22 Slow-Cooker Dinners You'll Want to Make This Winter

Puréeing some of the lentil-vegetable mixture, and then combining it with the remaining vegetables and lentils gives the soup a texture that satisfies those who love a creamy soup and those who prefer it chunky. Serve this slow-cooker lentil soup with crackers.

This hearty jambalaya is bursting with chicken, smoked turkey sausage, and shrimp. It takes just 25 minutes to prep in the morning and then your slow cooker will work its magic and deliver a tasty meal at the end of the day.

The spice blend in this healthy beef stew recipe--cinnamon, allspice and cloves--may conjure images of apple pie, but the combo is a great fit in savory applications too. Serve over creamy polenta or buttered whole-wheat egg noodles.

Sure, the slow cooker's great for stews and soups, but it also happens to make a mean lasagna! In this ingenious slow-cooker recipe, all you have to do is chop your veggies, then layer the ingredients (raw) into the crockpot. Serve with: Garlic bread and a green salad.

Sherry adds sweetness and flavor to this slow-cooker vegetarian cabbage soup. It's balanced nicely by the crushed red pepper, fire-roasted tomatoes and a pop of acidity from the sherry vinegar. Potatoes give the soup heft and substance. Serve with crusty bread.

This brisket is seasoned with tangy mustard, sweet turbinado sugar and pungent garlic. Substitute brown sugar for the turbinado, if desired, and use the tube variety of tomato paste so any leftovers stay fresh longer. We recommend serving this braised beef over mashed potatoes, but it'd be just as delicious over rice, spaghetti squash or pasta.

Chicken thighs get perfectly tender in just a few hours in the slow cooker. Plus, cooking everything together low and slow infuses all the flavors together for complexity in every bite.

In this main-dish recipe, the pot roast is slow-cooked with carrots and low-sodium beef broth. Toward the end of the cooking time, shredded cabbage is added in to round out the meal. Each of the two servings has just 215 calories.

The curry mixture coats the potatoes and cauliflower, imparting a bold, hot flavor while the dollop of sour cream on top acts as a cooling agent. Double the serving size, and this dish becomes a hearty meatless main. To make this recipe gluten-free, use gluten-free curry powder. Garnish with fresh cilantro leaves, if desired.

Combine orange juice, cornstarch, soy sauce, honey, ginger, garlic, salt and crushed red pepper with chicken and butternut squash in this delicious slow-cooker recipe. Serve over high-protein quinoa, which contains all nine essential amino acids.

The sauce in this recipe is a heavenly mixture of tomatoes, spices, herbs and mustard. It provides amazing flavor to the lamb as they spend up to 12 hours together in the slow cooker.

Load the crock pot and go with this stew recipe that's prepped in the morning and simmers all day so you'll come home to a Sunday-worthy dinner (and your house smelling downright heavenly). Tender beef, melt-in-your-mouth potatoes and carrots in a rich broth--this could be the best and easiest beef stew you've ever made.

This chicken ragout main dish is an easy choice for dinner. Made with carrots, onion, mushrooms, and tomatoes and flavored with rosemary and thyme, it cooks in the slow cooker and is served over whole-wheat noodles.

This slow-cooker cabbage roll soup has all the essential flavors of a classic cabbage roll and simmers away to create bold, warming flavors. This savory soup has just a hint of sweetness plus heat from hot sauce. The tomatoes and caraway seeds help create depth but don't overshadow the rest of the flavors. The brown rice garnish rounds out the dish.

Rice vinegar, sesame seeds and brown sugar make this simple sauce irresistible! One-fourth cup of sesame seeds may sound like a lot, but it's the perfect amount to give the sauce its nutty, earthy flair. Serve this slow-cooker Korean beef with hot cooked rice and garnish with thinly sliced red and green jalapeño peppers, if desired.

Impress the in-laws, neighbors or any other dinner guests with this pretty dish. It's a slow-cooker chicken recipe that actually looks and tastes like it was oven-roasted. To save time, prep the vegetables a day ahead or in the morning, and then refrigerate until ready to brown the meat and start the slow cooker.

This version of the Italian classic vegetable and bean soup is made in the slow cooker and mixes in flavorful sausage and squash. Use any variety of winter squash.

Borscht is an Eastern European soup that typically features beets as a prominent ingredient, thus the resulting dish has a purple-red color. Our slow-cooker rendition is literally beefed up with brisket and showcases whole-grain rye berries, a source of fiber.

Let your slow cooker do the heavy lifting to make a Sunday dinner that yields leftovers for another night. Tuck the rest of the spiced beef and your favorite fixings into corn tortillas or spoon over baked sweet potatoes.

Chicken thighs stay moist and succulent during slow cooking, infusing the accompanying vegetables with superb flavor. This easy braise has a luxurious finish of avgolémono, a versatile Greek sauce made with egg, lemon and fresh dill.

Modeled on North African stews, this aromatic vegetarian main course can be served over brown rice or steamed spinach.

Adjust the heat level in the dish by choosing either hot or mild Italian sausage. You can add red pepper, too, to make it extra hot. Serve this slow-cooker minestrone with crusty bread, if desired.