Slow Cooker Stovies

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Your roast dinner leftovers meets the hotpot in this delicious Scottish stovies recipe. Perfect for Monday’s for making use of your leftovers these easy prep stovies are cooked slow in the slow cooker and taste amazing.

Even better, these Scottish inspired stovies are easy to adapt to make them vegan, vegetarian, is gluten free and easy to make stovies with corned beef, or with sausages or any leftover roast dinner meat.

Stovies

These stovies is our latest in a recipe series dedicated to different hotpots you can cook in the slow cooker.  

Whilst you might not call stovies a traditional hotpot, it carries many similarities to your classic Lancashire hotpot, and we felt it was ideal for showing a different way to cook leftover lamb in a hotpot in the slow cooker.

If you have missed the rest of our slow cooker hotpots so far then don’t forget to check them out:

• Minced Beef Hotpot
• Beef Hotpot
• Sausage Hotpot
• Corned Beef Hotpot

Though today’s recipe for Scottish stovies I am dedicating to a wonderful guy called Jim.

He had a wonderful Scottish accent and was my parents’ bookkeeper for many, many years.

And I loved the way he said my name, taught me amazing maths skills from a very young age and how he talked about Scottish food with such passion.

I always think of him, whenever there is a mention of Scotland and excited to head up to Scotland later this year.  

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What Are Stovies?

I am sure there are many people that have not heard of stovies before and want to know what are stovies? and why are stovies called stovies?

Well, stovies are a Scottish classic. And stovies is the kind of food your grandma would make from leftovers and if you were Scottish, you would have great memories of them as a kid.

Stovies is a Scottish potato dish. Because it is often potatoes with onions and fats it is often compared to the Lancashire Hotpot and there is often the use of leftovers in stovies.

If I was going to compare stovies with the Lancashire hotpot I would say that traditional stovies use beef dripping or another fat dripping, whilst Lancashire versions include butter. And that stovies are more common as a way to use up leftovers.

The reason stovies are called stovies is because the name stew, translates to stove in Scotland. So essentially stovies simply means stewed.

What Are Stovies Made Of?

I often get asked what are stovies made of. The traditional Scottish stovies recipe ingredients will usually include the following.

• Potatoes
• Beef dripping
• Onions
• Pieces Of Meat

With also the use of vegetables from time to time.

The biggest lesson to learn about the culture of traditional stovies is that Grandma’s made use of what they had in which was usually potatoes, leftover beef dripping from dinner the day before and what meat they had left.

Many would also bulk it up with leftover vegetables too. Though like I said, it depends on what you had in.

Our stovies recipe is inspired by tradition making use of spare potatoes, onions and then using up a lamb roast dinner to use the fat from the lamb as well as veggies leftover from the lamb too.

Scottish Stovies Variations

Whilst traditional stovies will usually involve beef dripping and maybe some leftover roast beef there are many variations of Scottish stovies that you can make.

I like to think of my Scottish stovies recipe as a leftover + pantry clear out and anything goes just as long as fats, onion and potatoes are used.

Here are some more examples of Scottish stovies that you can try at home in your slow cooker:

• Vegan Stovies – Swap the beef dripping for vegetable fats and then load up the potatoes and onions with root veggies. You can also do similar if you want vegetarian stovies.

• Corned Beef Stovies – If you want to know how to make stovies with corned beef then note its super easy. You simply make the stovies and then stir in some corned beef at the end. Or what you can do is make our corned beef hotpot as its similar.

• Sausage Stovies – If you want to know how to make stovies with sausages then again, its just an easy swap of leftover meat for some sausages. I love to do this when I have some yummy sausages from the butchers. I am talking about the big thick pork Cumberland style sausages that are just asking to be made into stovies. You can follow our sausage hotpot recipe for inspiration.

• Beef Stovies – Another idea is to make beef stovies. You can do this with raw beef, or follow our lead of our lamb stovies and swap leftover lamb for leftover roast beef. We do have a beef hotpot recipe if you want to compare ingredients you could include.

And I am sure now, you are full of ideas for how to make stovies with your on hand ingredients.

Can Stovies Be Frozen?

Unfortunately, you can’t freeze your stovies. This is because stovies usually contain leftover meat that has already been cooked and you can only reheat meat the once.

BUT if you are making vegan stovies you can of course freeze them and reheat.

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Stovies Recipe Ingredients

Leftovers – Any leftovers you have that you can load into your slow cooker. I have leftover root vegetables (carrots and swede), lamb drippings and leftover lamb loin.

