My Ultimate Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes, made with the ease of a slow cooker, using peeled russet potatoes cooked in chicken broth, then beat with butter, heavy cream or whole milk and cream cheese. Pictured here with trinity seasoned green peas, chicken fried chicken and milk gravy.

Slow Cooker Ultimate Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes

I love mashed potatoes anytime, not just holidays!

While we may tone it down a bit when we make them on the regular, admittedly, holidays are when we usually break out the fancy potatoes. You know the ones. Cream cheese. Whole milk with heavy cream. Plenty of butter!

Those of y'all who have been around any length of time already know I'm not huge on the slow cooker, mostly because I am not a very good advance planner and generally speaking, slow cookers require that! I have some slow cooker recipes here and there because I know it's one more tool to make mealtime happen.

My almost famous Super Creamy Special Occasion Macaroni and Cheese downsized and adapted for the slow cooker, shown here on my plated Christmas dinner.

Slow Cooker Mac and Cheese

If you've been around here any length of time, you probably already know about my Big Batch, No Calories Left Behind, Special Occasion Macaroni and Cheese. It's become a holiday favorite for so many of you over the years.

The one thing though?

It really is a "big batch," and you don't always need that much, so I published a smaller version for those not so huge gatherings too and y'all loved that just as much.

Slow Cooker Pinto Beans (Frijoles De La Olla)

Pinto beans prepped with a preboil and then slow cooked with onion, bacon and simple seasonings. Serve topped with onions, tomato relish, or pico de gallo with cilantro, if desired, and cornbread or warmed tortillas on the side. A perfect fit for refried beans too!

Slow Cooker Pinto Beans

Of course, beans have always been popular in the South and three beans reign supreme in the Deep South - red kidney beans used for our Monday red beans and rice, white beans generally prepared Cajun style with andouille sausage and more widely across the South in general, pinto beans, prepared Southern-Style.

In the Deep South we make our red beans and rice with red kidney beans, not the smaller more oval shaped red beans that are more popular in Texas, and yes, there is a difference!

For red beans, though I do love them long stewed and cooked on the stovetop the best, I have taken to using the Instant Pot the past few years, just because I'm such a poor advance "planner." For pintos, I have tended to always do those stovetop.

Today, I'm trying pintos in the slow cooker, but with some stovetop adjustments. I know, I know... yeah, you can dump everything in the slow cooker all at once and call it a day, literally, because it is probably going to take all day doing that.

Fresh green beans, slow stewed Southern-style all day, with fatback, salt pork or bacon and potatoes, prepared in the slow cooker.

Slow Cooker Fresh Green Beans

I love green beans!

Well, truth is I love vegetables in general really, but green beans are my number one most prepared side dish, because they're an easy, tasty side dish and thank goodness my veggie adverse husband eats them too.

They are my in a hurry go-to side when I need to add something green to a plate of protein and carbs and they're much quicker than whipping up a garden salad, although in reality, my hubby thinks a plate of torn up iceberg lettuce qualifies as a salad!

Russet potatoes, slow cooked with onion, celery and chicken broth and finished with cream, prepared in your slow cooker.

Slow Cooker Potato Soup

Potato soup is a long-held favorite of many of you, from simple and classic, to fully loaded and dressed up, to easy, shortcut versions, most folks just seem to love it.

Featured on this website, are several versions in case you've missed them:

Pork, greens and blackeye peas - in a convenient soup, with a slow-stewed and concentrated, vitamin-enriched potlikker base. Serve with skillet cornbread to complete the meal.

Slow Cooker Greens and Potlikker Soup

Even though this is a good soup anytime, with New Year's around the corner, I wanted to prepare a true potlikker soup, meaning not a shortcut version like my Beans and Greens or Swamp Soup, both of which could technically qualify as a potlikker soup.

Instead, I wanted to prepare a more genuine homemade version using a long, slow stewing of the greens to form a solid potlikker from the greens. What better way to do that than with a slow cooker?

This is actually my first slow cooker recipe in awhile!

From scratch, chicken and dumplings, made in a slow cooker and using a whole chicken for a homemade stock, a creamy roux base and drop dumplings.

Slow Cooker Chicken with Drop Dumplings

I love chicken and dumplings. Love it! It's one of my favorite dishes and that goes for any time of the year, not just winter.

