I, an Avid Home Cook, Tested the $360 GreenPan Elite Slow Cooker—Here’s the Verdict

I will start by saying this is not a cheap appliance. At full price, the GreenPan Elite Slow Cooker clocks in at $360—just over five times the price of a Crock-Pot on Amazon, which retails for $70. Even the Our Place Slow Cooker/Pressure Cooker is under $200. That being said, does this live up to the hype? With the traditional Crock-Pot, you do have fewer features—basically high/low temperature settings and a timer for up to 20 hours of cooking. But are those extra features worth the spend? Let’s dig in.

Taking it out of the box, I will give credit to the fact that despite the myriad modes, the slow cooker remained intuitive to use, and the manual is a moot point. Everything you need to know and navigate is clearly labelled on the control panel. The other quality that was surprising and immediately appreciated was the density—or rather, lack of it. I grew up with my mom’s dense, use-two-hands-or-it’s-crashing-to-the-floor Crock-Pot on the kitchen counter, so I was expecting to have to heave it out of the box. Not so. Though it’s just shy of 14 pounds, it doesn’t feel like it, making it so much easier to wash by hand. (That’s key for me; I lack a dishwasher in my New York apartment.) However, don’t confuse lack of density with flimsiness. The GreenPan Elite wasn’t an immovable boulder on my counter, but neither did it give me the impression that it was poorly made or unable to withstand some serious cooking.

Test No. 1: Traditional Slow Cooking

I started my testing process by making my bi-annual bone broth from a chicken I had roasted in my Ninja Double Stack air fryer. (Sidenote: Best culinary idea I’ve had in two decades. Never going back to the oven.) The 6-quart pot had plenty of space for the carcass of what was a five-pound bird, plus carrots, onion and garlic, covered to the brim with water. I set a timer for 16 hours and forgot about it until the next day, when it beeped and then automatically went into warming mode, a state in which it will stay for up to eight hours after cooking is finished.

Test No. 2: Browning & Sautéing

The next step was making the soup. After straining out the broth, I chose the brown/sauté function, poured in some olive oil and browned a head of garlic before throwing in some carrots. You can select your desired temperature, ranging from 120 to 400 degrees, and I settled on 350. Be careful here—though there are silicone grips on the handles, I noticed that, particularly in this setting, the handles will be too hot to touch without mitts. Once my vegetables were done, I put the pot back in slow cook mode, dumped in my bone broth, herbs and chicken, and let it do its thing until dinner at which point I finished the soup with a bag of kale and lemon juice.  

I was feeling ambitious and wanted to see if the nonstick was truly nonstick, so I also made a pot roast and used the brown/sautée feature to sear the pork shoulder before cooking. After throwing down a little oil, I plopped it in and browned both sides. The roast slid around like butter, leaving not a trace. One thing I observed during this cooking process was that it took much longer for me to cook my 5.5-pound roast (a total of approximately 15 hours on low) than my mother takes to cook her roast of a comparable size in a Crock-Pot, also on low. It didn’t bother me, per se, but let that be a heads up to you if you’ve got company coming. Alternately, my mom told me to try cooking it for eight hours on high the next time.

Cleanup was easy, even without a dishwasher. I would happily wash this pot over any of my cast iron pans any day. No scrubbing required; it was easy to maneuver and the silicone grippies came off easily.

Fast Facts

• Capacity: 6 quarts
• Modes: 4
• Accessories: 1 removable pot, 1 steaming rack
• Colors: 7
• Dishwasher safe: Yes (removable pot)