Behind On Thanksgiving Cooking? Crock Pot to the Rescue!

I’m busier this year than I’ve ever been. How about you? With spare time becoming more sparse by the day, it’s easy to get behind…especially during the holidays.

If you find yourself scampering about trying to put together a delicious Thanksgiving meal, but still running short of time, drag our your crock pot.

What?

Yep, cooking some of those favorite Thanksgiving staples in a crock pot can not only save you time and energy, but can also take your staple side dishes to new heights of flavor.

Because crock pots (also called pressure cookers or slow cookers) trap steam and cook your food slowly, they often result in meat that falls off the bone and increased moistness of breads and stuffings.

Imagine how much more delectable your Thanksgiving dressing would turn out by cooking it in a crock pot, rather than the oven.

Let’s take a look at some recipes…

Thanksgiving Crock Pot Recipes

1. Thanksgiving Dressing: I just mentioned it above, so why not start with it? The cool thing about slow cooking is that you get to keep all of your favorite recipes in tact…you just cook them in a crock pot instead of the oven.

So get out that old favorite dressing recipe and get it going in the pressure cooker. If you don’t have a favorite recipe, or maybe you just want to try something different, check out these great Thanksgiving dressing crock pot recipes on CDKitchen.com

2. Sweet Potatoes: Sweet potatoes are the same way…just make your favorite recipe in the crock pot instead of the oven. CDKitchen also has some great sweet potato recipes like cider-glazed sweet potatoes, peachy glazed sweet potatoes, or orange-spiced sweet potatoes.

What’s your favorite sweet potato recipe for Thanksgiving?

3. Cornbread Stuffing: Our friends at The Daily Green have some great Thanksgiving crock pot recipes from Stephanie O’Dea’s well-known book, Make it Fast, Cook it Slow. (Also be sure to check out her blog, A Year of Slow Cooking.

One of my favorite crock pot recipes that they’ve featured is the cornbread stuffing. This recipe is also super-easy to make gluten-free or vegetarian.

If you like these last-minute crock pot recipes, be sure you keep a few recipes on hand for those surprise vegetarian Thanksgiving guests too.

What are your favorite crock pot recipes for Thanksgiving?

[Photo: ben.gallagher/Flickr]