By Kate Harvey
Content Manager | Pou Whakahaere Ihirangi
If you're shopping for a new slow cooker, don't assume paying more means getting a better appliance. You don't need to spend hundreds of dollars to get tender fall-apart meat and convenient winter meals.
We've tested dozens of them over the years and often find the budget slow cookers perform sufficiently well that most households won't notice the difference between them and much pricier models.
Slow cookers are also incredibly cheap to run – even when they’re cooking for 8 hours a day, they’ll only use about 26c of electricity. Whereas cooking a roast in the oven costs more like $1.30 – five times as much.
If you can pick up a good slow cooker for cheap, it will be a very economical way to get dinner on the table – or to stock the freezer.
Not every cheap model is worth buying
Some cheap slow cookers are good enough to earn our Consumer Recommended tick, but some also linger at the bottom of our results.
The lower scoring ones don’t perform terribly – you can just do better for your money.
We give every model a slow cooking score based on how well it cooks corned beef on low and chilli beef and beans on high. The model with the lowest score is a Russell Hobbs that costs about $60.
Slow and multi-cookers tested
The faster your life, the better a slow cooker looks.
The two best budget slow cookers
Our testing identified several sub-$75 slow cookers that deliver excellent value for money.
