Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes That I Tried

I was on a slow cooker roll during the month of August, meaning that each weekend, I tried a new recipe in my slow cooker (except for one that was made during the week). These recipes are on the healthier side.

To sum up my experience, I found it interesting to dip into the slow cooking world and discovered ingredients I never bothered to try but happened to like (such as quinoa, butternut squash, and kale).
However, I found it hard to fully enjoy the food. It was great for lunch and better than nothing or a nasty bologna sandwich, but I wasn't wholly satisfied with it. I still think my taco rice dish is the best thing in the world even though it's unhealthy. And I don't know if it's slow cooking that just isn't the best way to go for making food that is both healthy and tasty, or if I'm not serious enough about eating healthily.

Still, I thought sharing pictures of the meals made along with some notes would be interesting not only as a personal reference for myself in the future but also for anyone interested in giving them a try. Granted, none of them taste as good as/better than my taco rice, but I reckon they're more nutritious and healthier which is why they're still relevant to discuss.

(Off-topic: I finally came up with a great idea to stop merging fashion and food in the same blog post. From now on impressions on recipes I tried will be posted on my IG account (not disclosed here). I realized I had started to chronicle recipes here mainly as a reminder of how it went and how it tasted, and using IG for that matter seems as suitable. Plus I will likely bring up a recipe here in case it turns out exceptional and is worth sharing.)

Personal conclusions with regards to slow cooking

(after making the recipes):

• Slow cooking is most practical for stews or any dish that has to cook for a long period of time in order to be really good. And except if I need to go out for more than 1-2 hours, baking lasagna or stuffed peppers in the oven instead of the slow cooker is a more judicious option. Besides that, slow cooking seems great for recipes that are more elaborate to do, because it essentially comes down to combining ingredients and letting them cook.
• Slow cooking does not necessarily mean faster preparation time (I used to believe it did) if you have to chop vegetables, make a sauce or/and cook meat prior to. Which brings me to say that prepping the ingredients, notably cutting the vegetables in advance (and freezing them) is most important if you want to save significant time when cooking because then everything is ready to use.
• Slow cooking is great for preparing food in large quantities, especially lunches for the week.
• Healthy slow cooking dishes/recipes get repetitive because the same ingredients are used. A lot of them use the classic black beans-corn-tomatoes triad with similar spices (cumin, chili, paprika etc.) which ends up in essentially the same dish with minor variations. This is only an observation and I'm not whining about it, maybe I haven't searched deep enough on the Internet for different recipes (there are so many to sift through though.)

With that being said, the recipes tried are:

1. Slow Cooker Turkey Quinoa Chili (2018.08.05)
2. Slow Cooker Turkey Sausage, Squash and Quinoa Soup (2018.08.11)
3. Stuffed Peppers with Turkey + Quinoa (2018.08.14)
4. Super Easy Skinny Veggie Crockpot Lasagna (2018.08.18)
5. Slow Cooker Enchilada Quinoa (2018.08.25)

Recipe #1: Slow Cooker Turkey Quinoa Chili

First recipe naturally had to be a chili... I can't remember how many chili recipes made in a slow cooker I've seen, perhaps it's the most shared healthy dish in a slow cooker on the Internet.

Preparation: The butternut squash was really hard to cut, I don't know if it was because I used a bread knife (not trying to be discriminatory here) instead of one more fitted to do the job. But I'll need to find an easier way to cut it because I don't think I used the safest method. Also, cutting a whole squash is a very long and boring task in itself.

The counter was a mess.

After ≈ 6 hours. It smelled amazing.

Taste: It's not the most flavorful dish I've eaten, but the taste is still good, particularly because of the ground turkey. Although there are tomatoes, squash, and spices, it's not really sweet because of the meat (which I prefer—the previous chili I made was way too sweet now that I ate this one.) It also makes a great lunch. All in all will probably make the recipe again.

Recipe #2: Slow Cooker Turkey Sausage, Squash and Quinoa Soup

Preparation: Chopping the kale was a bit long and made some mess. I should have properly dried it after washing it—though I chopped it immediately after washing it—and should have used a bigger cutting board (although I didn't have a bigger one).

As for the butternut squash, I had leftovers from the one I had cut the weekend before (frozen), so I only needed to measure 3 cups of it and then fling the cubes into the slow cooker. I did mention having a hard time with the squash last weekend, but now I realize it was well spent time because I had cubes ready to be used. And I still have roughly 2 cups left for another recipe which is nice. Same for the kale, about four handfuls (hoping I'll like kale).

Furthermore, I used ground turkey instead of turkey sausage since my supermarket (sadly) didn't have the latter... I also didn't use fresh thyme but dried thyme leaves.

Not well mixed 'cause the bowl was already very full.

After 6 hours

The smell wasn't very nice, especially in contrast to recipe #1. That didn't really look good for the taste.

