How To Use Your Slow Cooker To Perfect Your Grilled Meat

Have you ever tried to cook a large, bone-in cut of meat on the grill only to have it turn out unevenly cooked? The outside is perfectly charred but the inside is still much too raw for your liking? Or, debatably worse, in trying to get the interior of the meat up to temperature, the outside is now too burnt to be salvageable? There's actually an easy fix for this, and it comes in the form of a slow cooker.

Yes, a slow cooker. Usually the provenance of stews and meaty dishes meant to be pull-apart tender, it can also be the key to perfect grilled meat. The slow cooker's low-and-slow style of heating food gently will bring any large cuts of meat to a suitable cooking temperature. All you need to do is to place the seasoned pieces of meat into the crock, and leave it alone to cook for 1-2 hours. Remember, the goal at this step is not to cook it completely, but rather to get it close to your preferred doneness. Then you can transfer the meat to a hot grill to sear the surface, and it will all be done at the correct temperature. Perfectly cooked on the inside and the outside!

To achieve the exact doneness that you prefer, there are two main factors to consider: How large is the cut of meat, and how done you'd like the meat. The larger the cut of meat, the longer it will need to heat through in the slow cooker. And if you prefer a cook on the rare side, it doesn't need to be on the grill for as long as a medium or well-done cut would take. This is where the second most important kitchen tool for this scenario comes in handy — a meat thermometer. As long as the meat thermometer is placed in a suitable position, it will take all second-guessing out of determining the doneness of the meat no matter the appliance, making it a worthwhile investment for folks who regularly cook meat. 

You can also place other items into the slow cooker along with the meat. Think of hardy root vegetables, or even alliums and herbs. The root vegetables will tenderize as well, and you can apply a similar sear on them to get a nice char before serving. Any leftover ingredients in the crock that are too soft to grill or stuck on can be deglazed and added to a gravy that you can serve with the meat, so nothing goes to waste. 

You may think that this is a revolutionary technique, but it is essentially a play on the reverse-sear technique used by some cooks when preparing meat. A cut of meat is placed in a low oven to evenly cook it, then transferred to the stovetop over high heat to finish cooking. So, to take a cue from the original process, if you don't have a slow cooker or a multi-cooker with a "slow cook" function, you can also use an oven set at a low temperature to get similar results. As with the slow cooker method, just remember to check the temperature of the meat periodically.

This technique will work across different types of meat, as long as they are large and/or bone-in, where the shape makes it tricky to guarantee even cooking throughout. Porterhouse steaks, whole chickens, pork butt, lamb racks — even large swordfish steaks would benefit from this method. Grilling season may be almost over, but you don't have to give up grilling just because it's snowing.