Thermal Cooker Recipes

Your Source for Thermal Cooker Recipes and Information

Saratoga Jacks

Thermal Cooking – On Vacation

by Leave a Comment

In January we surprised the kids with a 2-night stay at Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound, WA. We love Great Wolf but our bank account does not love it. The plan was to pick the kids up from school and drive through Seattle and Tacoma rush-hour traffic, arriving at the resort just in time for dinner.

In an attempt to minimize the financial damage, I planned to pack a picnic dinner that night and for at least one other meal on property. How could I make the meal a little more exciting than the standard PB&J?

THERMAL COOKER of course!

At about 1pm, I cooked up a big pot of chili in the thermal cooker, boiled it for a few minutes, sealed it up and threw it in the trunk of the van. When we arrived at our hotel room at 7:30, we opened up a burning-hot chili dinner. A family favorite on the road for the win!

Try taking your favorite chili or soup on the road next time you travel. You’ll love it!

Thermalcookerrecipes.com provides recipes as a resource and educational tool only, and makes no food safety guarantees. We are not liable for any failure to meet food safety standards that may arise in your thermal cooking. We make every effort to ensure that our recipes meet established food safety standards. But all thermal cookers are not created equal, and there are many variables at play resulting in the temperatures reached and maintained in your thermal cooker. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for your specific brand and model of thermal cooker, even if that means tailoring our recipes.

If you are in doubt, please consult the FDA page on foodborne illness for safe cooking temperatures and other safety tips. And use a food thermometer to ensure that your food has been cooked and stored at a safe temperature.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, we may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link we post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting our website!

Update

by Leave a Comment

It’s been a while since I posted on this site. Mostly it’s laziness. I’ve got some good recipes queued up though so stay tuned.

I also hit a snag in my thermal cooker love affair and I wanted to get it sorted out before posting about it. We’ve researched quite a bit and our favorite thermal cooker is the Saratoga Jacks. We both own one and we love them.

The main thing I prefer about the Saratoga Jacks over other cookers on the market it is the small inner pot you can use to cook rice or some other second dish simultaneously. It’s got a nice thick bottom (not unlike yours truly) and makes creating a whole meal more efficient.

However, I ran into a problem when the handle for the inner pot developed rust spots.

It didn’t look great but that wasn’t an issue for me until the rust began dripping into the food I was cooking in the top pot. I researched online and apparently you won’t die from eating small amounts of rust.

But there are a lot of things you won’t die from that I prefer not to do. Like watching Vin Diesel movies and tattooing pictures of boy bands on my forehead.

So, I reached out to the company and they were very kind and replaced the pot. Sweet.

Until the replacement inner pot handle developed rust spots the second time I used it. There seems to be a manufacturing problem and I hope they get it fixed.

In the meantime, I reached out to them again and they responded that they were on it and that they stood behind their product 100% and immediately shipped out another replacement pot.

The main unit and larger pot have no problems and we have used them a TON. I still think it’s the best thermal cooker on the market. I hope they get to the bottom of the issue and I’m glad they’re taking care of customers when things go wrong.

So, yeah. New year, new recipes. I’m looking forward to thermal cooking with you in 2017!

Thermalcookerrecipes.com provides recipes as a resource and educational tool only, and makes no food safety guarantees. We are not liable for any failure to meet food safety standards that may arise in your thermal cooking. We make every effort to ensure that our recipes meet established food safety standards. But all thermal cookers are not created equal, and there are many variables at play resulting in the temperatures reached and maintained in your thermal cooker. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for your specific brand and model of thermal cooker, even if that means tailoring our recipes.

If you are in doubt, please consult the FDA page on foodborne illness for safe cooking temperatures and other safety tips. And use a food thermometer to ensure that your food has been cooked and stored at a safe temperature.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, we may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link we post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting our website!

Indian Lemon Cilantro Chicken and Yellow Rice

by 2 Comments

indian-chicken-sliderEverything delicious I know about Indian food, I learned from Madhur Jaffrey.

She is a goddess. This recipe is based on two recipes from her Indian Cooking book, Lemony Chicken with Fresh Coriander and Aromatic Yellow Rice.

Anyone I’ve ever made these for loves them and they turned out amazing in the thermal cooker.

You start by browning chicken chunks in your large pot with some oil. When they’re lightly browned but not cooked through, add your minced garlic, jalapeno, ginger paste, and spices.

