Hamilton Beach Temp Tracker 6 Quart Slow Cooker vs Ninja Foodi OP302

I just can’t fathom a Hamilton Beach slow cooker for $70-80. I believe this was in the $45-50 range when I purchased four years ago and I thought that was steep, looks like all slow cookers have increased tremendously in price. At that rate I’d rather pay a little more and get kitchen aid, or maybe even bump up to a higher end brand from there. Slow cookers used to last 20 plus years- 4 years is ridiculous

This little guy is the best bang for my buck in YEARS! I use it all the time. it works AWESOME and keeps my house from heating up from using my big oven..

So after about 5 hours, I took the lid off and let it cook on high. This did the trick. The watery sauce began to change into the thicker sauce I wanted. After this, I returned the lid and put the pork on low for another 1 hour and again removed the lid for the final hour

you need to coordinate the amount of food with the correct time and temperature. use only silicone, bamboo, wood utensils. that way you will have your pan as new for a long time.

I feel using the cooking bags help with my peace of mind, as well as with cleanup. The wire clamps to secure the crock for travel seem like they would work fine, but I don't travel with food, so I have only found them a bit annoying because they don't fold completely away from the side of the crock and you cannot use them while cooking. Another model is probably the same, but without the clamps. I was just overwhelmed with all the reading I did and picked this one without considering that I might not want the clamps

This goes right down and now I can start to add the chicken. I did coat the bottom of this basket with olive oil. Just to help it not stick as bad the...

The face of it is already starting to come off. The crock insert is much harder to clean than the original so they definitely changed the finish on that as well.

The top fan can be tricky to clean as well. There are some YouTube videos on how it’s done without unscrewing, but bottom line is that the screw head is not standard. Lastly, my unit died the day after the warranty ended. Only lasted a year

The ceramic crock: nice and heavy. So many slow cookers seem to be scrimping on the crocks these days. This one is heavy duty and exceedingly easy to clean (and I highly recommend using slow cooker bags to eas on the cleanup)

Perfect for RV's. Now it does have heft to it, but maybe that's why it still is working! This review was long overdue, but it's valid, tested, and true. When R2D2 finally dies, I'll buy another Ninja. They have other versions of the product, but we'll see if I just buy this one again

However, I did come across an awesome blog called a year of slow cooking that presented me with a bunch of easy-to-make recipes in very little time. (Since then I have found other blogs with other recipes: Get Crocked and 365 days of slow cooking for example but a year of slow cooking is still my favorite.) The recipe problem solved, I started cooking using my small, old, and very basic crockpot. And that crockpot was doable but some recipes call for cooking on low for 9 hours; others for 6 and really all I want is to throw the ingredients into the crockpot and forget about it

For pork/fish: Pat dry before cooking Husband's wondering if I'm going to ask for another one to be making ribs/burgers/steaks in 1, and french fries/roasted vegetables in the other. Kids even insisted we take it with us on one of our vacation trips (which we did!). Yeah, I don't want to be without it either!