Busy Days Call for Slow Cooker Meals
Is it just me or does it seem like once October rolls around, the schedule gets insanely busy. Just when you feel like you’ve gotten in the groove with back to school (whether for yourself or the kids), then Halloween hits. Then you turn the corner and bam it’s the holidays.
Well, that time of the year is upon us. The weather is getting cooler and schedules are getting tighter. That’s when I turn to my trusty ole slow cooker. (It’s too friggin’ hot in the summer.)
When I was a kid, I always thought it was weird to cook meat all day. I was like ‘uh, is that sanitary?’ (Yeah, I was uptight even back then.)
But now I love the slow cooker! I dump the ingredients in there in the morning and let it slow cook until dinner time.
Slow Cooked Korean Beef
Ingredients You’ll Need:
Tamari Soy Sauce – 1/2 cup (Tamari is darker and tastes richer than regular soy sauce. It also happens to be gluten-free. But you can definitely just use whatever you’ve got.)
Cornstarch – about 1/4 cup (This thickens up the marinade. But really, if you don’t have it on hand, it’s okay to leave it out.)
Sesame Oil – 2 Tablespoons
Minced Garlic – about 2 Tablespoons
Yellow Onion – 1 yellow onion, diced
Korean Red Pepper Powder – 1/2 teaspoon (You can use red pepper flakes instead.)
Brown Sugar – 3/4 cups
Beef – about 1.5 – 2 pounds, cut up into chunks
Directions:
- Put all ingredients, except the cut up meat, into a bowl and mix.
- Line the slow cooker with a liner for easy clean-up. (Of course you can skip this step but I’m telling you, it’s soooo much easier this way.)
- Place the meat into the slow cooker and pour ingredients over the meat.
- Place lid on top and set to cook for 8 hours on low heat. (You can do less time at a higher heat but you run the risk of the meat coming out tough, especially if you’re using a lower grade cut.)
- I serve it with steamed vegetables and brown rice.
Shortcut:
You could skip making your own marinade and just use the Korean BBQ marinade I mentioned in this post. The taste is completely different but just as good.
Let me know how it goes!