Cook them for a minute until the spices are nice and fragrant.

Then add your liquids. Bring everything to a boil. When it’s boiling hard, to the point that it can’t be stirred down, let it continue to boil for three minutes. Then place the large pot in the cooker, cover and seal.

indian-chicken1

Yellow Rice

If you are make yellow rice as well in the upper pot (both recipes are included in this post.), start water boiling as the chicken finishes browning. Add rice and spices to the boiling water and boil for three minutes as well.

Nest the smaller rice pot inside the larger chicken pot.

Cover.

Seal.

Let cook.

This should be ready in 2 hours but can continue to cook for up to 8, depending on how heat efficient your personal thermal cooker is.

Indian Lemon Cilantro Chicken and Yellow Rice
Save RecipeSave Recipe
Print Recipe

Ingredients

  • 4 1-inch cubes fresh ginger peeled and coarsley chopped
  • 8 Tbsp plus 2 Cups water
  • 6 Tbsp vegetable oil
  • 4 chicken breast halves, cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 1 heaping Tbsp minced garlic
  • 5 bunches fresh cilantro
  • 1/2-1 fresh jalapeno
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 4 tsp ground cumin
  • 2 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp ground turmeric
  • 2 tsp salt, or to taste
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • Rice Ingredients
  • 2 1/2 cups rice
  • 4 cups water
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3/4 tsp turmeric
  • 3-4 whole cloves
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 3 Tbsp butter, cut into small pats (optional)

Instructions

Blend ginger and 8 Tbsp water in an electric blender or food processor.

Heat the oil over medium heat in your large thermal cooker pot.

Add chopped chicken pieces and lightly brown.

Add garlic, ginger paste, jalapeno, and dry spices to pot with chicken and stir for 1 minute.

Add 2 cups water, fresh cilantro, and lemon juice.

Bring to a boil.

When the liquid is boiling so hard it cannot be stirred down, set a timer for three minutes and boil while stirring frequently.

Remove pot from heat, put a lid on it, and seal it in your thermal cooker.

Remove and serve over rice after 2-8 hours in the cooker, depending on how long your cooker will safely keep it warm.

If you're making rice, boil water.

Add rice and spices and boil hard for 3 minutes.

Place rice pot nested inside chicken pot.

Cover with lid, seal in thermal cooker, and let cook for 2-8 hours.

When ready to serve, fluff rice with fork and mix butter into the rice.

7.8.1.2
8
http://thermalcookerrecipes.com/indian-lemon-cilantro-chicken-and-yellow-rice/

Thermalcookerrecipes.com provides recipes as a resource and educational tool only, and makes no food safety guarantees. We are not liable for any failure to meet food safety standards that may arise in your thermal cooking. We make every effort to ensure that our recipes meet established food safety standards. But all thermal cookers are not created equal, and there are many variables at play resulting in the temperatures reached and maintained in your thermal cooker. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for your specific brand and model of thermal cooker, even if that means tailoring our recipes.

If you are in doubt, please consult the FDA page on foodborne illness for safe cooking temperatures and other safety tips. And use a food thermometer to ensure that your food has been cooked and stored at a safe temperature.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, we may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link we post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting our website!

indian-chicken-pinterest

Thermal Cooker Bulgogi – Korean BBQ

by 2 Comments

Thermal Cooker Bulgogi - Slider

My sister-in-law is from Korea. She cooks the best food ever. This thermal cooker bulgogi is not one of her recipes. 🙁

But it is DELICIOUS, and until she comes over from Korea again to cook me her homemade bulgogi, this will have to do. Also, in the thermal cooker, it was about a 10 minute total project, and it came out piping hot. The meat was all intact, but melt-in-your-mouth tender, and the rice was perfect. All this after seven hours cooking, and being transported to a Korean themed bachelorette party —don’t ask!

Thermal Cooker Bulgogi - Featured

The joy of this, like most of our recipes is that to cook it, you dump the ingredients into your large pot, boil hard for three minutes, and put it into the cooker to cook. This was a fun experiment, because I just let the rice go the whole time, hoping it wouldn’t overcook. It was absolutely delicious! Better for certain than 7 hours in the rice cooker on warm.

I felt like a cooking superstar, and it was easy as anything!

