How to Thicken Thin or Watery Slow Cooker Sauces | America's Test Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

How to Thicken Thin or Watery Slow Cooker Sauces | America's Test Kitchen? ›

How to Do It: To thicken the sauces of slow-cooked dishes, we often use a roux (a paste of fat and flour), pureed beans or vegetables that are already in the dish, or instant tapioca.

A cornstarch slurry is a mixture of a cold liquid with cornstarch. It is used as a thickening agent, and is particularly common in Asian sauces. As a rule of thumb, dissolve 2 parts cold water and 1 part cornstarch. Add the slurry to your sauce as it simmers in the slow cooker.

Wheat flour is used extensively in professional kitchens as a thickening agent. Although it can be combined with water to create a whitewash, it is more commonly mixed with fat, which surrounds the starch granules and prevents clumping when added to hot liquids.

The most readily available sauce-thickener is flour. For a too-thin sauce, try adding a slurry (equal parts flour and water, whisked together) or beurre manie (equal parts softened butter and flour, kneaded together to form a paste)—both are ideal thickeners for rich and creamy sauces, such as steak sauce recipes.

Take the lid off

Place the cooker on a high setting, and open the lid for 30-45 minutes to let excess moisture cook off. The liquid will reduce, leaving you with a thick and delicious gravy or sauce. (Tip: This trick can also be applied for thickening stews, or when you've accidentally added too much liquid.)

Wait To Ladle Out The Excess Liquid

The better option is to wait until it's no longer mid-cook and use a ladle to decant the hot liquid into another vessel (while wearing oven mitts or other protection, of course!).

To thicken a soup, stew, or sauce, leaving the lid uncovered is ideal. "It must be off, or semi-covered, if you are slowing down the reduction process," says Stephen Chavez, chef-instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education.

Add a slurry at the end.

A slurry is a mixture of flour and water, whisked together until smooth and added towards the end of cooking; it's a super-simple way to thicken any soup. For slow cooker soups, add your slurry with at least 30 minutes of cook time left so that the raw flour can cook and thicken the soup.

How to thicken sauce quicker? ›

Cornstarch is an extremely effective thickener that works very quickly. One of its benefits is that it doesn't change the flavor of your sauce, just binds the liquid with starch molecules for a silkier, stiffer texture.

Use one tablespoon cornstarch mixed with one tablespoon cold water (aka a cornstarch slurry) for each cup of medium-thick sauce. Thoroughly mix the cornstarch and water together. Our Test Kitchen recommends shaking the cornstarch and water in a Mason jar for easy mixing.

This moist environment allows you to leave food to cook for hours without risking it drying out. But because there is no evaporation, the liquid isn't able to reduce and thicken naturally in a slow cooker, often resulting in watery sauces and loose gravies. The common solution? Using a thickener.

You can use either flour or cornstarch to thicken BBQ sauce. Just mix together 2 tbsp (16 g) of flour and ¼ cup (62.5 mL) of water, or combine 1 tbsp (9 g) of cornstarch with 1 tbsp (15 mL) of water.

Cornstarch: Make a slurry of half water, half cornstarch and whisk until smooth. Cornstarch is a powerful thickener, so start by whisking in no more than 1 tablespoon of the mixture per 2 cups of simmering sauce; stir and simmer for 2 minutes, check the thickness, and repeat with more slurry as needed.

You can also add cornstarch dissolved in water (1 or 2 tablespoons cornstarch to 2 or 3 tablespoons cold water, depending on how much liquid you have) directly to the slow cooker near the end of cooking to thicken the liquids.