While I do tend to follow the same basic guidelines, even with a variety of methods, I'm not married to any one of them. So many folks make chicken and dumplings one way all of their life, but I love playing around with it!

Slow Cooker Bourbon Beans

These bourbon baked beans are a perfect classic side for anything grilled or smoked, pulled pork, burgers and dogs, chicken or ribs. Made with beans and bacon, chopped onion and sweet bell pepper and a savory, sweet and spicy sauce, made easy using a slow cooker.

Slow Cooker Bourbon Baked Beans

So, if you've been hanging around this blog for any amount of time, you already know I'm not super big on slow cooker usage. I have some recipes here and there, and I still use one occasionally, mostly to write recipes for the website and for those of you who do use them regularly.

Do I like baked beans the best when they're, well... baked? Yes indeed!

Slow Cooker Corn and Potato Chowder from Deep South Dish website - A mix of chicken stock, tomatoes, corn and potatoes with herbs and seasonings and finished with a splash of cream.

Slow Cooker Corn and Potato Chowder

I've never really been a huge fan of crockpot cooking, although like everyone else, I do have a few favorites. Since the introduction of Instant Pots, and electronic pressure cookers overall really, I rarely use a slow cooker. They still have their place of course, especially for recipes like this where you can pretty much dump things in and go about your business for 8 hours.

I ran across this recipe in the book Southern Living's Big Book of Slow Cooking {affil link} and it sounded pretty good, so thought I'd give it a try with a few changes.

A super easy, cheesy and creamy, delicious slow cooker corn side dish, perfect for any gathering, church social, reunion or holiday.

Slow Cooker Cheesy Creamy Corn

It's been three years since Charlotte, one of our Facebook family members mentioned a corn dish similar to this, and I've missed at least three cycles of major holidays getting it posted, failing to remember to get that final shot of what it looks like on a plate! Eh, what can I say? These days, sometimes, it takes me awhile to do things.

Well, although those major holidays have once again passed, because peak summer corn is still a bit away from us and since I made this for Easter, I'm posting it now. Besides those big holidays, it's an equally great side dish for those backyard family barbecues, church socials, family reunions and potlucks you'll be attending anyway, and, it's so easy to both make and transport too!

 

An easy chili, made leaner with ground turkey, more hearty with vegetables and beans, and gets a flavor boost from basic pantry seasonings.

Turkey Chili with Beans

You may have noticed that boneless, skinless chicken breasts are not my favorite piece of chicken to cook... but of course, they're on sale often enough that I still buy them. With a little help, they can make for a quick and inexpensive meal.

While I very much love a brined and roasted turkey, I don't use a lot of ground turkey either. Though it is less fatty and therefore more attractive to those dieting and trying to cut back on fat, the lack of fat also means lack of flavor. In my dig through the New Year Freezer Cleanse however, I found a pound of mixed (85/15) ground turkey I had picked up at some point to make something that I've now long forgotten. With winter in the Deep South waning, and the Big Game coming up, I thought I would give some turkey chili a spin.

Chicken thighs, simply seasoned and slow cooked in the crockpot with a mixture of pineapple juice, brown sugar and soy sauce, that is thickened and brushed on as a finishing glaze.

Slow Cooker Brown Sugar Chicken

It's become pretty clear that folks love the combination of savory meats with sweet brown sugar. I've used it to candy bacon, love it for ham, for rubs on ribs and steaks, it's amazing with chicken and I've even used it for fish. Here lately, I've been seeing brown sugar everywhere in these 2, 3 and 4 ingredient dishes you see pass via Facebook and Pinterest.

Slow Cooker Pepper Jelly Glazed Boneless Ham

Boneless ham, cooked in a slow cooker with apple cider and glazed with a brown sugar, mustard and pepper jelly glaze.

Slow Cooker Pepper Jelly Glazed Ham

I love baking my ham for the holidays, although a slow cooker is a great way to cook ham too, and like crockpot dressing, it's also a great way to free up space in the oven.

When you think about it, a slow cooker is really the perfect environment for ham anyway. Thanks to the natural self-basting that occurs, the ham stays moist and tender, and although a glaze may not finish quite the same as oven baking, that is easily remedied with a quick run through in the oven at the very end to get that nice, shiny set on the glaze, which is exactly how I finished the ham pictured.

