The Problem With Using Wine For Your Crockpot Soup

Slow cookers like Crock-Pots are a lifesaver in the kitchen. They're the ultimate set-it-and-forget-it appliance, allowing your food to slowly simmer for long periods of time, which creates decadent dishes full of luxurious flavors. While using your slow cooker, you might come across a soup recipe that requires a splash of wine, such as a crockpot coq au vin. However, after patiently waiting for hours on end, you take a sip, only to discover that your soup tastes and smells like a freshly poured glass of wine. So what gives?

Alcohol can affect your slow cooker meals in several ways, and let's face it: No one wants a soup that tastes like pure alcohol. Notably, unlike stovetop or oven cooking, where wine can be properly reduced over time, slow cookers don't properly allow for alcohol to properly cook off. Temperature is paramount when it comes to wine reduction, and despite alcohol having a boiling point of just 173 degrees Fahrenheit, the average slow cooker doesn't quite get sufficiently hot enough. Most of the time, the internal temperature of a slow cooked will barely reach alcohol's boiling point. Even if your soup does get properly hot, if your slow cooker requires a sealed or closed lid, this prevents evaporated alcohol from escaping. When alcohol boils, it turns into steam, which is then released into the air. But, with a covered slow cooker, the steam gets trapped at the top of the lid, which then condenses and returns to your soup.

If you love the depth of flavor that wine adds to soups, but don't want to deal with an unpleasant, raw alcohol taste, don't fret. Overall, the best way to mitigate the alcoholic taste of wine is to reduce it on the stove. If your recipe calls for aromatics such as onions or mushrooms, you can cook them in a saucepan on medium heat in wine. Cooking down your wine allows its flavors to beautifully incorporate themselves into that of your aromatics, which will make for a deliciously rich dish in the end. Allow the wine to simmer for a little while, but be patient, as alcohol takes time to reduce, making it one of the biggest mistakes everyone makes when cooking with wine.

This methodology applies to any dish prepared in the slow cooker, not just soups. For example, our creamy Crock-Pot chicken marsala recipe calls for the Marsala wine to be reduced on the stove. Once reduced, the wine is then added to the slow cooker alongside the chicken, mushrooms, and onions, where it is left to simmer on low for several hours.

It's important to note that if you have sensitivities to alcohol, it's very difficult to remove all of the wine's alcohol content when cooking. In this case, you can use non-alcoholic wine, beef or chicken stock, juice, white wine vinegar, or red wine vinegar for a similar flavor and aroma.