This Post May Contain Affiliate Links. Please Read Our Disclosure Policy.
This slow cooker corned beef and cabbage is the easiest way to get the most ultra tender corned beef out there. Cooked low and slow with cabbage, potatoes, and carrots for an authentic Irish meal, I serve mine with a creamy horseradish sauce and plenty of dark beer!
🥬 What Makes This Recipe So Good
- This is a whole meal, cooked right in the slow cooker! Savory meat with 3 types of veggies means you don’t have to scramble for sides to pair with your entrée.
- It’s so easy to cook corned beef in the Crockpot, and thanks to the low and slow cooking method, it comes out unbelievably tender and juicy every single time.
- Instead of tossing everything in the slow cooker right from the beginning, we stagger the veggies, adding the potatoes & carrots after 3 hours of cooking, and adding the cabbage after 7 ½ hours. It’s ever-so-slightly more involved that way, but it keeps the vegetables from getting mushy during the cooking process. Trust me, it’s worth the effort.
🗝️ Key Ingredients
Corned Beef – You want the whole she-bang here: a full corned beef brisket. If you’re really ambitious, you can buy a beef brisket and cure it in a brine yourself, but it’s easier to just pick up a ready-to-cook corned beef brisket. Make sure it includes the spice packet!
Cabbage – Boiled cabbage is a traditional corned beef side, and cooking it right in the Crockpot makes life (and dinner) so much easier. Cabbage doesn’t take long at all to cook, so don’t add it until the last 30 minutes!
Potatoes and Carrots – Rounding out this St. Patrick’s Day feast are savory, satiating potatoes and carrots. Cooking them in the Crockpot makes them unbelievably tender, plus they absorb those rich flavors from the corned beef. If you like your veggies a little more crisp, you might prefer these oven-roasted potatoes and carrots.
👩🏼🍳 Chef’s Tips
- If you don’t want a chewy, tough corned beef (uhhh, who does??) then it’s important that you make sure the brisket is fully covered by water (and beer, if you’re using that). A good rule of thumb is to cover it completely with water, then add more so that the waterline sits about an inch above the top of the brisket.
- The creamy horseradish sauce is totally optional, but I highly recommend it! It compliments the flavors in the corned beef SO well, and I love the creaminess with the tender veggies.
- You’ll notice there’s no salt in the ingredients list. That’s not an oversight! The spice packet is typically pretty salty, so you really don’t need to add more. Trust me.
More Amazing Slow Cooker Recipes
- Dreamy Crockpot Chicken and Rice
- Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Dip
- Crockpot Breakfast Casserole
- Slow Cooker Meatloaf
- Crockpot Chicken Tacos with Avocado-Cilantro Sauce
- Slow Cooker Carnitas (Pork Carnitas with Pork Loin or Tenderloin)
- Crockpot Breakfast Casserole
- Slow Cooker Tom Kha Soup (Thai Coconut Chicken Soup)
- Crockpot Queso Dip
Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage
Equipment
- slow cooker with lid
- Small bowl optional
Ingredients
For the Corned Beef and Vegetables
- 4 pound corned beef brisket
- 1 corned beef spice packet see Notes
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar or coconut sugar, or Brown Swerve
- 1 cup dark beer optional
- 6 cloves garlic smashed
- 4 cups water plus more if needed, see Notes
- 2 pounds small potatoes
- 6 medium carrots cut into sticks
- 1 medium head cabbage approximately 2 pounds, cut into wedges
- chopped fresh parsley optional, for garnish
For the Creamy Horseradish Sauce (Optional)
- ¾ cup sour cream
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon horseradish
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- freshly cracked black pepper to taste
Instructions
For the Creamy Horseradish Sauce (Optional)
- Add all sauce ingredients to small bowl and mix well. Chill sauce until ready to serve.
For the Corned Beef
- Place corned beef brisket in slow cooker. Sprinkle spice packet and brown sugar over top of brisket, then add beer (if desired) and garlic.
- Add enough water to cover brisket (see Notes). Secure lid on Crockpot and set to low heat for 8 hours.