Thermal cooker bulgogi also freezes very well. And you will probably want to freeze it, because this recipe makes a lot. Air is your enemy, as it brings down your food temperatures too quickly, so I always cook in larger amounts, and freeze leftovers.

See Kathryn’s recipe for instructions on the rice that I cooked in the nesting upper pot.

Thermal Cooker Bulgogi – Korean BBQ
Save RecipeSave Recipe
Print Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 C soy sauce
  • 1/2 C white sugar
  • 1 C chopped green onion
  • 1/3 C minced garlic
  • 1/2 C sesame seeds
  • 1/2 C sesame oil
  • 2 tsp ground black pepper
  • Water until beef is just covered (1-2 C)
  • 3 inch piece puréed fresh ginger
  • 4 pounds thin-sliced beef roast

Instructions

Purée fresh ginger in soy sauce and sesame oil and garlic, Add all ingredients to thin-sliced beef in large inner pot of thermal cooker. Add enough water to cover beef. Bring to a hard boil for at least 3-5 minutes, stirring consistently.

Place pot into thermal cooker, add nesting pot with prepared white rice. Seal, and cook for a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 8 hours.

Serve bulgogi over rice with steamed broccoli or other side vegetables.

7.8.1.2
2
http://thermalcookerrecipes.com/thermal-cooker-bulgogi-korean-bbq/

**This post contains affiliate links**

Thermal Cooker Bulgogi - Pinterest

Thermalcookerrecipes.com provides recipes as a resource and educational tool only, and makes no food safety guarantees. We are not liable for any failure to meet food safety standards that may arise in your thermal cooking. We make every effort to ensure that our recipes meet established food safety standards. But all thermal cookers are not created equal, and there are many variables at play resulting in the temperatures reached and maintained in your thermal cooker. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for your specific brand and model of thermal cooker, even if that means tailoring our recipes.

 

If you are in doubt, please consult the FDA page on foodborne illness for safe cooking temperatures and other safety tips. And use a food thermometer to ensure that your food has been cooked and stored at a safe temperature.

http://www.fda.gov/food/foodborneillnesscontaminants/buystoreservesafefood/ucm255180.htm

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, we may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link we post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting our website!

Top 10 Reasons A Thermal Cooker Will Change Your Life

by Leave a Comment

Thermal Cooker Slider

Thermal Cookers are AMAZING. This is the post where I tell you the things that have my friends rushing out to buy a thermal cooker after water aerobics or a park play date.

You see, I can’t shut up about my thermal cooker, because it’s my favorite thing to happen to cooking since the electric pressure cooker. (And yes, I’m still using that also. They work really well in tandem, and the electric pressure cooker has lightning speed on its side. But now in no particular order, I give you the top ten reasons why owning a thermal cooker will change your life!

1. Convenient Hot Meals On The Go

I can’t overemphasize this–This pot is like your slow cooker except it doesn’t overcook, it doesn’t need a power connection, it doesn’t slop over the sides because the unit is sealed. This beautiful piece of engineering makes dinner something you can take anywhere, hot, ready, at a moment’s notice. Oops, Mom, I forgot to tell you I’ve got a game across town? Someone grab the picnic bag and the thermal cooker full of dinner. It’s cool to the touch on the outside, and it’s not going to spill all over our car. In a few minutes, wherever we go, we’ve got our healthy, hot dinner ready. And look… I’ve just become a domestic goddess!

2. Reduced Fuel Consumption = Saving the Planet and Your Budget

If it only takes a 3-5 minute rolling boil (recommended by my thermal cooker manufacturer–consult yours for requirements as each unit is different) to provide enough heat to cook your meal all day and keep it hot for up to 8 hours, think of all the energy you’ll save. Maybe you’re happy about this because you care about global warming and reducing your carbon footprint. Maybe you want to save on your power and gas bills. Maybe you’re just glad not to heat your kitchen up and melt off all your makeup. 😉 Maybe it’s the apocalypse, and you don’t have much in the way of fuel. This way you’re cooking your food well with a minimal time and fuel output.

3. Camping and Road Trips

If you’re like me, most times you go camping the food is the biggest part of the ordeal. What if you only needed enough fuel for your camp stove to do a 3 minute boil of your dinner? What if you could just dump canned goods into the thermal cooker, bring it to a boil, close the lid, and head off on your adventures for the day. When you stagger back into camp after your husband pushed you up a mountain all day–not speaking from personal experience here–what if a hot beef stew was waiting in your thermal cooker with fresh-baked cornbread in the top nesting pot?

