3 Brilliantly Easy Ways to Deep Clean Your Slow Cooker
The stoneware pot of most modern slow cookers is removable and dishwasher safe, making leftover residue from soups and stews easy enough to clean. For heftier cleaning conundrums, try these three tips:
1. Set and forget.
For moderate messes, a bit of baking soda and dish detergent (and a lot of patience) should do the trick. The Crock-Pot Ladies recommend sprinkling baking soda onto stuck-on food before scrubbing. If that doesn't work, their second course of action is to pour 1/4 cup of baking soda into the ceramic pot, fill it with water, and add a dash of dish soap. Then cover it and set on high for 2-4 hours.
2. Add some vinegar and elbow grease.
After near-daily use of her Crock-Pot, Sarah, the blogger behind Life Should Cost Less, was left with a "ring of crud" that no amount of soaking or scrubbing could diminish. So she turned to nature's powerful cleaning agents (white vinegar and baking soda) and used the same thing that had caused the stains in the first place (the slow cooker's heating element) to break down the gunk. She filled the pots with water and added a half-cup of distilled white vinegar and a half-cup of baking soda for every 3 quarts of water, then turned the cooker on low. She scrubbed the pots once every hour for 4 hours. The process left her slow cookers nice and shiny:
3. Don't forget the inner walls.
Jillee at One Good Thing is such a cleaning pro, she has a super-easy means of cleaning the slow cooker's innermost interior (you know, beneath the removable pot). She fills a small bowl with ammonia, covers the cooker with the lid, and leaves it overnight. The next day, any stains "wipe right off." Voila!