Taste: Quite mild in terms of sweetness. I'd consider it more like a stew. At first, I really didn't know whether or not I would make this recipe again, but by the end of the week, I was positive I would (and indeed made it again the week after).

Additional remarks:

• Ground turkey is not bad, but it doesn't help for the slight blandness of the dish. I believe using turkey sausage instead of ground turkey would have added more flavor, especially if the sausage was spicy. I can always pour in some Tabasco to spice it up in the meantime though.
• I don't think chopping all that kale was worth it for what it tastes like (and I found it expensive on top of that). Using baby spinach would have been way faster (no need to wash nor cut), so I'll need to investigate more on the health virtues of kale before considering buying it again.
• There's an unpleasant taste to the soup (which explains its particular smell) probably due to either the coriander or the thyme leaves. This taste, however, seems to have subsided when eating it a few days later.

Recipe #3: Stuffed Peppers with Turkey + Quinoa

This recipe was made three days after the previous one, basically, because I still had some kale left and because I had two bell peppers that crucially needed to be eaten before going bad.

I kind of messed up the recipe and don't want to give it a bad rep because of my own fails, but reporting my experience here serves as a good note to self for the future.

I did not follow the recipe thoroughly. First, I used ground chicken instead of ground turkey (went to two supermarkets and neither had any ground turkey left); second, I forgot to add 1 tbsp of taco seasoning (no wonder why I found the stuffing to be tasteless...)

The filling, about to be stuffed in the bell peppers.

Before cooking.

4 small stuffed peppers max fit in my slow cooker.

The stuffed peppers cooked 1-2 hours too long.

This one has lost its shape as a result.

Taste: Very bland, but that's my fault (forgot the seasoning and used ground chicken which I didn't like). I had to compensate with a lot of Sriracha to give it some taste. I'm not sure I'll make this recipe again. Ground chicken has a rubbery texture and I shall not re-use it in another recipe.

Recipe #4: Super Easy Skinny Veggie Crockpot Lasagna

First recipe without quinoa! (I do enjoy quinoa though)
At first, I wanted to add ground turkey but finally decided not to in an effort to give a reliable review—at least more reliable than for the previous recipe. Two small things, however, do differ from the original recipe:

1. I used diced tomatoes instead of tomato sauce.
2. I only added shredded cheese on top of the lasagna, not in the layers.

By the way, I looked at the differences between kale and spinach. It seems that, despite kale and spinach being both healthy greens to eat, kale is the winner in terms of health benefits (that are greater and exceed in terms of quantity).
I also realized while buying kale today that I had entered the wrong code last time, hence why I found it so expensive (it had cost more than 4$ CAD when today it cost $2,99 CAD—my fault for wanting to check out the groceries by myself.) Lastly, kale seems to shrink less in comparison to spinach.

It smelled amazing, just like when my mom makes (meat) lasagna.

Taste: It's great. Can't compare with my mother's lasagna but it's definitely edible. It felt good to eat pasta instead of quinoa for once. I also like the kale in this. I'm perplexed to what happened to the cottage cheese though... it got brown, looks like ground meat and feels rubbery which isn't that pleasant in the mouth; it actually screwed up the recipe a little. But I do want to make this lasagna again. Next time, I plan on using ground turkey that will have been combined with the diced tomatoes beforehand.

But then I had to transfer containers, and that's when I questioned the pertinence of baking lasagna in the slow cooker instead of the oven. I had been on a slow cooker high lately and didn't realize until that recipe that slow cooking isn't always the most practical way to cook.


Recipe #5: Slow Cooker Enchilada Quinoa

The recipe asks for enchilada sauce, but I didn't find any at my supermarket. So I made it myself by following this recipe but didn't add "chipotle chiles in adobo sauce" because I couldn't find this product either... sigh. I also added Sriracha sauce and some spinach I had left in my fridge.

For the dish itself, I replaced the "diced fire roasted tomatoes and green chiles" asked in the recipe by ordinary diced cherry tomatoes and jalapeno peppers.

Before topping it with enchilada sauce + shredded cheese.

I was looking forward to eating it since it was my first time using cream cheese other than in a dessert.

I didn't picture it, but the enchilada sauce was very liquid. I don't know if that was normal, but I hoped the consistency of the overall dish would not end up being something like soup (thankfully it did not).

After 5 hours

Taste: I don't taste the cream cheese in the dish—although there's a slightly sour kick to it—nor the spiciness of the jalapeno peppers (so I added Tabasco). You can clearly taste the black beans, corn and tomato sauce, but there's no overall/particular flavor, it's weird to explain.
I admit the enchilada sauce, an important part of the dish, omitted the chipotle peppers in adobo (and maybe that's what makes the sauce thus dish taste amazing), but I looked up other enchilada sauce recipes and they don't list this ingredient. Regardless of the "okay" taste of the dish, I don't intend on making it again. Sorry for ending this post on a sour note lol and no pun intended.