Happier already? Me too! Also think about the morning you leave for your camping trip, taking 3 minutes to boil the pot you prepared the night before. Then you nestle your thermal cooker in the back of the van between sleeping bags and pads, and when you finish setting up camp, your chicken curry and rice are perfectly ready for dinner. Camping and traveling have never been SO delicious!

Traveling with another family? No problem. This cooker fed two families of five with leftovers every night. Providing food for extended family? Also no problem. That’s why you have two thermal cookers. 😉

4. Soccer Night

Don’t look now, but with 5-10 minutes of morning prep, you’re ready to win soccer night EVERY week! The other moms are whipping out their rubbery takeout pizzas, and you’re like… hold on kids, here’s the sloppy joes I just threw together this morning. Careful, now… don’t burn your mouth. It’s piping hot! Ever wanted everyone to hate you? Oh, and then when it’s your turn to provide the game-end treats, you’re like, hold on… let me open up my second thermal cooker that’s stuffed full of ice cream sandwiches that I threw in three hours ago, and still have the frost on the outside of the papers! Don’t believe me? Get ready to have your mind blown.

5. Perfectly Cooked Meals — Ready When You Are

Ever left your slow-cooker on too long? Oh no… Look at all that crusty residue burnt all over the sides of the pan. That’s going to be a bear to clean, and not very delicious. And those potatoes and zucchini chunks? Boiled to bits of goo. But not anymore. No crusty, baked on residue, because the heat source for your food is the food itself. Nothing is jostling or boiling the food. Potatoes stay pristine and shaped perfectly, even the zucchini in my veggie stew was the perfect consistency, and I let that baby cook for 6-7 hours. Most meals can be ready in 2-4 hours, but can stay hot and ready for up to 8. And there’s no fire risk like you have with a slow cooker.

6. Overnight Hot Breakfasts — Ready When You Wake

Wait until you try our amazing overnight steel cut oats! Perfect texture, and piping hot right when you wake up! Cooking breakfast in three minutes the night before? Yes, please.

7. A Portable Fridge – Cold Foods On The Go

With a pre-chilled inner pot and ice in the top nesting pot, you’re that person who can bring ice-cold popsicles to the beach, and eat them four hours later. Yes, you shall be the star of every outing. Also, think about your cold foods kept nice and cold all day on the road trip. No more lukewarm, floppy string cheese. 🙂

8. Ten Minute Meal Prep

Early in the morning, when you have a few free minutes, throw together dinner for that night. The kitchen hasn’t had a chance to heat up yet, and you’re not going to heat it up. You’re just going to mix a bit, boil for a minute or two, and close the thermal cooker. Then all day, your dinner is happily cooking without heating up the kitchen, without sucking power, and without filling your house with food smells. I know the smell of cooking dinner is sometimes pleasant. But not after the cooking is done, and the strange meaty garlic smell is lurking in the bedroom for several hours. Also not when what you’re cooking is dry beans. Imagine well-cooked beans without the bean stench filling the house.

9. Pot Luck Perfection

Just imagine being the one person at the pot luck who isn’t looking for a plug in, who doesn’t have to reheat the food they brought, who doesn’t need to quickly shove their cold salad into the refrigerator, taking up prime fridge real estate. You’re the one who’s like . . . oh . . . it’s time to eat? Sure, let’s just open up my thermal cooker, and pull out the perfect meal as though I timed it for this very minute.

10. No More 5 PM What’s For Dinner — Healthier Dinner Ready To Go

The bonus of cooking your food in five minutes in the morning, and then forgetting about it all day, is that when you’re suddenly realizing it’s five o’clock, and you’re having that heart attack, wondering if you should run to Little Caesar’s, you will realize that your hot, perfect, healthy meal is sitting waiting for your family. And this cooking method preserves nutrients, and will often mean a home-cooked meal when you might have reached for the box of mac and cheese instead.

If I haven’t convinced you yet, I’m not sure I ever will . . . but Kate couldn’t convince me until I saw it for myself. I’ll be posting more YouTube videos in the coming days, so hopefully it’ll feel like you’re there, experiencing it with me.

If I have convinced you, click here to buy your Saratoga Jacks Thermal Cooker today!

This post contains affiliate links.

