The Best Slow Cooker

We’ve been recommending the Hamilton Beach Set & Forget 6 Quart Programmable Slow Cooker since we first published this review in 2013. We’ve found that it still offers the best performance and features of any available slow cooker. The Set & Forget consistently cooked foods at a gentle simmer, making the most tender roast in our tests. It’s one of the few cookers we tested with a locking lid that seals tightly for easy transport, as well as a probe thermometer so you can cook to a target temperature.

Some models struggle to maintain temperature, over- or undercooking dishes. Our picks reached and held just the right temperature.

We prefer models with lids that lock tightly in place, for when you want to bring your slow cooker to a tailgate or potluck.

It’s easier to “set it and forget it” when your cooker has a timer that switches the machine to “keep warm” when it’s done cooking.

We focused on 6- to 7-quart slow cookers, which are big enough to make a meal for a family of four with leftovers to spare.

The Hamilton Beach Set & Forget 6 Quart Programmable Slow Cooker has been our top pick since 2013. A common complaint among owners of slow cookers is that they cook foods too hot, but in our tests the Set & Forget successfully simmered beans on a low setting without boiling them and turning them to mush. And even on a high setting, it was able to cook at moderate enough temperatures to produce a fall-apart tender roast. Its intuitive interface, probe thermometer, locking lid, and modest price make it the best cooker of the models we tested.

If you want a longer timer or a more precise probe thermometer, we recommend the Hamilton Beach Temp Tracker 6 Quart Slow Cooker. The Temp Tracker is similar to our top pick but has a 24-hour timer (instead of 14 hours), more built-in slots for a probe thermometer, and a medium setting as well as high, low, and warm. Unlike with the Set & Forget, the probe thermometer reads to the degree, and you can set it to a wider range of target cooking temperatures. But this model ran a little hotter in our tests, and we’re not convinced that everyone needs the extras, which go above and beyond the “set it and forget it” slow cooker mantra.