Best Slow Cooker Recipes for Bonfire Night
Bonfire Night food needs to be warm, filling and preferably ready when you come back inside absolutely freezing. At least, that’s what I want after standing around outside watching fireworks!
It’s also one of those evenings when I really don’t want to be cooking at the exact time everyone wants to eat. If you’re going to a firework display, taking the kids out with sparklers or having people round, trying to time dinner around everything else can be a bit of a pain.
That’s where the slow cooker genuinely earns its place on the worktop. You can get dinner cooking earlier in the day and have something warm waiting for you later, rather than coming back in and starting to chop onions at 9pm.
I’ve put together some of my favourite slow cooker recipes for Bonfire Night below. I’ve concentrated on the sort of food that actually makes sense for a cold November evening: chilli, casseroles, pulled pork, curries and big bowls of stew.
Some are better for eating around the table when you get home, while others work particularly well if you’ve got friends or family coming over and want something people can help themselves to.
What makes a good Bonfire Night slow cooker recipe?
For me, Bonfire Night isn’t the occasion for anything particularly delicate or complicated. I want something hearty that can cope with sitting in the slow cooker until we’re ready for it.
If you’re feeding people at different times, chilli, pulled pork and curries are especially useful because they’re easy to portion out. Add some rolls, jacket potatoes, rice or wedges and everyone can pretty much sort themselves out.
Stews and casseroles are lovely if you’re planning to eat once everyone comes back inside. They’re also the sort of food I associate with November anyway, when I’ve finally accepted that summer has definitely gone and I’m going to be cold for approximately the next six months!
Slow cooker chilli con carne
Chilli is probably one of my favourite options if you’re feeding several people on Bonfire Night because you don’t really have to worry about everyone eating at exactly the same time.
My slow cooker chilli con carne has beef mince, kidney beans, peppers and plenty of flavour, and you can put bowls of rice, grated cheese, jacket potatoes or wedges alongside it. It’s particularly handy if you’ve got teenagers wandering in and out at different times!
Slow cooker sausage casserole
There is something about sausages and Bonfire Night that just seems right, isn’t there?
My slow cooker sausage casserole combines sausages with sweet potato, baked beans and vegetables. It’s filling without needing lots of separate side dishes and is exactly the sort of dinner I want waiting for me when I’ve been standing outside in November.
Slow cooker pulled pork
If you’re having friends or family round rather than sitting down for a formal meal, my slow cooker pulled pork is a really easy option.
Put out some bread rolls, salad, coleslaw and perhaps some wedges or chips, then people can make their own pulled pork rolls whenever they’re hungry. It saves you trying to get everyone sitting at the table while half of them are outside arguing over whose turn it is to light a sparkler.
Beef and root vegetable stew
For a proper sit-down dinner after the fireworks, my slow cooker beef and root vegetable stew is hard to beat.
It’s packed with beef, carrots, parsnips, leeks and celery in gravy, so it’s very much cold-weather food. Serve it in big bowls and add some crusty bread if you want something for mopping up the gravy.
Chicken tikka masala
Bonfire Night food doesn’t have to mean stew. If your family would choose a curry every time, my slow cooker chicken tikka masala is an easy one to get cooking earlier in the day.
I usually serve it with rice, although naan or poppadoms make it easy to stretch further if you’re feeding extra people.
Keema curry
My slow cooker keema curry is another good option when you want something warming without making a traditional casserole.
It’s made with beef mince, peas, garlic, ginger and spices and works well with rice or naan. It’s also one of those dinners that doesn’t need to look particularly pretty to taste good, which is always a bonus in my house!
BBQ chicken
My slow cooker BBQ chicken is a good choice if you want something you can serve in different ways.
You could have it as a proper dinner with potatoes or wedges, but it also works well piled into a roll if you’re feeding people more casually. That’s particularly useful on Bonfire Night when everyone seems to want food at a different time.