Bone-in, skinned chicken thighs provide plenty of flavor for this slow cooker pulled chicken. Great on sandwiches, as a pizza topper, or stuffed in a taco or burrito. Shown here with a side of Red Slaw and Sweet Potato Fries.

Slow Cooker Pulled Chicken

I love slow cooker "pulled chicken" because of its versatility. Not only is it good piled on rolls and buns, but its great rolled up in tortillas, stuffed into taquitos, tacos or burritos, or if you're trying to reduce carbs a bit, piled up in lettuce cups and topped with coleslaw or for barbecue pizza.

A creamy beef stew with potatoes, onion, carrot and celery and cooked in the slow cooker. Here it is served over rice, in the Deep South tradition.

Hearty Slow Cooker Beef Stew

I've made this stew a few times over this fall and winter, but the process of measuring out, documenting and photographing a recipe, so that other folks can follow it too, can be a bit daunting at times, when all you really want to do is just sit down and eat!

Mississippi Roast, made using a rump or chuck roast, but with my own signature and minus the full stick of butter. A moist, tender and delicious roast with a wonderful gravy and a nice spicy bite.

Slow Cooker Mississippi Roast ... My Way

There's a roast blazing across the interwebs and the world of Pinterest called "Mississippi Roast," and if you google it, you'll find it everywhere. It's the roast that broke the internet.

In the beginning of making this, like most others, I had no idea where the recipe began, or even how the recipe got the name Mississippi attached to it, because best I could figure, somebody who threw it together one day must have just happened to be from Mississippi.

Well, I'm here to set the record straight on that!

A super easy and moist crockpot chicken and dressing, made using a packaged stuffing mix, sauteed onion and celery, cooked chicken and cream soup, blended with chicken stock.

Easy Slow Cooker Chicken and Dressing

The concept of slow cooker dressing certainly isn't unique to me - you'll find a multitude of recipes online and at other blogs and websites, all slightly different from one another.

This method actually dates back to the late 70s in my recipe box, a time when convenience products and crockpots were all the rage with us working women. I used to rely on my crockpot a lot back then, but then fell away from it for years because I got bored with the way they cooked.

Then I started blogging, finally upgraded my slow cooker, educated myself a little bit better on slow cookery and slowly started to build up my collection of recipes again.

A moist meatloaf made with lean ground beef, onion, bell pepper, garlic and a crushed saltine binder, cooked in the crockpot. Served here with everyday mashed potatoes and southern green beans.

Slow Cooker Meatloaf

I know that meatloaf sometimes gets a bad rap, mostly I would venture a guess that it's usually based on past experiences with a dry, tasteless glob of meat. On the other hand, I actually enjoy a good meatloaf myself and so does The Cajun, and I've discovered that using the slow cooker is a great way to get it on the table, when you've got a busy day.

 

Slow Cooker Coke Pulled Pork, often called Three Ingredient Pulled Pork, because it's typically made with a pork roast, barbecue sauce and most often, either Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper or root beer. Pictured here with homemade fries and my Apple Coleslaw.

Slow Cooker Coke Pulled Pork

I know, I know... as I write this it's supposed to be Fall, well... according to the calendar at least, that is.

Although we got another nice blast of slightly cooler air again this week here in the Deep South, blink and we're right back into mid to upper-80 degree temps during the days and, well... it's still hurricane season for us anyway. It's pretty much still summer here, far as we're concerned.

The nice parts of summer though, that we love so much here - beautiful blue, sunny skies and warm temperatures - but with that highly coveted lower humidity. Finally come out of the house without melting, nice to be outdoors weather!

Baby back ribs, rubbed with a mixture of spices and herbs, brushed with your favorite barbecue sauce, and cooked to perfection - in your crockpot! Pictured here with creamed corn and a simple summer salad of cucumber, onion and tomato.

Slow Cooker Baby Back Ribs

I love pork ribs no matter how you make them. Smoked from my favorite BBQ joint, baked in the oven and fall off the bone, full out grilled from start to finish or started in the oven and finished on the grill.

Hang around long enough and I'll probably do a boiled version (which, by the way, I have done before many, many years ago), which I know, kinda makes some of y'all crazy when that word boiled is associated with a rib of any kind.

And wait, if that's not shocking enough, are y'all sitting down?