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Crockpot is a fantastic brand in the kitchen cookware world and is known for producing the original slow cookers that everyone has at home.
Of course, there are other brands out there that produce similar cookware items, and Crockpot themselves even produce other kitchen items like pressure cookers.
You can do a bunch of different things with any Crockpot product and cook a pretty much infinite number of recipes with one- but only if you have the right equipment for the job.
Yes, the only downside to the vast product range that Crockpot has to offer is that finding the right size and shape for your kitchen can be tricky.
That’s why we’re here to help with this handy guide on which size of Crockpot will be best for your needs.
The obvious answer to this question concerns the space you have available in your kitchen and nothing else.
Naturally, if you have a smaller kitchen with a lot of other items already taking up space on the countertop, you won’t want a massive slow cooker to take up even more of that valuable space.
Alternatively, if you have a larger kitchen with an abundance of countertop space, you can afford to go for a much larger slow cooker and not have to worry about running out of space.
In general, it’s best to go for as big a slow cooker as you can reasonably fit in your kitchen. This is because a larger cooker has a greater capacity for food and you can therefore cook larger meals in one.
Even if you only plan on using your slow cooker for small meals for a couple of people, it’s much better to have the option available to cook larger meals rather than be restricted by the size of the cooker you bought.
The final factor that size will affect is the cooking time of your meals. Obviously, any meal cooked in a ‘slow’ cooker isn’t going to be the most rushed and intense kitchen job but this is still something that’s worth considering.
A larger slow cooker has more space inside it that needs to be heated up and will therefore take slightly longer to cook a meal than a smaller slow cooker.
Again, this isn’t the most important consideration for something like a slow cooker but it’s worth remembering.
The sizes of all of Crockpot’s slow cookers are measured by their internal capacity in quarts.
The smallest size they offer is 1.5 quarts while the largest is 8 quarts. Of course, some other brands offer a slightly different range of sizes and some may even sell slow cookers up to 10 quarts in capacity.
In general, though, slow cookers at the higher end of the capacity scale aren’t worth thinking about unless you’re regularly cooking large meals for a lot of people.
On the official Crockpot Amazon page, you’ll find slow cookers with a range of capacities that includes just about every whole number of quarts between 2 and 8, so there’s a great variety of options to choose from.
As a general guide, these are the sizes you can expect to find from most brands and retailers, as well as what cooking jobs they will be most appropriate for:
Not every size of Crockpot will be appropriate for your kitchen but there are also a number of other factors you should consider when deciding which one to purchase.
Even if you have all the kitchen space in the world, it might not be worth getting the biggest Crockpot on the market just because you can.
Because larger slow cookers take even longer to cook food than smaller ones, it’s probably more useful and efficient to get a smaller cooker if you're cooking for a small number of people.
A good rule of thumb for this consideration is to have 1 quart of capacity per person you’re cooking for.
This means that if you have a family of 4 people that you cook for regularly, a 4-quart Crockpot slow cooker will be an appropriate size.
Of course, the recipes you want to cook in your Crockpot will also have an impact on what size you should get.
For example, if you only plan on making things like stews, casseroles, and small desserts, a small-sized slow cooker will be appropriate for you.
A slow cooker of about 1-4 quarts capacity will be plenty to cook these types of dishes, obviously scaling up if you’re making them for a large number of people.
On the other hand, if you want to cook some large-scale meals that might require a large cut of meat or even a whole bird, you’ll definitely need a bigger Crockpot.
In fact, the larger Crockpot slow cookers are designed very well to fit a whole chicken, thanks to their oval shape and high sides.
If you plan on cooking large cuts of meat like this in your slow cooker, you’ll definitely need one of at least 5 quarts capacity and probably as much as 8 quarts.
Naturally, this will also depend on the size of the meat or poultry that you want to cook, though this consideration can always be made conversely.
By this, we mean that you can buy a large slow cooker and then only purchase birds that are small enough to fit in whatever cooker you have.
If you’re still not sure which size of Crockpot slow cooker is best for your kitchen, don’t worry!
In some cases, it’s just easiest to go for an average-sized slow cooker to ensure you’ll have the best chance of being able to cook everything you need.
In this case, you should opt for a 5-6 quart slow cooker. This capacity will ensure that you can cook small dishes for when you just want to make a couple of portions but also give you the room to cater for larger gatherings with up to 6 people.
Before you head to the store with a measuring tape and calculator, you should probably know that it’s very easy to tell how many quarts a slow cooker will hold.
Because this is the standard unit of measurement for Crockpots and all other slow cookers, the capacity will always be listed somewhere on the packaging.
Even if you can’t find the exact capacity in quarts anywhere on the packaging, it might just take a quick internet search or asking a member of staff at a store to find out.
In some parts of the world, slow cookers might have their capacity listed in cups or liters, particularly in Europe.
If this is the case and you just want to know how many quarts the slow cooker will hold, this simple guide should help out:
A few decades ago, slow cooker technology was limited to users having to manually set their own timer for their meals and work out what temperature to set the cooker to all by themselves.
Thankfully, these days are now behind us and there have been some pretty incredible technological developments in slow cookers.
For example, Crockpot now produces a 6-quart slow cooker that is compatible with an Amazon Alexa device!
With this particular slow cooker, you don’t even need to press any buttons to have your food cooking at the right temperature for the perfect length of time.
All you need to do is put your ingredients into the pot and close the lid. Then, you can verbally tell your Alexa device what you’re cooking, how long you want to cook it for, or at what temperature.
The best part is, your Alexa device will keep an eye on the food for you, allowing you to go about your business without having to worry about a thing.
Then, when the food is all cooked, the Alexa device will sound the alarm to let you know and you can dig in.
We mentioned earlier that Crockpot also produces a range of pressure cookers as well as slow cookers.
These pressure cookers can be used for cutting down cooking time on regular slow cooker dishes.
They work by sealing in all the steam that gets generated by cooking food and increasing the boiling point of water beyond 212°F.
What this means is that the food gets cooked more quickly and flavors are extracted more efficiently (this happens because there is no evaporation inside the cooker).
Crockpot’s pressure cookers are similarly sized by their capacity in quarts and can range from 6-10 quarts in size.
What we’ve established from this article is that there are a number of different factors you should consider when deciding what size of Crockpot slow cooker you should purchase.
Of course, it’s often best to get the largest size that you can fit in your kitchen. This way, you’ll never be left with the awkward situation of not having enough capacity to cook for everyone at a gathering.
However, if you have a strict budget to work with or don’t have the kitchen space for a giant slow cooker on your countertop, follow our simple size tips to find the cooker that’s perfect for you!
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