Top pick
The Set & Forget cooked foods low and slow to make the best pot roast in our tests, and it has a probe thermometer to cook foods to a set temperature.
The Hamilton Beach Set & Forget 6 Quart Programmable Slow Cooker has been our top pick since 2013. A common complaint among owners of slow cookers is that they cook foods too hot, but in our tests the Set & Forget successfully simmered beans on a low setting without boiling them and turning them to mush. And even on a high setting, it was able to cook at moderate enough temperatures to produce a fall-apart tender roast. Its intuitive interface, probe thermometer, locking lid, and modest price make it the best cooker of the models we tested.
Also great
For longer cook times or more precise temperature control, we like the Hamilton Beach Temp Tracker.
If you want a longer timer or a more precise probe thermometer, we recommend the Hamilton Beach Temp Tracker 6 Quart Slow Cooker. The Temp Tracker is similar to our top pick but has a 24-hour timer (instead of 14 hours), more built-in slots for a probe thermometer, and a medium setting as well as high, low, and warm. Unlike with the Set & Forget, the probe thermometer reads to the degree, and you can set it to a wider range of target cooking temperatures. But this model ran a little hotter in our tests, and we’re not convinced that everyone needs the extras, which go above and beyond the “set it and forget it” slow cooker mantra.