For the Vegetables
- After corned beef has cooked 3 hours, add potatoes and carrots to slow cooker. Secure lid on Crockpot and continue cooking another 4 ½ hours.
- After 7 ½ hours of cooking, remove lid and add cabbage wedges to slow cooker. Return lid to slow cooker and continue cooking for final 30 minutes.
To Serve
- After cooking 8 total hours, remove corned beef brisket from slow cooker and transfer to cutting board.
- Thinly slice corned beef, cutting against grain of meat, and serve immediately with potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and creamy horseradish sauce (optional). If desired, garnish with fresh parsley before serving.
- Spice Packet: Your corned beef should come with a spice packet. Make sure you’ve got that before leaving the store!
- Water: Make sure the brisket is fully covered with water (and beer, if using that) and then add additional water so the waterline sits roughly 1″ above the top of the brisket. It’s important that the corned beef is fully covered so it doesn’t end up tough or chewy.
- Make it Added-Sugar Free: Use Brown Swerve in place of the brown sugar.
Approximate Information for One Serving
Nutrition Disclaimers
Number of total servings shown is approximate. Actual number of servings will depend on your preferred portion sizes.
Nutritional values shown are general guidelines and reflect information for 1 serving using the ingredients listed, not including any optional ingredients. Actual macros may vary slightly depending on specific brands and types of ingredients used.
To determine the weight of one serving, prepare the recipe as instructed. Weigh the finished recipe, then divide the weight of the finished recipe (not including the weight of the container the food is in) by the desired number of servings. Result will be the weight of one serving.
Did You Make This Recipe?
Tag @40aprons on Instagram and be sure to leave a review on the blog post!
Never Miss A Meal!
New Recipes Straight To Your Inbox
A curated selection of our most recent recipes, delivered straight to your inbox once a week.
Leave A Review
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Have you ever tried using a preset option of 2 hrs on high then 4 hrs low ? This is a long day of cooking as is.
We haven’t tried that! If you do, let us know how it turns out.
I have to make this tonight to be served tomorrow. What is the best way to reheat? And should I wait to do the cabbage til tomorrow?
If your corned beef is already brined in the packet, do you still need to get the pickling spices? Unfortunately I just realized ours didn’t include it. Not sure if making it without would be a mistake? Thanks
We didn’t test this recipe using a pre-brined corned beef, so unfortunately I can’t say for sure how it would turn out with or without using the pickling spices, especially without knowing what was in the brine.
What if I can’t get the corned beef with the spice packet. Do u have the ingredient recipe for the spice packet.
You can use approximately ½ tablespoon mustard seeds and 2 tablespoons mixed pickling spices! The pickling spices are typically a blend of things like black pepper, cardamom, bay leaves, coriander, cloves, ginger, and crushed red pepper flakes.
Turned out so tender and moist!!
So glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
So dang delicious! Made it yesterday and it was the best we ever had. Thanks!
Thrilled to hear it!
Hi!! When adding the potatoes carrots, and then cabbage later, I don’t think my crockpot will accommodate the cabbage being covered with liquid at that point. Will it still cook all right?
It should be ok, Christy! If you feel like parts of the cabbage wedges aren’t cooking evenly or are getting too dry, you can flip the wedges every 5-10 minutes to keep everything equally submerged. Let us know how it turns out!
I’m curious why/if the sweetener is necessary? I try to use as little sugar as possible in my cooking. Thanks.
You can skip it if you’d like, but it adds a really great flavor to the corned beef that plays nicely off the salty components of the dish. For a sugar-free version, you can use Brown Swerve instead to get a similar flavor.
Excellent recipe
So glad you enjoyed it!
I want to make this tomorrow! I have a 5lbs of corned beef. Adjust time at all? I read somewhere that close to 10hrs is ideal. So wondering what time would be for potatoes/carrots? Also, would subbing water for beef broth be a good idea or too much salt?
We recommend trimming it down to the weight listed in the recipe, if at all possible, but yes plan to cook for a good bit longer if you can’t. And you can use water or beef broth! Just depends on your taste.