In recent years, the ketogenic diet has exploded in popularity as a healthy way to shed excess pounds. The diet is based on ketosis, which helps you burn fat. People on a ketogenic diet usually eat foods high in fats and low in carbohydrates. When you eat fewer carbohydrates, your body goes into a metabolic state called ketosis, in which the amount of ketone in your blood and urine increases. During ketosis, our bodies start to burn fat to get the energy they need.
To get all the good fats, protein, and low-carb vegetables you need, whether you’re just curious about the ketogenic diet or a seasoned pro at monitoring your ketones, the slow cooker can be a helpful device. These keto Crock-Pot recipes are low-carb and yield plenty for meal prep, ensuring you have food for the week. And whether you’re following the keto diet or not, making meals in bulk can save you time and energy.
Keto Slow Cooker Recipes
Try one of these keto slow-cooker recipes when you want a meal that is easy to make and fills you up. Each serving of the main dish or side dish has 10 grams of carbs or less. This collection of recipes is courtesy of Lulu & Sweet Pea, Kitchn, and Taste of Home.
1. Slow Cooker Chicken Bacon Ragu’
Tender, flavorful chicken thighs braised in a rich sauce made from tomatoes and bacon, served with fennel that adds a subtle sweetness and a savory earthiness. This chicken ragù is best served atop a bed of buttery mashed potatoes. You’ll need fewer ingredients and less time to prepare this dish, but its flavor will be magnified tenfold. Ragùs are rich sauces typically prepared by slowly braising tough cuts of pork or beef and chicken thighs, resulting in tender, juicy meat that easily falls apart. Fennel, which has a flavor like licorice or anise, gives this ragù its distinctive quality. This is better served with roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes, gnocchi, pasta, or brown rice.
Ingredients
- 6 ounces of diced thick-cut bacon
- One small fennel bulb, diced, with fennel fronds saved for garnish if present.
- 1 cup of yellow onion, chopped
- Eight minced garlic cloves
- 1/2 kosher salt spoon
- freshly ground black pepper, one-fourth of a teaspoon
- Three tablespoons of regular flour
- half a cup of dry white wine
- 2 pounds of halves of boneless, skinless chicken thighs
- 1 Low-sodium chicken broth, 1/4 cup
- A spoonful or two of tomato paste
Directions
Set a large skillet over low heat, add the bacon, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until the bacon is crispy. The recommended amount of fat to drain is just two tablespoons.
After 5 minutes, add the fennel, onion, garlic, Salt, and pepper and simmer, occasionally stirring, until soft and shiny. In a skillet, sauté the vegetables for 1–2 minutes after sprinkling with flour. Add the wine and simmer for 1 minute, scraping up any browned bits from the pan’s bottom. Place the vegetables in a slow cooker that has a capacity of 4 to 5 quarts.
Put the pan back on the stove over medium heat. After about 3 minutes, add the chicken thigh pieces and sear them until a light golden crust forms. The point is to get some flavor going and get the cooking going. Put into the slow cooker. Pour the tomato paste and chicken broth into the pan and stir to combine. Pour this sauce over the chicken and vegetables.
Until the meat is soft enough to shred, it should be cooked in a slow cooker on the LOW setting for four hours and thirty minutes and five hours and 30 minutes with the lid on. Shred the chicken with two forks as roughly as possible in the slow cooker. To adjust the flavor, add Salt and pepper to taste. Place on top of mashed potatoes, gnocchi, spaghetti, brown rice, or roasted veggies. Place the fennel fronds on top as a garnish.
2. Slow Cooker Lamb Chops
These lamb chops cooked in a slow cooker are the most favorite way to eat lamb. They normally take a few hours to simmer on the stove. The finished product has an inviting scent and is so soft it melts on your tongue.
Slow cooking is fantastic since it’s nearly impossible to overcook food, even delicate cuts like lamb chops. Don’t overcook the lamb by failing to adhere to the recommended cooking periods. These lamb chops won’t get chewy because the herb rub contains Salt. To further preserve its juicy texture, lamb cooked in a slow cooker benefits from a long, moderate simmer. Chops should be chopped against the grain after cooking. There is a three-day storage window in the fridge for these lamb chops.
Ingredients
- Sliced medium onion (1 onion)
- A single teaspoon of dried oregano
- A half a teaspoon of dried thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
- About 1-3/4 pounds (8 chops) of lamb loin.
- Two minced garlic cloves
Directions
Put the onion slices in a 3-quart pot—stovetop or countertop slow cooker. The lamb chops will benefit from a rub made from a combination of oregano, thyme, garlic powder, Salt, and pepper. Cooked chops should be positioned atop the onion. Sprinkle some minced garlic on top. Turn the heat down low and cook the beef for at least four hours, covered.
3. Beef Barbacoa
Barbacoa, a traditional Mexican beef meal, is traditionally prepared using lamb or beef seasoned with various spices and chilies before being slow-cooked for several hours. When preparing barbacoa as a keto dish, you will need to leave out the high-carb choices, such as tacos, burritos, or tortillas, which are typically consumed with it. Low-carb substitutes, such as riced cauliflower, are also an option. For further flavor, sautéed onions or jalapenos can be added to the dish.
