Breville VTP169 Compact Slow Cooker, 1.5 L - Silver

This is my first ever slow cooker and I must admit that I found it difficult to actually pick a model. But having now used it twice, I have absolutely no regrets. It is a bit smaller than I was expecting and whilst it is perfect size for one person, I think that if I was cooking for two, I’d go for a 2 litre model. There are a few recipes included in the instruction manual and for my first effort, chose the sausage and (baked) bean casserole (see photo) but added some green beans, baby new potatoes and carrots as well. Wow! Carrots were a bit soft but that could’ve been because I sliced them too thinly but everything else came out perfectly and meal was hot right through to the final mouthful. I’ve just made a beef goulash (recipe from BBC website) and that was even better. Easy to clean and easy to store. Best thing I’ve bought for a long time.

I have been using this for a couple of weeks now and I am very pleased with it. It is big enough to for two people with an average sort of appetite though if you want to put vegetables and meat in to cook at the same time you need to bear in mind that it might be too full. It is ideal if you're going to use it for meat and vegetables and then do jacket potatoes to have with it - then you can put enough in it for two generous servings.It is ideal for one person and is small enough to sit neatly on your worktop and not take up too much room. The ceramic pot and glass lid can be put in the dishwasher. The glass lid makes it easy to see how your meal is cooking without taking the lid off. It has three settings - low - for long cooking - high for shorter periods and auto which is a combination of both levels and is ideal if you want to cook over night or all day while you are out.I love the way slow cooking keeps the flavour in and food doesn't reduce in size while cooking and it makes even the toughest meat deliciously tender. I also like the way the flavours combine. I can see that I shall be using this a lot over the coming winter to make soups and stews.

Love this little slow cooker. Never had one before and it's so easy to use. In terms of quantity, it easily makes 4 portions and the quality of the food is great.My only gripe is the lid rattles something awful as there isn't a seal but this doesn't seem to affect our meals or the flavour.Simple to clean but due to the above, some of the liquid runs down into the large metal part and burns. Nothing a good scrub won't fix though.

More than 2 years I am used to Crockpot SCV400PY for lot of meals, but only in 2 portions mainly. Honestly, I cooked 5 portions of boeuf bourgignon last week, this amount of food for the first time. Some kind of food, i.e. chicken livers, sometimes are dried out and it is common to burn few pieces of vegetable or sauce to the bowl.This smaller one I am using for 1 week, but simply testing it with problematic ingredients for bigger one in smaller amount.2 pieces of pork neck sliced to 2,5cm around 300g each, heavily browned, sauce was 300ml of water and other ingredients, AUTO for 5 hours. Meat tender, falling apart, JUICY! Strong taste of meat and sauce. For me big surprise.1/4 cup of long grain rice and 500ml of milk, some sugar and spices, HIGH for 2 1/2 hours. On the top little dried and caramelized, at the bottom little of milk remained, when mixed, all is tender, but milk should be 50ml less or prolong cooking time for at least 30 minutes.6 chicken thighs browned, sauce for coq au vin 300ml, some mushrooms, some onion. AUTO for 5 hours. Meat is falling apart, not too juicy, but not dried out, I think good taste and texture. And I know well the meaning of dried out chicken.Lentil stew from 1/2 cup of lentils and 350ml of water together, some vegetables. AUTO for 5 hours. Lentils are cooked, tender, but not mushy. Other vegetable is cooked perfectly and there is no remainig water. Result was as I expected.Cook it 30 minutes more, let it cool and mince it on meat mincer, cool it down completely and you have lentil pate.Next is planned beef ribs with bone in some simple sauce as stew, chicken livers in red wine, saussages stuffed with cheese (burty s tvaruzkama) individually packed in aluminium foil. Maybe some try with whole wheat grain, oat meal or something like that. And of course jams.I really like AUTO function for 5 hours, although I was really surprised it reaches boil in 1 1/2 hour, temperature was slightly below 100oC. Maybe the same result can be achieved with HIGH mode for 3 hours, it needs to be tried.Big plus for me is it fits perfectly 2 portions of regular meal, but you need something bigger for 2 portions of ratatouille or chicken legs and potatoes cooked together. Other big plus is I bought used one for half price, and in my case it was only opened box and item was not removed from the box. For me it was 320CZK for the pot and 300CZK shipping. 620CZK here is price of 6 regular meal menus during the week.Why I ordered it from foreign country? I found no way how to buy small crock pot for 2 portions here.For timing I use programmable power socket, so in my case I am looking for fully manual operated pots. This device has no timer, only 3 modes, LOW, HIGH and AUTO. Missing is WARM keeping it between 70 and 80oC for 6 hours from cold. I used this setting to cook pork ham.

Very simple, cheap and small enough to not take up too much space. Has two settings - high and low - high gives a boil and low works perfectly for slow cooking meat. Also has an auto but not tried this setting as I don't trust it.

I ordered this as I wanted to be able to cook meals just for me and not waste anything. ( I have a family side one too). It is brilliant perfect quantity for one person. ( or two if you were adding something to go with the meal). I used high and low. The auto setting allows you to do this if you’re away when you cook. It starts on high then lowers to low. Only set back I can really speak of is my larger one does have a keep warm setting but to be honest turning it off still stays warm for quite a long time. Plus because it’s just for one that’s not really an issue. The ceramic bowl is easy to clean like most slow cookers and I tested the slow cooker bags ( that fit the large one) and they were brilliant too and it was easy to remove and throw away. All in all it’s met everything I had hoped it would. Looking forward to allsorts of recipes this autumn winter. ( the booklet has a few recipes in it as well).

As with all slow cookers flavour is exceptional cleaning of this unit is ok but not as easy as our non stick one overall descent build quality and value my main gripe is the lid doesn’t fit properly so on the high setting it constantly rattles which goes on for hours this doesn’t happen on any of our other slow cookers and I thought something they would have picked up on in manufacture testing unless it’s just ours that does it