Hamilton Beach Programmable Flexcook 6 Quart Slow Cooker Model 33861

Many of us are spending less and less time cooking meals. A study by Kenwood found that the average adult spends just an hour cooking each day, nearly half the time their parents spent in the kitchen at the same age.

Though cooking can seem like a chore, nothing beats a home cooked meal when the weather cools down. A slow cooker can be a busy person's best friend, allowing you to prepare in the morning and come home to a lovely hot curry, stew or chilli.

But when using a slow cooker, it's important that you don't put the wrong things into your recipe, as this can be a disaster!

To keep things simple, and ensure you get tasty meals in the most convenient way, here's our handy guide on how to use a slow cooker properly, and what you should never put in your crockpot.

Foods you shouldn't put in a slow cooker

1. 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.

foods you shouldn't put in a slow cooker

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2. Raw meat

A crockpot's gentle heat means meat will never get a chance to brown, but it's the golden colour from frying that gives it depth of flavour. If you don't want your stew to taste bland, brown the meat first, then put it in the slow cooker.

3. Too much liquid

Slow cookers are excellent at retaining their moisture, so pouring in too much stock or water will mean your casserole tastes insipid. If you're using a stew recipe that wasn't written for the slow cooker (and please do – it's a great idea!), reduce the liquid quantity by roughly half.

You can always top it up during the cooking time if it looks dry.

4. Delicate vegetables

Long cooking is great for softening hard root veg, but it's a brutal treatment for delicate vegetables like courgettes, asparagus and peas, and will render them mushy.

Don't add them to the slow cooker until near the end of the cooking time.

5. Too much spice

Resist temptation to get silly with the chillies! Fiery ingredients become increasingly hotter the longer they're cooked, so sprinkling them in with everything at the beginning is only for total spice fiends. For everyone else, it's best to stir them in at the last minute.

6. Dairy

Prolonged cooking of dairy products causes them to separate. Adding milk, cream or yogurt to crockpots at the beginning of cooking is a sure-fire way to wind-up with a grainy, watery mess at the end. Stir it in once the recipe has finished cooking.

7. Too much booze

As mentioned before, slow cookers don't evaporate much liquid, so putting large glugs of wine or beer straight into to your crockpot is not a great idea.

Alcohol needs to evaporate a little to taste appealing and not acrid, so try reducing it in a separate pan on the hob first.

PhotoAlto/Frederic Cirou Getty Images

8. Meat that has the skin on

Skin-on cuts of meat need the dry heat of roasting or grilling to crisp up. Cook them in a crockpot and you'll end up picking unappetising, flubbery bits of skin out of your casserole.

9. Soft fresh herbs

Unless you're using woody herbs like rosemary or thyme (and if you use these, use them sparingly as they're potent), cooking soft herbs like basil or coriander for too long will obliterate their delightful fragrant properties. Stir them in just before serving.

10. Seafood

Just like lean cuts of meat, fish and shellfish need to be cooked for a very short time or risk being destroyed. The only exceptions are squid and octopus, which can benefit from a slow braise to tenderise them to perfection.

11. Pasta and rice

It might seem like a time-saver to bung these staple ingredients in with your slow cooker stew, but doing so will turn your hard work into a gloopy, congealed mess - they're too starchy and cook too quickly.

It's wiser to cook pasta and rice separately once your dish is close to being done, and serve them alongside.

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