Also, the removable stoneware is dishwasher safe for easy cleanup. Macaroni and cheese We also tested how well the slow cookers would handle more delicate ingredients, so we found a slow-cooker macaroni and cheese recipe and set it on Low for six hours. Now, macaroni and cheese is delicious and not particularly hamilton beach mixer hard to make, but this recipe did not turn out well with any of the five slow cookers. In all fairness, that was the fault of the recipe rather than the slow cookers in this case. The recipe required eggs and it really turned out more like an eggy noodle casserole than it did melty macaroni and cheese.
Later on, you’ll come home to a perfectly cooked meal that’s ready to serve. Hamilton Beach® 7 & 8 Quart Slow Cookers are sized just right for feeding a crowd, satisfying the appetite of a large family, and saving leftovers for lunch. Each one is outfitted with oval-shaped stoneware that’s ideal for cooking a whole chicken or roast to tender perfection. The handles stick out fairly far from the sides of hamilton beach toaster the Hamilton Beach unit, making it a full two inches wider than the competing $59 Crock-Pot Cook & Carry Digital Slow Cooker. The Crock-Pot model also has posts to wrap the power cord around, which the Hamilton Beach lacks. Those Crock-Pot design notes make it a bit easier to transport and to store at home, but the Hamilton Beach makes up the difference with some useful features I’ll get to shortly.
One feature common to both the Hamilton Beach and Crock-Pot units is that they come with clips that you can use to secure the lid for safe transport. That means that you can stick this slow cooker in your car and take it to a get-together without worrying about chili spilling all over your seats. But Hamilton Beach also added a thermometer probe to its list of features. Select probe mode, plug the probe into the provided jack and stick it through the lid vent, and the unit will automatically switch to warm mode when your food reaches the desired temperature. Host the best event ever by letting a roaster, slow cooker or crock pot do the heavy lifting. Toss in your ingredients & spend the next few hours enjoying your guests.
If you can get past its awkward display panel layout, I think you’ll appreciate the value, performance, and transportability of this $59.99 Hamilton Beach slow cooker. The Crock-Pot has a lower profile design, so if maintaining counter or cabinet tidiness is a big priority, you might have a look at that one instead. And if you want something a bit more fancy, the $199.80 Ninja is a decent, if less portable choice for its oven mode and other advanced cooking features. All of that is a bit more involved than the simpler, set-and-forget Crock-Pot. It’s certainly not overly complex, but you might need to read through the manual once or twice to get it all down. I do wish the display was a bit more thoughtfully designed — it borders on clumsy.
They’ll also keep your meal warm when cooking is finished. For easy cleanup after the meal, simply put the removable stoneware and glass lid in the dishwasher. I also cooked a whole chicken using the Hamilton Beach Probe mode, where the slow cooker automatically switches to Warm when it reaches the preselected temperature. I periodically checked the probe temperature against the food thermometer we use in other testing and they were always within a couple degrees of each other.
You might get better results if you’re willing to experiment, but prepare to burn through a lot of chicken to find the appropriate setting. Water boil We used this test to set a performance baseline — which slow cooker would reach the highest temperature the fastest, etc., and how (if at all) would that correlate to the food tests? We tested the slow cookers for eight hours on Low and then for four hours on High. On Low, the Breville slow cooker began to boil the fastest and maintained that temperature for the remainder of the test. The Frigidaire followed, then the Crock-Pot, and then the Hamilton Beach.
Prices and offers on may not apply to purchases made on See Terms of Use details. Prices, Promotions, styles, and availability may vary. Prices and availability of products and services are subject to change without notice. Stay up-to-date on the hottest food trends with our blog, discover a new favorite dish with recipes from our Test Kitchen, access your account, and so much more. It also confirmed our initial water boil test results. The Breville macaroni turned out very brown and overdone.