Potatoes – You can’t make stovies without potatoes and you can use any you have in. You can make it more like a hotpot like we have done, or just randomly add in sliced potatoes.

Onions – Then of course a stovies recipe wouldn’t be the same without adding a white onion.

Butter – Because I am making classic stovies I am also opting for some butter for cooking the onion with, rather than extra virgin olive oil.

Extras – I have also added tinned tomatoes, tomato puree and then used frozen sweetcorn and frozen peas to bulk it up and feed more people. Then for seasonings I have added salt, pepper, and parsley.

Then for the kitchen gadgets that we have used in this stovies slow cooker recipe it has just been our Crockpot Slow Cooker. We have this one and its wonderful for many types of hotpots and we have used it many times for similar recipes.

Plus, we recommend you head over to our slow cooker recipes category as we have more than 100 tried and tested slow cooker recipes and have been using slow cookers for 18 years.

Our Stovie Leftover Ingredients

I mentioned above what ingredients we used from our leftovers to make stovies with. But I wanted to expand on this and explain where they came from. Hopefully it will give you some ideas with your leftovers!

Back last year it just after Christmas time, and I was in Aldi, hoping to get some meat bargains from the Christmas leftovers.

I picked up 75% off lamb loin joints.

I then loaded them into the freezer and was super proud of my bargain find.

I then cooked lamb loin with potatoes and veggies in the slow cooker.

Then we ate half of the lamb for dinner and then half of it was saved to make stovies with.

I left half of the vegetables with the fat from the lamb in the slow cooker overnight in the fridge.

This created fantastic lamb drippings in the veggies that I could then use to make this Scottish stovies recipe with.

I then had leftover veggies, lamb drippings and the half of the lamb loin that we would slice, the next day to make the best of the best leftover meals.

Plus, as we were adding in potatoes, sweetcorn, and peas, it would make it into a massive hearty meal.

Plus, that meant our 75% reduced £5 lamb loin did two delicious family meals, plus I still have another in the freezer.

How To Make Stovies?

• Sauté. Dice and peel your onion and sauté with butter in the slow cooker. Season with parsley.
• Dump. Add to the slow cooker your leftover veggies including the drippings, leftover meat chunks and tinned tomatoes and mix.  
• Cook. Slow cook on high for 2 hours or on low for 3.5 hours.
• Add. Then add in tomato puree, seasoning, frozen peas and frozen sweetcorn. Mix well.
• Potatoes. Thinly slice your potatoes (skin on or off its your choice) and follow our air fryer sliced potatoes recipe. Place the potatoes over the stovie ingredients. Cook for an extra 30 minutes before serving.

And I am sure you can see why this stovies slow cooker recipe is a true favourite of mine.

How Long Do Stovies Take In Slow Cooker?

The slow cooker stovies cook time depends on how big the chunks of meat are, and whether they are already cooked.

Our slow cooker stovies were done in 2.5 hours on high or 4 hours on low.

Stovies Recipe Tips & Tricks

• I recommend sitting your leftovers in the fridge overnight after you have cooked a roast. The fats will naturally go hard and it will create meat drippings to use in your stovies and add extra flavour.

• Cook the sliced potatoes first in the air fryer. Only a tiny bit of extra virgin olive oil is required and then you don’t need to add butter or place your stovies in the oven.

• Not cooked lamb in the slow cooker before? Then check out our slow cooker roast lamb recipe first.

• Tomato puree (also known as tomato paste) as well as tinned tomatoes, give a wonderful rich flavour to your stovies and avoid gravy granules and other processed foods.

• Using tinned tomatoes is fantastic for making your stovies rich in flavour, creamy and without drying the leftover meat out as it slow cooks.

• You can swap the lamb for leftover beef, pork, gammon etc and get similar results.

Slow Cooker Trick – Always buy a slow cooker like this Crockpot one that we own. It can go on the stovetop to brown meat and go in the oven.

Slow Cooker Potato Recipes UK

I often get asked what potato recipes I can make in the slow cooker beyond a hotpot and here is a few more ideas:

• Slow Cooker Leek & Potato Soup
• Slow Cooker Jacket Potatoes
• Slow Cooker Whole Chicken & Potatoes
• Slow Cooker Brisket & Potatoes With Gravy

And don’t forget to check out the rest of our slow cooker recipes in order of most recent recipe first.

Your stovies slow cooker recipe is below, note you can print it out with or without photos, adjust servings, or click between metric and imperial depending on where you are in the world.

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