Can You Put Aluminum Foil In A Slow Cooker?

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Slow cookers are the secret ingredient to a lot of our favorite dishes. Those handy kitchen appliances make it a snap to serve up a bowl of Kentucky Burgoo for an after-church supper, whip up a big batch of Buffalo Chicken Dip for a tailgate bash, or wake up to a Slow-Cooker Cinnamon Roll Casserole.

The best part about slow cookers is that they are so darn easy: Just throw the ingredients in the bowl, turn on the heat, and a few hours later, dig in! The worst part of slow cookers just might be the clean-up. It's never fun to lug a heavy pot to the sink to scrub out the remains of salsa chicken, no matter how good the meal. Some ingenious folks have taken to lining their slow cookers with foil to make clean-up easy. Is that okay? It sure seems to be.

Can You Put Aluminum Foil in the Slow Cooker?

Over at America's Test Kitchen, they recommend using foil to help a slow cooker do its job, particularly with low liquid dishes like lasagna or sweet potato casserole. They suggest placing "a foil collar over the hot side of your slow cooker (usually the side opposite the control panel) to insulate food from the hotter wall" so the food won't dry out or burn.

Using foil in slow cookers can make serving easy, particularly with casserole recipes. Plus, you can wrap chicken in a foil packet and set it on top of all the other ingredients in the slow cooker, which can lead to more evenly cooked meat.

So go ahead and use foil in your slow cooker, because those things are magic. What other appliance will let you whip up a cocktail, cook an entire meal of mac and cheese, collard greens with chow chow, pot roast, and make dessert, too? That's just a few more reasons to love it.