While many basic slow cooker recipes have you throw everything in at once, that kind of lazy cooking can only get you so far. Once you start trying to manifest complex sauce bases, you will find the final product less than satisfactory. Getting things like tomato sauce or beans to absorb seasonings is oftentimes a 12-24 hour affair - a timeframe that tends to 'boil out' the flavor of other ingredients. Delicate ingredients (like basil & green onion for example) should be added towards the end.

As you experiment with your slow cooker, you will get an idea or what to add when. If one ingredient feels too mushy, add it later in the process next time around. Some of the recipes on this page should point you in the right direction.

Beans are great cheap protein, and the slow cooker is really one of the best ways to make use of them. That's because they take forever to cook. Even if you are working with pre-cooked canned beans, it may very well take all day for them to absorb the seasonings in the slow cooker. Plan accordingly.

Dry beans take even longer, as they have to be soaked overnight. I generally let them sit in a covered bowl of water for 24 hours beforehand. If the water gets murky really fast, I might change the water out at the 12 hour mark. After that, you have to briefly boil them to kill the compounds that cause indigestion, as most slow cookers do not get hot enough to do this. 10 minutes is all it takes. Rinse them with clean water between soaking and boiling, and then rinse them again before adding them to the slow cooker.

Even canned beans should be rinsed. They do not need to soak, but you should empty the cans out into a colander and rinse off all the foul preservative-laden juices they came packaged with. Frozen beans too, give them a quick rinse to get the freezer-flavored frost off of them. Your final product will be much better as a result.