Your Slow-Cooker Is The Secret To Great Barbecue

Properly barbecuing meat takes time, attention, preparation, and dedication. To cook a barbecue feast you need to set aside at least a day to be at home, making sure your barbecue is burning at a low and consistent temperature, so that the meat cooks and tenderizes perfectly. However, you no longer have to hover over your charcoal and wood-chip-filled grill for 12 hours at a time: Copy our cheat's method to make tasty, moist, juicy, flavor-packed barbecue, entirely in your slow-cooker.

You really can make the perfect smoky, sweet, melting pulled pork without slow-cooking it on a wood-chip, well-insulated barbecue, by simply leaving it in your slow-cooker for 12 hours.

For the Easy Slow-Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches recipe, click here.

Let the slow-cooker do all the hard work of cooking racks of ribs. All you need to do is place them under the broiler for five minutes once they're cooked to give them that caramelized, sticky exterior.

For the Slow-Cooker Barbecue Ribs recipe, click here.

Your beans don't have to be cooked on the stove or simmering over a campfire for hours to achieve those wonderful deep, smoky flavors: Save yourself time and effort by simply making them in your slow-cooker.

For the Slow-Cooker Barbecued Beans recipe, click here.

You can relax while the tasty ingredients and your trusty slow-cooker do the work for you in this flavor-packed brisket recipe.

For the Slow-Cooker Brisket recipe, click here.

Cook your chili in your crockpot for the richest, deepest, smokiest flavor, without needing to pay it any attention during the long cooking time.

For the Slow-Cooker Chili With Jalapeño Corn Muffins recipe, click here.

It's not just barbecued meat that can be made in the slow-cooker: Cook your collard greens in your favorite piece of kitchen equipment so they are perfectly tender and flavorful.

For the Slow-Cooker Collard Greens Recipe, click here.

When you don't want to turn your oven on in these hot summer months, you can let your slow-cooker do all the hard, sweaty work of making cornbread for you.

For the Slow-Cooker Cornbread recipe, click here.

You can't have barbecue without a side of mac and cheese. This incredibly rich, indulgent recipe makes a spectacular mac and cheese, and requires you to do almost nothing.

For the Slow-Cooker Mac and Cheese recipe, click here.

Who says pulled pork is the best thing to put in a sandwich? The rich, dark flavors of slow-cooked pulled beef make a wonderfully satisfying alternative.

For the Slow-Cooker Pulled Beef Sandwiches recipe, click here.

If you want to make a rich, moist pulled pork, but don't want to wait for hours (even if you don't need to do anything while you wait), use the quicker cooking pork tenderloin.

For the Slow-Cooker Pulled Pork Tenderloin recipe, click here.

While we would never normally condone the use of ketchup with barbecue, if you're making slow-cooker tomato ketchup from scratch, it's much better than any bottled barbecue sauce.

For the Slow-Cooker Quick and Easy Tomato Ketchup

By simply swapping the use of an oven in this recipe for a slow-cooker, making these deep brown, intensely flavored short ribs could not be easier.

For the Slow-Cooked Short Ribs recipe, click here.

Leave these southern, thick, stone-ground grits in the slow-cooker all day or overnight, and the result will be the creamiest, most satisfying grits, ready to soak up all the rich juices streaming off the barbecued meats.

For the Slow-Cooking Stone-Ground Grits recipe, click here.