The Best Mini Slow Cookers

Want a slow cooker you can cook larger portions of food in? Check out our small slow cooker and standard slow cooker reviews.

Mini slow cookers are the baby siblings to the slow cookers and small cookers we use to cook stews, soups, curries, and so much more. They are quite small, ranging from 1.5 to 2 quarts, about half to a fourth of the size of the 3 to 6- quart models we otherwise use. Technically, you can cook in them, but because they’re so small, they don’t fit much food—a single chicken breast or a few cups’ worth of soup. Most people use them to simply keep already-made foods, such as dips and meatballs, and drinks, like hot cider and mulled wine, warm at parties or events.

The models we tested are all pretty simple traditional slow cookers, with no digital temperature settings or timers like those seen in some of our full-size slow cooker favorites. Each mini slow cooker has a removable ceramic crock; it sits in a metal shell that houses the heating elements. A glass lid goes on top. A simple turn of a dial and the slow cooker turns on and can be toggled between temperature settings such as high, low, and keep warm.

All the models were equally easy to clean. And they all performed fairly well, with every model doing a good job of holding food at a warm, food-safe temperature of 140 degrees or more for two hours. (Food that’s held under 140 degrees for more than two hours can become unsafe to eat, as this temperature isn’t high enough to inhibit bacterial growth.) Most also got hot enough to cook food properly on both their high and low settings, where applicable. Small differences determined our preferences.

• Three Temperature Settings: Models with three settings—high, low, and keep warm— gave us greater versatility when cooking, letting us cook soup on low or bring meatballs back to a simmer on high. The most important setting that any machine could have, however, was the “warm” or “keep warm” option. This was crucial when warming temperature-sensitive foods like queso fundido, which overheated and separated in models that only had a “low” setting.

• Exterior Handles: We liked models with handles on the outside. These provided extra protection from burns while transporting the slow cookers.

• Clearly Marked Controls: We preferred models with easy-to-use control dials featuring clear and bold markings. These let us choose the correct temperature setting every time

• An Indicator Light: Several models we tested did not have indicator lights, so the only way we could tell whether the slow cooker was on was to touch the exterior of the slow cooker, which was often quite hot already. Models with lights left no doubt the appliance was on.

• Limited or No Temperature Settings: In particular, we disliked models without a “keep warm” setting, which forced us to use the lowest temperature setting to keep dips warm. But because the “low” setting was relatively hot—reaching about 175 degrees after a half hour—they overheated dips like queso fundido, so the queso separated and looked unappetizingly greasy as a result.