October is when the slow cooker earns its spot on the counter, and there’s still time to put it to work before the month’s out. These are the ten crockpot recipes readers opened most on the site last October, the closest thing we have to a list of what you actually made.
Chicken and dumplings took first by a nose over the potato soup, seven of the ten are soups or stews, and they run from 0 to 6 WW Points a serving. Swaps change the number, so check your app if you improvise. They all live in the slow cooker collection too.
1. Crockpot Chicken and Dumplings
More of you opened this than anything else with a plug, and it’s easy to see why. Chicken and dumplings is the dish people mean when they say comfort food, and this one does it at 3 Points for each of ten servings.
Cubed chicken breast, carrots, celery and onion go in the crock with two cans of low fat cream of chicken soup, broth, thyme and oregano, and cook on high or low while you’re out. For the last hour or so, a tube of Pillsbury country biscuits, each biscuit cut into six, goes on top. Keep the lid shut while they puff.
2. Weight Watchers Baked Potato Soup
A close second. Three big russets simmer in broth in the crock for a couple of hours, then a quick cream of light butter, flour, 2% milk, light cream cheese and light sour cream gets stirred in with crumbled center cut bacon. Two cups of the potatoes come out, get blended and go back in to thicken it. Green onion and a little cheese on top. There’s a stovetop version in the same recipe if the slow cooker’s busy, and either way it’s eight cups at 6 Points a cup, the top of this list’s range.
3. Weight Watchers Beef Stew
A beef stew at 1 Point a serving, and it makes six. That number is the reason it’s here.
It’s a slow cooker recipe with a stovetop start. Flank steak, trimmed and cubed, gets a flour coat and a sear in a Dutch oven with onion and carrots, then the pot’s deglazed with broth and everything moves to the crock with a potato, a red pepper and frozen peas.
Four hours on low. Half a cup of red wine is optional and worth it.
4. Weight Watchers Chicken Noodle Soup
The thing to know about this one is timing. Chicken breasts, carrots, celery and onion sit in six cups of broth on low for six or seven hours, then the chicken’s shredded and two cups of rotini go in on high for the last ten to fifteen minutes, and you pull it off the heat the moment the pasta’s soft or it keeps cooking. It makes fourteen cups at 1 Point a cup, and it’ll freeze well, which is the whole point of a batch that size.
5. Classic Weight Watchers Chili
Nine cups of chili, 4 Points a cup. Extra lean ground beef gets browned on the stove, then goes in the crock with diced peppers, red onion, a big can of diced tomatoes, tomato paste, a can of baked beans and a couple of tablespoons of Frank’s. High until it bubbles, then low for two hours.
Cayenne and chili powder make it spicy, so halve them if that’s not your table. The recipe also shows a chili sausage dog built from the leftovers.
6. Weight Watchers Cabbage Soup
A cabbage roll without the rolling. Browned ground turkey, four cups of chopped cabbage, onion, celery, peppers, tomato paste, diced tomatoes and vegetable broth, with Italian seasoning and Worcestershire, go four hours on high or eight on low. Each of ten heaping cups is 3 Points. A cup of minute rice gets stirred in for the last twenty-five minutes, and if you’d rather swap in brown rice, the recipe explains how the number changes.
7. Weight Watchers Chicken Taco Soup
The zero on the list. A cup is 0 Points, and the recipe makes twelve of them.
Ground chicken is cooked on the stove and goes in the crock with broth, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, peppers, red onion, corn, garlic and a packet of taco seasoning, four hours on high or seven or eight on low. The tomato sauce is the homemade zero point one from the site, linked from the recipe, and black beans are in there for those who want them.
8. Pumpkin Squash Soup
Everything goes in the crock at once here, a whole butternut squash, two Granny Smith apples, an onion, two cups of pumpkin puree and three cups of vegetable broth, with cinnamon, nutmeg and a pinch of cayenne. Three or four hours on high, then the immersion blender, then a cup of light coconut milk stirred in. A piece of cornbread on the side is the serving suggestion, and it’s the right one. Eight cups, 1 Point each.
9. Sweet Hawaiian Crockpot Chicken
The one dinner on the list that isn’t a soup.
Cubed chicken breast marinates ten minutes in soy sauce, pineapple juice, paprika and a few envelopes of Splenda, then goes in the crock with red and green pepper, red onion, smashed ginger and garlic, and the rest of the pineapple juice. Four servings, 2 Points each before the rice.
Four hours on high. Cook it uncovered for the last fifteen minutes if you want a thicker sauce.
10. Crockpot Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese
Mac and cheese from a slow cooker, which is probably why it keeps getting opened. Chicken breast cooks in half a cup of broth and half a cup of Frank’s for three hours, then gets shredded right in the crock with two forks or a hand blender.
Three cups of cooked whole wheat macaroni go in next with 1% milk, 0% yogurt, light cream cheese and a cup of shredded light cheese, and it gets two more hours on low. Eight cups, 5 Points a cup.
