Crock-Pot Dinners: Save Time, Energy, and Space

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Crock-Pot Dinners: Save Time, Energy, and Space

Staff Writer · Nov 17, 2010

Cooking meals with a crock pot is a smart idea for apartment dwellers who are short on space—and it makes sense for anyone who wants to save time and energy. Learn how using this versatile appliance, also known as a slow cooker, will have a positive impact on your apartment life.

Saving Time with a Slow Cooker

Making a meal with a crock pot can save you time because you let the slow cooker do most of the work. The versatile appliance typically needs only a little preparation (sometimes you need to pre-cook meat or mix together ingredients before adding them to the pot) and then you mix the ingredients together and let the meal cook for several hours or all day.

If it’s easier for you to find the time to spare to prepare a meal in the morning, the slow cooker is ideal for you. You’ll get everything ready to start cooking before you leave your apartment and can come home to begin eating dinner immediately with little to no preparation. (Some dishes do require a last-minute addition.) Cleanup is also incredibly easy; you’ll just have one pot to wash instead of a slew of pots and pans used in preparation.

Saving Energy with a Slow Cooker

Although you typically leave a crock pot on for several hours—and may even leave it on all day—you’re usually using less energy to run the appliance than you would running an oven for a couple of hours. Of course, this can vary depending on your oven, slow cooker and the total cooking time.

However, one indisputable way that a slow cooker saves you energy is during the hotter months. Using an oven will heat up your entire apartment, making you burn more energy to cool it down with an air conditioner or fan. A slow cooker won’t heat up the room.

Saving Space with a Slow Cooker

Perhaps most important to you as an apartment dweller whose apartment is cramped is being able to save space wherever you can. If you have a kitchenette in lieu of a full-sized kitchen, this is even more important because you have less counter space and less room in which to maneuver. A crock pot takes up a small amount of counter space—usually less than a microwave oven—and can produce nearly the same results as a full-sized oven.

You can cook many dishes in your slow cooker, even those more varied than soups and stews. Pasta dishes, lasagna, casseroles, chicken dishes, seafood dishes, vegetarian dishes and more can cook in your slow cooker for the day while you’re away. You can also use a slow cooker make warm drinks like homemade ciders and teas, jams and jellies, appetizers, breakfast foods and desserts.

A crock pot is a small investment that will prove to be an incredible convenience as soon as you use it. There’s no reason for any apartment dweller to go without a slow cooker, especially if all you have is a kitchenette.

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