Thermal Cooker Pinterest

Thermalcookerrecipes.com provides recipes as a resource and educational tool only, and makes no food safety guarantees. We are not liable for any failure to meet food safety standards that may arise in your thermal cooking. We make every effort to ensure that our recipes meet established food safety standards. But all thermal cookers are not created equal, and there are many variables at play resulting in the temperatures reached and maintained in your thermal cooker. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for your specific brand and model of thermal cooker, even if that means tailoring our recipes.

 

If you are in doubt, please consult the FDA page on foodborne illness for safe cooking temperatures and other safety tips. And use a food thermometer to ensure that your food has been cooked and stored at a safe temperature.

http://www.fda.gov/food/foodborneillnesscontaminants/buystoreservesafefood/ucm255180.htm

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, we may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link we post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting our website!

How I Discovered Thermal Cooking – Not Just for the Apocalypse

by Leave a Comment

thermal cook
In my church community there’s a who lot of focus on emergency preparedness and self-sufficiency. We try to stay out of debt. We store food, water, and fuel for emergencies. We pack 72-hour kits so we will be prepared to leave our homes if disaster strikes.

Living just outside Seattle I know there’s a good chance I will see a major earthquake in my lifetime. So, I’ve been getting organized and taking classes and I’m feeling more and more confident every day that if something crazy were to happen, my family would be okay.

I recently took a class from an amazingly knowledgeable woman in my area who created a non-profit organization to help people be more prepared. The class was about fuel and cooking options in an emergency. She shared all kinds of stoves, pots, and cooking alternatives.

When I got home from the class, I knew I couldn’t afford to purchase everything she had mentioned but I wanted to start somewhere. So, I looked through my notes and did some research online.

There were tons of great stoves, burners, pots and devices but the one that impressed me the most was the thermal cooker.

Susan had suggested the Saratoga Jacks cooker but there were several other brands on the market. I ended up going with the Saratoga Jacks because of its price and because my friend had used that specific brand and could speak to the product quality.

The reason I went with the thermal cooker over all the other emergency cooking products was that the more I read about it, the more I realized that it was so much more than an emergency product.

I became convinced that it was a cooking tool I could use every single day of my life in a hundred different ways. And it would make my life so much easier.

As I’ve been using it over the last several weeks, I’ve become convinced that everyone needs a thermal cooker in their life.

It’s convenient.

It saves on fuel consumption and lowers carbon footprint (is that still a thing, Al Gore?).

It’s super easy to use.

It’s ultra-portable, making hot meals on the go simple and doable.

When I took it on vacation this summer, I made food for several friends and family members, breakfast oatmeal at a cabin in middle of nowhere, chili and soup we could take to the park and play while it cooked, and even cold food for a road trip.

Several people I cooked for asked me where they could get one and where they could find instructions and recipes for it.

I couldn’t find a great place for this online. So, my sister and I created one.

On this site, we will to post recipes, instructions, and ideas for using a thermal cooker, ways to transform your dinner hour and make your families lives better.

We’re so glad to have you join us on this journey!

thermal cook2

**This post contains affiliate links**

Thermalcookerrecipes.com provides recipes as a resource and educational tool only, and makes no food safety guarantees. We are not liable for any failure to meet food safety standards that may arise in your thermal cooking. We make every effort to ensure that our recipes meet established food safety standards. But all thermal cookers are not created equal, and there are many variables at play resulting in the temperatures reached and maintained in your thermal cooker. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for your specific brand and model of thermal cooker, even if that means tailoring our recipes.

If you are in doubt, please consult the FDA page on foodborne illness for safe cooking temperatures and other safety tips. And use a food thermometer to ensure that your food has been cooked and stored at a safe temperature.

http://www.fda.gov/food/foodborneillnesscontaminants/buystoreservesafefood/ucm255180.htm

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, we may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link we post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting our website!

The Portable, Cordless Slow-Cooker

by Leave a Comment

Heather Post 1 Slider

Before my sister Kate came to visit this summer, she kept going on and on about her new hot pot, thermal cooker thingy. And wasn’t I so excited? And what meals were we going to make with it to serve everyone on our camping trip?

Um… none. Because the pot sounded weird. And I don’t need one more new contraption in my life.

But then she arrived, and cooked her first meal with the wondrous thermal cooker.

