How To Use Parchment Paper In Your Slow Cooker For Easier Cleanup

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If you, like many, don't think that spending 30 minutes soaking and scrubbing baking sheets after a cookie-baking session, or scraping food debris from the bottom of an air fryer basket as fun, then a roll of parchment paper is probably something you keep stocked in your kitchen. It makes cleaning up a whole lot easier when it comes to these appliances. And that goes for your slow cooker, too.

The good news is that parchment paper will also work just fine in a slow cooker. In fact, if you're cooking something that can be taken out all in one piece (like a slow cooker chocolate lava cake or slow cooker bread pudding), this is recommended just because of how convenient it makes the cleanup. Lots of folks worry that parchment paper will start a fire when it's put into the slow cooker, but these things are built tough. Parchment paper is coated with a layer of silicone – that smooth, non-stick surface on one side. Thanks to this treatment, it can handle heat up to around 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Since a slow cooker only reaches about 300 degrees Fahrenheit max, there's little to no risk of overheating here.

Using parchment paper in your slow cooker is rather simple. If you've ever lined an air fryer basket with parchment paper, then you know the routine: Line the interior of the slow cooker completely, non-stick glossy side facing up, while leaving an inch or two of paper sticking out of the cooker's sides. Those draped edges can give you something to grip onto when lifting food out, and, once secured under the lid, they can keep the food from shifting around while it's cooking.

Parchment paper is great for lots of slow-cooker recipes where the food could stick to the base: Roasted vegetables, cookies, cakes, bread, and fish, for example. But it has one weakness — liquid. Pour broth or sauce over parchment, and it disintegrates into a clingy mess that's harder to clean up than the bare pot would have been. If you're cooking with liquid and want an easy clean-up, grab plastic slow cooker liners like Reynolds Kitchens instead — they're built for the job and will handle it far better than parchment paper.

Then you've got the gray area of dishes that could maybe work with parchment but in reality aren't quite worth the risk. One example would be a creamy Crockpot lemon chicken. Doesn't sound like it's got a lot of liquid until you see the lemon juice pooling at the bottom of the pot, chicken broth sloshing around, and cream cheese melting into all the ingredients. That's pushing it for parchment. Aluminum foil is the smarter choice. It's stronger and won't fall apart when things get wet.

Weigh your options carefully and make a judgment call depending on what you're cooking. For us, any one-piece slow cooker recipe that's dry and crumbly, we know we're picking parchment paper.