Kansas Beef Council - Lean Slow Cooker Meals (2024)

FAQs

Is lean beef good for slow cooking? ›

Lean meats

While slow cooking turns tougher, sinewy joints of meat (think beef shin, oxtail, pork shoulder) into tender morsels, lean cuts (chicken breast, pork fillet, fillet steak) cook down to tough leather. It's better to leave these pieces of meat for frying or grilling.

Skirt. A thin, long and versatile cut that tends to be reserved for slow cooking, skirt steak comes from the cow's diaphragm muscles. It's lean and tough, with intense, melt-in-your-mouth flavours that emerge when cooked slowly.

Place firm, slow-cooking root vegetables like potatoes and carrots at the bottom of the crock and pile the meat on top. Set the heat level: A general rule of thumb is that cooking on the low setting (170 degrees F for most models) takes about twice as long as cooking on high (280 degrees F on most models).

It depends on what cut of beef and how you cook it. If you take a tough cut of meat and cook it at a low heat with liquid it will become tender but this takes some time. If you take a more tender cut of meat and cook it for a long time with high heat it will become dry and hard.

Lean means that 100 grams of beef (about 3 1/2 ounces) have less than 10 grams of fat, 4.5 grams or less of saturated fat, and less than 95 milligrams of cholesterol. Extra Lean means that 100 grams of beef with less than 5 grams of fat, less than 2 grams of saturated fat, and less than 95 milligrams of cholesterol.

Add Just Enough Liquid

If you want the dish to be saucy, or you're making a beef stew, add enough liquid to come about 1/3 of the way up on the meats in the slow cooker. This allows your meat to braise, not boil. Boiling creates tough meat!

The leanest beef cuts include round steaks and roasts (eye of round, top round, bottom round, round tip), top loin, top sirloin, and chuck shoulder and arm roasts. Choose lean ground beef. The label should say at least "90% lean." You may be able to find ground beef that is 93% or 95% lean.

Your meat will be juicier and more tender

It also makes the meat far more flavorful. Moreover, the slow-and-low method ensures you get that fall-off-the-bone tender meat. The same results just aren't achieved when cooking meat on high heat for a shorter period of time.

Best cuts: Sirloin tip side steak, eye of round roast, top round steak and bottom round steak. Worst cuts: T-bone steak, rib-eye steak, filet mignon and porterhouse steak.

Does meat get more tender the longer you cook it in a slow cooker? ›

Aside from being juicier, slow-cooking makes meat a lot more tender and flavorful. The extra juices help to accomplish this but it's mainly the long-cooking time that brings out the richness of the meat. You're giving the meat a chance to mature in a sense bringing all the flavors to life.

A perfectly cooked beef joint makes a wonderful centrepiece for a Sunday roast or Christmas dinner. To cook it until it's so tender it falls apart, you'll need to choose a joint like chuck and blade or beef brisket and either braise, slow roast or slow cook it for at least a couple of hours.

Insufficient Liquid: If there wasn't enough liquid in the crockpot, it could have caused uneven cooking. Potatoes need to be fully submerged in liquid to cook evenly. Old Potatoes: Very old or stored potatoes can become starchy and may not soften as well during cooking. It's best to use fresh, firm potatoes.

Tender vegetables such as zucchini and beans can be added to your dish in last ¾ - 1 hour of cooking when cooking on High, or 2 hours if cooking on Low. Hard, starchy vegetables like potato and carrots are best added around 3 hours before the meal is done if cooking on High, and 4 hours on Low.

Never add onions to a slow cooker dish that you haven't sautéed first – I find you get that slight raw onion flavour throughout and it just ruins the dish for me. I really think it's worth the extra effort. It's the only ingredient I bother to pre-cook! Everything else you can chuck straight in.

When making burgers with very lean ground beef, consider making additions compensate for the lack of fat. Try diced up peppers or caramelized onions to add moisture. The leaner burgers will also require about a third less cooking time, so keep an eye on them.

For example, chuck is a lean and tender cut of beef that works well in stew. However, if you would prefer a thicker and more flavorful stew, short ribs or oxtail may be better choices for you. To make a delicious stew, choose good-quality ingredients.

Trim fat from meat before slow cooking

Normally when you fry meat, a lot of the fat drains away, but this won't happen in a slow cooker so trim it off – otherwise you might find you have pools of oil in your stew. Removing the fat will give you a healthier result, and it'll still be tasty.

Stew is the ideal time to skip the lean, pricier cuts of meat and go for the less expensive, tougher cuts. The long, slow cook time leaves lean meat, like sirloin, tough and chewy, while tougher cuts, like chuck, break down and become really tender.