The Slow Cooker Hack For Keeping Tortillas Warm Throughout Dinner

No one likes a cold, crusty tortilla. But when you're running around the kitchen doing a million other things to get dinner ready, warming your tortillas may not always be top of mind. And even if you do get them nice and toasty, you typically need to eat them right away or else they'll quickly become cold and hard again. If you're sick of reheating your tortillas or rushing to eat dinner, we have a solution for you. Keep them warm for as long as you please in the slow cooker.

Many slow cookers come with a "warm" setting, which is meant to keep cooked food at low heat until you're ready to use it. Unlike with other warming methods, such as the microwave or stovetop, you can hold your tortillas at the desired temperature until it's time to eat — and you can keep them in this state for a few hours. So whether your family is coming back for seconds or you're hosting an hourslong evening of taco Tuesday fun, your tortillas will stay malleable in the slow cooker the entire time.

There are a few different ways you can keep your tortillas warm in the slow cooker, but the easiest one is to wrap them in a damp paper towel. Then, simply leave the stack in the slow cooker, keeping the setting on warm. As an alternative, you can wrap them in a thin, damp towel, followed by foil — but make sure the towel isn't soaking wet, or else you could end up with mushy tortillas. If you follow this method, you should be good to go in about half an hour.

If your slow cooker is dirty from cooking the meat for your tacos, you don't have to clean it out first. Keep your ground beef in the pot, set it to medium heat, and put your tortillas on a plate on top of the pot. Once you place the lid over the whole thing, you can keep your meat and your tortillas warm at the same time. After everything is thoroughly heated, you may want to turn your slow cooker back down to the warm setting while you enjoy your food. Either method will give you the flexible tortillas you're looking for, without having to reheat them.