This will come in handy if you’re out for the day. Once the timer you set has been reached, the cooker will either switch off or automatically shift to the ‘keep warm’ setting, depending on the model, so you come home to dinner that's ready to serve. Full instruction booklet – including helpful hints, tips, recipes for Slow-Cooked Meatballs in Tomato Sauce and Sous Vide Asian-Style Salmon Fillets, and guides for frying different foods and making yoghurt Finished results: the tenderness of the meat and vegetables, the consistency of the cooked sauce and the heat of the food when serving Please note: the delay-start function isn’t available on the sauté, fry, fondue or manual settings.

As with all Lakeland electricals, it’s been tested, tested and tested again until we’re confident it’s more than up to the task, it’s covered by our 3-year guarantee for added reassurance – and it’s a great price too! Looking for a discount on one of the slow cookers on this list? Cyber Monday has officially begun and is a great time to grab a bargain on one of these tried-and-tested products.

The best slow cookers you can buy in 2023

For those times when you want to prep ahead, the delay-start function means you can programme it to start at any time from 5 minutes to 24 hours in advance (in 5-minute increments), so your meal can be served at just the right time of day. Once the delay time is finished, it will then count down the cooking time, so you’ll always be able to tell when your meal is ready. And if you want a little more leeway before you start eating, choose the keep-warm function when you’re setting the time or temperature, and then select how long you want to keep your food warm, from half an hour to 12 hours. Functions: additional functions on the slow cooker including browning, reheating, reducing and whether it is hob or oven-safe 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. Once the meal is finished, simply remove the inside cooking bowl and wash either in the dishwasher or in warm soapy water. This slow cooker is the perfect cooking aid for anyone with a busy lifestyle who still wants to enjoy delicious home-cooked meals. The prolonged process of slow cooking allows any meat that is being cooked to tenderise, maximising flavour and juiciness. The versatile cooker is great for soups, stews, casseroles, curries and much more. There is even a handful of recipes in the instruction manual to help get your started.

As you can see from the list above, you’re spoilt for choice when it comes to what and how it cooks. And you can alter either the time or temperature or both for most of the functions, giving you more control over your recipes. In fact, it does so much, we just don’t have the space to go into all the details here, so take a look at the instruction booklet below if you want to find out more – it’s got all the extra information you’ll need to decide if it’s what you’re looking for. Below you'll find the best slow cookers according to our experts, as well as everything you need to know before shopping – from must-have features to their energy efficiency. How we test slow cookersWhen you make a one-pot dish, you usually start by searing the meat or sautéing base ingredients such as onions and garlic. Most slow cookers don’t let you do this, but there are a few that do. Some, such as the Morphy Richards Sear and Stew Digital Slow Cooker 460015, simply have a metal pot that’s sturdy enough to heat on your own hob (gas or electric, not induction).

Why deal with the hassle of using multiple appliances when one Multi Cooker can effortlessly take on the tasks of an oven, Food Steamer, Rice Cooker, and more? Cook delicious dishes with ease with this 3.5 litre capacity slow cooker from Cooks Professional. There is no need to spend hours slaving away over a hot stove as this slow cooker will do all the hard work for you.

READ NEXT: Create super-smooth sauces with these fab hand blenders Does it matter what the pot is made of? Nothing beats the tender, succulent, melt-in-the-mouth flavours of slow-cooked meals, and we love how easy it is, too – any meal where you just throw everything into a pot, and then leave it to cook your dinner while you’re doing other things, is always going to be a winner with us. But we wanted a machine that could do even more than slow cooking, and would take all the hard work out of lots of other ways to cook, which is why we’ve come up with our Digital Slow & Multicooker. To help you make your food ready for just when you need it, this slow cooker comes with 3 different heat settings. For an ultra-low and slow cook, the ‘Low’ setting will slowly simmer your meat and veg, giving you the most succulent and tender result when it comes to eating. If you’re in a bit more of a hurry, then the ‘High’ setting raises the temperature a little, meaning your stews will take half the time to cook but still retaining all of that lovely flavour. If your dinner has finished cooking but you’re not quite ready, then the ‘Auto’ setting keeps it at serving temperature until you want to dish up your food.