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Is there ever an embarrassing moment in the kitchen that you can still remember clearly? Please tell me. When I accidentally turned my shiny new glass-top stove upside down, that was the moment it happened to me. Can you fathom the terror? I could hear the glass shatter. I had no clue that it is not a good idea to put a hot lid facedown on the burner, and it was almost new. Because of this horrific incident, I became more cautious with kitchen equipment, studied up on how to use them correctly, and generally increased my attention to safety in the kitchen.
The problem is, I still encounter similar instances after taking all those safety measure. Something stunned me a few days ago as I was browsing my favorite Facebook group for kitchen-related items. A homeowner shared a photo of their stovetop, which looked like chili. The surface was so coated with chili that it was impossible to see. Her chili recipe called for six hours on high heat in the crockpot. She returned it to the burner for another hour since it was still underdone. The chili poured out of the crock as soon as she attempted to place it in the refrigerator once it had cooled. How we would clean it up is beyond my comprehension. My reaction would be to sob for at least a couple of hours before considering how to clean up the mess.
In what ways did this situation derail? A large number of commenters agreed with her: putting a crockpot on the burner is the one thing you should absolutely never do. So, why is it the case?
Could I use the cooktop to cook in a crockpot?
No way! Crockpots aren’t meant to be used on stovetops. Soups, stews, and chili are perfect for crockpots, which are slow cookers that utilize low heat to cook food for a long time. You shouldn’t heat the ceramic insert of your crockpot on a stovetop burner, but rather on the low, continuous heat of a slow cooker. For the following reasons, it is not safe to place a crockpot on top of the stove:
The porcelain crocks used to make crockpots and slow cookers are fragile and may crack or shatter when subjected to sudden changes in temperature or direct heat. You are subjecting a ceramic insert to a kind of heat it was never designed to handle when you place it on a burner. Electric or gas stove burners provide a concentrated beam of heat that may swiftly bake ceramics. The bottom of the crockpot might fracture or even come off, as seen in the now-famous Facebook post, because of this.
For ingredients and full cooking instructions, continue reading (>)
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