Product Description
The West Bend 5-Quart Oblong Slow Cooker makes homemade meals a snap. Just add the ingredients, select a temperature, and return to a delicious, ready-to-serve meal.
Enjoy healthy, home-cooked meals even with a busy schedule thanks to this easy-to-use oblong-shaped slow cooker. Simply add ingredients to the unit’s nonstick cooking pot, set the pot into its heating base, and select a temperature. At the end of the work day or after a busy day of weekend errands, dinner will be ready and waiting. Perfect for soups, casseroles, pot roasts, curries, and more, its generous 5-quart capacity holds enough for dinner with the family or for one or two people with leftovers. The unit’s adjustable temperature control slow cooks food at any temperature, and its keep-warm setting comes in handy for serving or holding food at a safe temperature. Providing exceptional versatility, the cooking pot can be used in the oven, on the range top, or in the freezer. Even more, the unit’s heating base doubles as a nonstick mini griddle. The slow cooker comes with a glass lid for keeping an eye on the cooking process and integrated side handles for safe transport. Best of all, the cooking pot and glass lid clean up easily by hand with hot soapy water or safely in the dishwasher. The 210-watt slow cooker measures 7-1/4 by 12-3/4 by 8-3/4 inches and carries a one-year limited warranty.
Product Features
- Oblong-shaped slow cooker with adjustable temperature control
- Generous 5-quart capacity for entertaining or dinner with the family
- Oven-, range-top-, and freezer-safe cooking pot; glass lid included
- Heating base doubles as a nonstick mini griddle; dishwasher-safe parts
- Measures 7-1/4 by 12-3/4 by 8-3/4 inches; 1-year limited warranty
Buy Confidently
This is an excellent appliance; I’m on my second one. However, it’s no substitute for a true Crock Pot.
As with a whole string of multicookers, this cooker is basically a container-removable in this case-on a heat source with a thermostat. Unlike most of the thermostats, this West Bend simply has numbers approximating some of the settings on Crock Pots. A Crock Pot has heating elements surrounding the crockery insert to provide a more even heat.
There are advantages to both designs. One of the great advantages to this type of cooker is that one can cook much faster in this. The hot plate will heat up the ingredients hours faster. The wattage is ten times higher, so of course it will boil faster.
What’s the disadvantage? That same thermostat. Rather than providing a steady heat, the thermostat in these cookers cycles on and off and without the crockery insert to ‘even out’ the heat, the food will alternately boil and cycle off. Not such a bad thing necessarily, but it can and will cause some foods to stick to the nonstick interior. Even if they have a crockery pot to go on the hot plate, these cookers will still have a hot zone on the bottom that isn’t present in a true Crock Pot.
Another advantage is that, because these pots have much higher power, one can take the lid off and stir to minimize sticking, and the heat source will quickly restore the preset temperature. In a Crock Pot, removing the lid will add at least 30 minutes to the cooking time.
Why am I on my second pot like this? Just wore the finish off the bottom on my first one-though it took many years to do that, even only using plastic utensils. After a year or two the outline of the heat source became visible on the bottom, though the nonstick finish was still there. It just started flaking off and so I got rid of it. For those who are nervous about chemical nonstick finishes this isn’t the setup for you.
For those who are used to cooking in a true Crock Pot, there will also be some adjustment required to recipes. This type of cooker loses moisture like an average pot on the stove, so most slow cooker recipes will lose more steam/water in this type of pot.
West Bend made ‘bean pot’ cookers for many years with a crockery pot on a hot plate; I’ve got one and it does an excellent job as this type does. Just don’t expect it to do what a Crock Pot does.
This is the best small appliance I have ever had. I have had it 20 years or so. I cook everything in it: pot roasts, pork roasts, stew, pulled pork, beans, etc. I have purchased about 8 of them over the years for wedding gifts, college graduation gifts, Xmas, etc.
There are two main reasons I love this so much. One is the versitility of the heat control. I hate crockpots because all you get is low and high! Give me a break, who cooks like that?? These have settings from 1-5, almost as many as a stove burner. I can brown my stew or roast on 5 then turn it down to 3 or halfway between 3 & 4 or 4 depending on how long I want to be away from the house or want it to cook. The base doubles as a griddle by itself. Takes up very little counter and storage space. The pot goes into the oven or on the stove if you need or want it to. The pot and lid go into the dishwasher, although I ususally just give a quick wash with hot soapy water and wipe off the base. The other reason I love it is it is small and lightweight. No heavy monster crockpots to handle, try to lift full of food and then try and wash!
I have the older model of this cooker that is 6 quarts. At the time I purchased it you had the choice of 4 or 6 qt size. After 20 years I need to replace it, although it still works perfectly, the teflon pot lining is scratched and the teflon coating on the base(griddle) is flaking. But after 20 years of using it 3-5 times a week, its certainly held up wonderfully. I am now purchasing two more, one for me and one as a wedding gift! My only regret is that they no longer make the 6 quart in this model, only the 5 qt. I would recommend it without question!! Enjoy!