And then I didn’t stop cooking for both families with the blasted pot every day until she left to go home. I ordered my own before I even let her drive away. You can watch my Unboxing of my Saratoga Jacks Thermal Cooker on our YouTube channel. I’m almost spastic with excitement!

The thermal cooker is essentially a slow-cooker . . . that cooks your food without attached power!

It has two sizes of pots that basically nest in a giant thermos, permitting you to cook two different dishes at once, using nothing but the heat of your initial rolling boil from your stove top, and the vacuum insulation power of the giant thermos to retain all that heat, cooking vegetables, sauces, meats, grains, and much more to perfection!

And did I mention that after those first few minutes to boil the raw ingredients, you place the hot pot into the thermos (which remains cool to the touch on the outside), seal it up, and it maintains food at a hot temperature for up to 8 hours if you follow the manufacturer’s directions?

Did I mention that the veggies stay intact, not losing shape or burning, because only the trapped heat does the cooking, so there’s far less chance of overcooking food, and I’ve never seen meat cooked to such perfect, fall-apart deliciousness.

No cords, no power suck, no electricity requirements. No tether keeping it in one spot.

I won’t go off now about all the AMAZING uses for this amazing pot, but just imagine the possibilities with me . . .

Or go here to buy your Saratoga Jacks Thermal Cooker today!

Portable, Cordless

 

Thermalcookerrecipes.com provides recipes as a resource and educational tool only, and makes no food safety guarantees. We are not liable for any failure to meet food safety standards that may arise in your thermal cooking. We make every effort to ensure that our recipes meet established food safety standards. But all thermal cookers are not created equal, and there are many variables at play resulting in the temperatures reached and maintained in your thermal cooker. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for your specific brand and model of thermal cooker, even if that means tailoring our recipes.

 

If you are in doubt, please consult the FDA page on foodborne illness for safe cooking temperatures and other safety tips. And use a food thermometer to ensure that your food has been cooked and stored at a safe temperature.

http://www.fda.gov/food/foodborneillnesscontaminants/buystoreservesafefood/ucm255180.htm

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, we may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link we post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting our website!

What is a Thermal Cooker?

by Leave a Comment

what thermal cooker  Before we get started with recipes and fangirl excitement about my new favorite kitchen tool, we should probably talk about what it is. Notice I said “kitchen tool” because it’s more than a pot, but I’m not sure if it counts as an appliance if it doesn’t use electricity. For now, it’s a tool.

A thermal cooker is an energy-efficient device that uses thermal insulation to continuously heat and cook food without the need for a constant heat source.

what thermal cooker2Basically, you heat your food at a high temperature for a few minutes in a metal pan. Then you put the entire metal pan in a giant thermos, and the food continues to cook for several hours. It’s like a slow cooker but portable and with less total energy consumption.

I recently used it at a family reunion to cook overnight steel-cut oats for 25 people. We were out at a cabin in the middle of nowhere. When my husband’s grandma saw it, she told me that cowboys used to do something similar to cook stew underground while they were out working all day.

The men would heat rocks in the fire and place them in a hole in the ground. Then they would put their stew pot in the ground with the hot rocks and cover it. When they came back that evening, the food would be done.

what thermal cooker1

Thermal cooking saves energy and provides a convenient way to take hot food on the go. All thermal cooking should be done according to manufacturer’s directions to avoid food spoilage and food poisoning. Food needs to be kept at a high enough temperature to avoid foodborne illness.

Go here to buy your Saratoga Jacks Thermal Cooker today!

what thermal cooker pinThis post contains affiliate links.

Thermalcookerrecipes.com provides recipes as a resource and educational tool only, and makes no food safety guarantees. We are not liable for any failure to meet food safety standards that may arise in your thermal cooking. We make every effort to ensure that our recipes meet established food safety standards. But all thermal cookers are not created equal, and there are many variables at play resulting in the temperatures reached and maintained in your thermal cooker. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for your specific brand and model of thermal cooker, even if that means tailoring our recipes.

 

If you are in doubt, please consult the FDA page on foodborne illness for safe cooking temperatures and other safety tips. And use a food thermometer to ensure that your food has been cooked and stored at a safe temperature.

http://www.fda.gov/food/foodborneillnesscontaminants/buystoreservesafefood/ucm255180.htm

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. This means, we may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase something from a link we post. Don’t worry, it costs you nothing. Thank you for supporting our website!