Slow Cookers, is the one from Tesco any good?

My experience is that all but the dearest, multifunction slow cookers are close to useless.

If you have an oven and a large cast iron, lidded cooking vessel (use your preferred name here) to put in it, you basically have a slow cooker already. It's likely to be a lot safer to leave powered on for prolonged periods too than some bargain basement supermarket electronics.

For pulled pork/beef, it's already a compromise over doing it in a smoker and realistically the oven version is going to be as good as doing it a slow cooker

https://www.seriouseats.com/easy-oven-pulled-pork-recipe

If you don't have an oven, one of the Ninja multifunctionals would probably be the best option, but clearly a LOT dearer.

My first and so far only slow cooker I got for my 21st birthday. 20+ years later it's still going strong. I don't know where it came from but it's not a recognised brand. Its not the one on the Tesco site: https://www.tesco.ie/groceries/en-IE/products/298468981?srsltid=AfmBOopmOcvmTOjUtSddd_YE2k3L8JkC-yGh0NphNYM4iBp-EHPSClwa

I didn't know multifunction slow cookers were a thing to be honest. Mine has 3 settings, low, high and off.

For 25 euro I say go for it!

I hear it only works with stuff bought with club card

😎

According to that link it's actually one cent cheaper than the Tesco one.

@GalaxyRyder Here is a super simple Pulled Pork recipe, no slow cooker needed:

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/pulled-pork

One thing, when getting the shoulder of pork, ask the butcher to trim any fat off.

You put the large pot in the oven after the initial stage in those recipes.

It will use a similar enough amount of power, it's something designed to both be left on and handle high amounts of power. Ovens are efficient and insulated, they do need to heat a larger amount of space though.

There isn't a huge amount of stuff a slow cooker can do that a pot in a low oven can't.

If you don't have a oven, or have an unsuitable oven (gas, can't maintain temperature well, etc), or need the oven for something else a slow cooker can be one of the cheapest cooking devices you're going to find - but the use case for me just doesn't exist as the oven can do it all with my existing cookware, and I don't need to lose more kitchen space to a single purpose gadget.

Would recommend an instant pot. It's a slow cooker and so much more than that.

You are intending to walk away from another electrical appliance that's turned on, one a hell of a lot cheaper than an oven and potentially bought in a supermarket…

Yes.

I would far more trust having a permanently wired oven running at a low temperature, than a counter top device on for the same amount of time.

Your calculations are incredibly wrong. Try a euro or so in total

100c will have the element running at a duty cycle of about 1/6th or less.

My main oven takes about 3kW to maintain the cavity at 300C, although you wouldn't want to as that's when the pyrolitic liner kicks in. That's less than a euro an hour. Bringing an oven to 100C takes significantly less power; and keeping it there even less due to less loss to the surrounding atmosphere than at high temperatures.

Everything. It's the most frequently used thing in our house apart from perhaps the kettle.

It's doing a slow cooked honey and garlic chicken curry at the moment (6 hours) but we frequently use it for pressure cooking - mushroom rice, chicken biriyani, various other 'pilau' dishes etc etc. Currys and soups of all types - especially with lentils - pressure cooking gets it done in a fraction of the time. Pressure cooking is also healthy as well as energy efficient.