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Slow Cooker Potatoes with Garlic and Herbs

Four hours unattended, then five minutes under the broiler for the crust a slow cooker cannot give you.

Prep
10 min
Cook
4 hr 5 min
Makes
Serves 8
Jump to the recipe
Baby potatoes in a dish scattered with chopped parsley
Photo: Audy of Course / Pexels

The honest thing to say about slow-cooked potatoes is that they come out soft, buttery and completely pale. A slow cooker cannot brown anything — it never exceeds boiling point and browning starts around 140°C. Every recipe that promises crisp slow-cooker potatoes is describing something that did not happen.

This is the same limitation that crockpot beef and broccoli works around by searing first.

So the last five minutes happen elsewhere. Tip them onto a tray, put them under a hot broiler, and you get the crust. It is one extra pan and it is the difference between a side dish and a bowl of boiled potatoes.

Baby potatoes with the skin on, because the skin holds each one together over four hours when a peeled potato would collapse.

The garlic goes in whole and unpeeled. Crushed garlic at this length of cooking turns bitter and slightly acrid; whole cloves in their skins turn sweet and spreadable, and you squeeze them over at the end.

Raw potatoes with garlic and fresh herbs
Photo: Christina Voinova / Pexels

Slow cooked potatoes: the recipe card

Four hours unattended, then five minutes under the broiler for the crust a slow cooker cannot give you.

What goes in

  • 3 lb (1.4 kg) baby potatoes, halved if large
  • ¼ cup (60 g) butter, melted
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 whole head of garlic, cloves separated but unpeeled
  • 2 tsp dried Italian herbs
  • 2 tsp fine salt
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 3 tbsp chopped parsley and chives, to finish
  • ⅓ cup (30 g) grated parmesan, optional

Four hours, then five minutes under the broiler

  1. 1 Toss the potatoes with the melted butter, oil, dried herbs, salt and pepper directly in the slow cooker. Tuck the unpeeled garlic cloves among them.
  2. 2 Cook on low 4 hours, or high 2½, until a knife slides in with no resistance. Do not lift the lid — each look costs about 20 minutes of cooking time.
  3. 3 Heat the grill to its highest setting. Tip the potatoes onto a sheet pan in a single layer, along with the buttery liquid from the pot.
  4. 4 Grill 5–7 minutes, until blistered and golden. Watch them — this goes from pale to burnt quickly.
  5. 5 Squeeze the softened garlic out of its skins over the potatoes, scatter with the fresh herbs and parmesan, and serve.

Why the grill step matters

  • The grilling step is not optional if you want color, and it is the only way to get it.
  • They hold well on the slow cooker's warm setting for two hours before grilling — useful when the oven is busy.