When buying Slow Cookers you should firstly think about the brand that you’re buying. In fact we often recommend that before you get into the detail of choosing a product, you should firstly spend some time researching the various brands. It’s also worth considering writing up your own list of brands that you’d be happy to buy. The advantage of this is not leaving all that lovely seared flavour behind in a pan, and it reduces washing-up. Finally, look for a slow cooker with a transparent lid, so you can keep an eye on your food’s progress. Lifting the lid of a slow cooker while it’s in use lets out heat and steam, prolonging cooking time. It’s always best to be able to see what’s going on without doing so. Are slow cookers easy to clean? Functions: additional functions on the slow cooker including browning, reheating, reducing and whether it is hob or oven-safe

You can activate a keep warm setting to keep your food ready for as long as six hours after your cooking mode has finished. The sear mode took only a few minutes to pre-heat and we were able to brown our onions before adding curry ingredients, which delivered a lot of extra flavour.The slow cooker's 'reduce' function was useful for bubbling away excess liquid after slow cooking. The inner pot needs to be at room temperature before you start cooking. If you've kept a slow cooker dish in the fridge, you must wait for it to warm up before turning it on.

Need Inspiration?

This function can be found on the majority of slow cookers, helping to retain the temperature of your food without cooking it further – handy when you’re struggling to round up the family! The Russell Hobbs Good to Go Multicooker is a true multi-tasker. Armed with a variety of capabilities, you can make sure that your meat is cooked just right before you cut it open, or fill up a water bath for succulent sous vide fish or veggies. This digital slow cooker comes with a removable control dial on its front control panel, which has pre-set modes for steaming and stewing as well as high and low manual temperature levels. There is also a keep warm mode.

The first thing you need to consider with any slow cooker is its capacity – each will list its bowl size in litres. Bear in mind that this won’t translate to the same amount of food, as you shouldn’t fill slow cookers to the brim. This gap allows your food to bubble and simmer properly. The usable cooking space will be around three-quarters of its bowl size, for example, a five-litre cooker can accommodate around four litres of food. When we tested its slow cooking mode we found that it's almost too good at retaining moisture. Recipes that came out more saucy in some slow cookers were a little less rich because it's also designed to be an airtight pressure cooker. That can be remedied though by adding less liquid or taking into account the liquid that will come out of meat and veggies when you add them. Slow cookers are nifty appliances that do all the cooking for you, so you can whip up scrumptious meals without spending hours working away behind a stove.They also calculate the energy consumed by each model to see how economical they are, and measure the moisture lost when cooking to ensuring your dinner won't end up dried out. There are, as you know, many different brands offering Slow Cookers, so our advice is just take your time to write up your list of brands you’d be happy to buy, and use that list to filter your search when shopping online. It’s a great way of really cutting down the number of results to look through. Removing the need to sauté in a pan before transferring to the pot, the Sage Fast Slow Go is as useful for slow cooking converts as it is to experienced cooks. Functioning as both a slow cooker and a pressure cooker, it includes sensors at the top and bottom to monitor temperature. This makes inconsistently cooked stews a thing of the past.