Ingredients
- Four pounds of beef brisket.
- One cup of beef bone broth
- A pair of Chipotle peppers (in adobo sauce)
- Three cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
- A pinch of Salt.
- 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper.
- One tablespoon of oregano
- One-half tablespoon of ground cumin.
- Two tablespoons of olive oil or avocado oil
Directions
For this recipe, you’ll need a big skillet. Put the pan over high heat to get ready. The beef brisket should be cut into pieces that are three inches long. Put some oil in the pan and throw a few pieces of meat. You should brown the meat in a skillet. Brown the meat and add it to the slow cooker, the bone broth, and the rest of the seasonings. For the best results, slow simmer it for at least 8 hours. To shred meat, wait until it is cooked and soft. Serve the barbacoa with cauliflower rice or some crisp lettuce leaves.
4. Slow Cooker Pot Roast
You can’t go wrong with a pot roast. This recipe is made in a slow cooker with just five ingredients and is nothing like the original. Yet, it’s impossible not to enjoy it. Typically, the pot roast is prepared with tiny carrots. Still, if you want to make this dish keto-friendly, you can omit the carrots. The large, tough cuts of beef used in this dish’s preparation are chosen for their suitability for low and slow cooking. The beef is then cooked till soft with herbs, Butter, vegetables, and seasonings. Whether you prefer chuck roast, briskets, or round roast, you can use any of these in this recipe.
Ingredients
- 3 to 5 lbs. Any cut of beef but preferably chuck roast
- Two chopped celery stalks
- One small white onion cut into a quarter
- Three tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce.
- 12 tsp. minced garlic
- ¼ tsp Black pepper
- A pinch of Salt to taste
- One teaspoon of dried parsley
- 4 tbsps. of Butter
Instructions
You don’t need a skillet for this recipe because everything goes straight into the slow cooker. At the bottom of your slow cooker, put the onions and celery. Now, put the chuck roast on top of the onions and celery. You’ll need a bowl for the spices. Add garlic, pepper, parsley, Salt, and Worcestershire sauce to the bowl and mix well. Pour this mixture all over the beef. Put the butter cubes on top of the beef and put the lid on the slow cooker. Let it cook for about nine hours or until it’s done. Serve the pot roast with sour cream or cheese on a platter.
5. Slow Cooker Poached Salmon with Lemon and Herbs
Even though this “poached” salmon recipe isn’t strictly about slow cooking, it shows off some of the other benefits of using a slow cooker, such as throwing everything in and forgetting about it. With this recipe, you won’t have to worry about dry, overcooked fish; instead, enjoy tasty salmon that stays juicy throughout cooking. The most time-consuming part of this dish is waiting 30 minutes before adding the fish to the savory soup, which is otherwise practically effortless. If you want to slow-cook anything, do that. One of the wonderful things about making stock is that you may use any herbs you have on hand.
Ingredients
- Approximately 2 cups of water
- One glass of dry white wine
- One lemon, sliced very thinly
- A single shallot, sliced very thinly
- One sprig of bay leaf
- Five to six sprigs of a fresh herb, like tarragon, dill, or Italian parsley
- a single teaspoon of ground black pepper
- Just one teaspoon of kosher Salt
- A pound of farm-raised salmon, skin on (or enough fillets for four to six servings)
- Salt and pepper, both kosher and freshly ground
- Served with lemon wedges, flaky sea salt, and extra virgin olive oil
Directions
Toss all the ingredients for the sauce into the slow cooker and set it on high for 30 minutes. Put the salmon in the slow cooker skin side down, and season the top with Salt and pepper. Salmon is done when it is opaque all the way through and flakes easily when tested with a fork. After 45 minutes to an hour, start testing for desired doneness and cooking until doneness is reached. Salmon can be kept heated for a few hours. Olive oil and coarse Salt work well with salmon. Garnish with lemon wedges and serve.
CONCLUSION
A slow cooker is ideal if you are constantly on the go but want to stick to a healthy diet like the ketogenic one. Using your tried-and-true slow cooker, you can whip up some simple keto slow cooker recipes. The versatility of slow cookers makes them useful for a wide variety of kitchen activities, and they may assist cooks of all experience levels in creating tasty meals. They offer a straightforward cooking method that involves slowly simmering food at low heat to bring out deeper, richer tastes.
Basically, you can throw everything in there and let it cook on its own. If you don’t waste hours in the kitchen but yet have a home full of delicious aromas, you might just forget about it. You can skip making a special meal for your family every night by making one of the above-mentioned keto slow cooker keto meals instead. The time and effort you save using these keto slow cooker meals are substantial. You can find a new favorite simple keto supper recipe here, from keto slow cooker chicken to low carb salmon.
A slow cooker can be a great help if you’re maintaining a diet such as a Keto Diet. It is also helpful if you’re trying to eat healthier but only have a little time to devote to meal preparation. Anybody who doesn’t have much time to devote to cooking but wants tasty, healthy meals might benefit from using a slow cooker. A slow cooker is a great addition to any kitchen because it allows you to do other things.
