4 Best Slow Cookers, Evaluated and Reviewed

A quality slow cooker is one that’s easy to program, carry, and clean. It should have a stable base, sufficient capacity for you and your family, and intuitive controls that do exactly what they say. 

CR tested seven popular slow cookers by brands such as Crock-Pot, Hamilton Beach, Ninja, Cuisinart, and more. Their prices ranged from $45 to $300, and we chose slow cookers with a capacity between 6 and 8.5 quarts. Then we set to work making batch after batch of beef stew and testing each device on its low and high settings, as well as its “keep warm” function. We found differences in how easy they are to operate and even how well they cooked our ingredients. 

Sneak peek: All of our slow cookers did an outstanding job of cooking meat and veggies to perfection, but the ones with intuitive interfaces and helpful features won us over. We also paid close attention to which were easy to clean or made our arms tired from all that scrubbing. 

These are the four slow cookers you need in your busy life.