BBQ pulled jackfruit
If you’re vegetarian like me, you don’t have to sit there watching everyone else tuck into pulled pork!
My slow cooker BBQ pulled jackfruit uses jackfruit with a tangy BBQ-style sauce and makes a handy meat-free alternative. Serve it in rolls in much the same way as pulled pork and let everyone add their own toppings.
Jamaican beef stew
If you fancy something with a bit more heat, my slow cooker Jamaican-inspired beef stew combines beef, potatoes, peppers, chilli and jerk seasoning.
It’s still proper bowl-and-spoon cold-weather food, but gives you something a little different from a traditional beef stew.
Moroccan lamb meatballs
My slow cooker Moroccan lamb meatballs are made with warming spices, apricots and sultanas in a tomato sauce.
I’d serve these with couscous if you’re having a sit-down meal rather than trying to eat them outside. They’re a nice option if you’ve already had several casseroles and stews since autumn arrived and fancy a change!
Something sweet after the fireworks
I don’t usually need much persuading to have pudding, and coming back inside after standing in the cold seems as good an excuse as any.
My gooey slow cooker chocolate cake is made for spooning warm into bowls and adding ice cream or cream. It’s definitely not pretending to be the healthy option on this list, but sometimes that’s not what pudding is for.
For something lighter and rather more unusual, try my cream soda rice pudding. It only needs pudding rice and sugar-free cream soda and can be made in the slow cooker as well as on the hob. It sounds strange, I know, but it works!
Tips for serving slow cooker food on Bonfire Night
One of the awkward things about Bonfire Night is that food doesn’t always happen at a nice, convenient time. You might be heading out to a display, waiting for people to arrive or discovering that someone wants dinner now while everyone else wants to watch the next lot of fireworks first.
If that’s likely to happen, choose something that’s easy to serve in individual portions. Chilli, pulled pork and pulled jackfruit are particularly good because you can put the extras out separately and let everyone sort themselves out when they’re ready to eat.
For chilli, I like the idea of having jacket potatoes, grated cheese and perhaps some tortilla chips alongside it. Pulled pork or jackfruit is even easier with bread rolls, coleslaw and wedges. You don’t need to turn it into a complicated buffet with seventeen different toppings!
If everyone is eating together once you come back inside, stews, casseroles and curries work brilliantly. Get any rice, couscous, bread or other sides ready while everyone is taking coats and shoes off and complaining about how cold they are.
Don’t leave food sitting around all evening
The slow cooker is useful for having dinner ready at the right time, but that doesn’t mean cooked food should automatically sit in it indefinitely.
If you’re planning to use the KEEP WARM setting, check the instructions for your particular slow cooker rather than assuming every appliance works in exactly the same way. If you’re serving food to a group, it’s also worth remembering that taking the lid off repeatedly will let heat escape.
For more detailed advice about cooking, serving and storing food safely, I recommend checking the Food Standards Agency’s food safety guidance.
Think about how you’re actually going to eat it
If you’re eating indoors, anything goes. If you’re planning to take food outside, however, I’d choose something that can be eaten easily from a bowl rather than attempting a full dinner balanced on your knee in the dark.
And if there are children wandering around with sparklers, I’d definitely keep the hot slow cooker, serving spoons and bowls of hot food safely indoors rather than setting up a serving station outside. Bonfire Night already has quite enough opportunities for someone to burn themselves without adding a pot of boiling chilli to the equation!
More autumn and slow cooker recipes
If none of these quite takes your fancy, have a look through my healthy slow cooker recipes where you’ll find plenty more curries, casseroles, stews and easy family dinners.
I’ve also put together my favourite autumn slow cooker recipes, with more ideas for those colder evenings when the slow cooker seems to spend more time on the worktop than it does in the cupboard.
And if you’re planning ahead for the rest of the colder months, my healthy autumn recipes have plenty more seasonal meal ideas that aren’t necessarily made in the slow cooker.
