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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.
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What setting should I set the slow cooker on?
Hi, John! Please see step 2 under “For the Corned Beef”. You’ll set the slow cooker to low for 8 hours.
I followed directions EXACTLY. Corned beef was totally rubbery and tough. Also, cabbage was not done in 30 minutes. Was too crispy. It definitely needs to be in there one hour at least. Flavor kind of bland. I’m bummed. I did two corned beefs, one in each crock pot, and they both turned out lame. So sad.
I’m so sorry, Jennifer – that’s absolutely not the experience we want anyone to have! Were you using a 6-quart Crockpot, or was your slow cooker a larger size? And was the corned beef submerged the entire cook time?
As for the cabbage, we give it just 30 minutes so it’s softened slightly but still tender-crisp. We found that cooking it longer made it too soft and mushy. If you prefer it fairly soft, though, you can absolutely add it sooner than we recommend!
Delicious 😋
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for sharing 😊
This was the only recipe I found that didn’t put the vegetables under the beef, which, IMO, makes mushy veggies. It turned out delicious. Anxious to have leftovers for dinner tonight.
So glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for sharing, Su! 🙂
Absolutely perfect. So flavorful and tender! I had to add more water to fully cover mine and added some beef bouillon.
So glad you enjoyed it, Amy!
So amazing! Tender and full of flavor! There was a spice pacet but added a bit more of my own making…peppercorns, mustard seed heated in a lamps. Then crushed with bay leaves and nutmeg. Wonderful additions with the brown sugar and dark beer ( Guinness!).
YUM, that sounds wonderful!! Thank you so much for sharing, Leslie!
Making Mine tomorrow, but it did not come with a size packet. What do I do?
You can buy a jar of pickling spice or you can make your own blend! It’s essentially peppercorns, dill seeds, cloves, mustard seeds, crushed bay leaves, and coriander. You can add red pepper flakes, too, if you want.
I tried your recipe , I did not have good results. I have to say looking back maybe i see conflicting ways to cook? In part i see 4-5 cups of water. In my crock pot i’d guess i used at least 10 cups. Not to mention probably was not more than 2-3 lbs of beef. Cooking 7 1/2 meat was bland mushy carrots were just water logged after 5 hrs. i just think even though your 8 might work would be better to suggest cooking time on how much beef your are cooking . Though you did say (in small print) appox 4 lbs.
Hi, Rick! So sorry this one didn’t turn out for you.
Just to confirm, you used twice the amount of water (10 cups rather than 4-5 cups) and roughly half the amount of meat (2-3 pounds instead of 4)? I can totally see how the meat turned out mushy in that case.
We recommend following the recipes as written, but you can use the serving adjustment tool to adjust the ingredient amounts to match what you have on hand. For example, by lowering the number of servings until the ingredients reflected a 2-pound corned beef, the other ingredients would’ve automatically adjusted to stay consistent.
This corned beef turned out delicious! Everyone raved about it. The horseradish sauce took it to a new level! Thank you for sharing!
So glad you and your company enjoyed it, Judy! 🙂
Omgoodness this was delicious! My family loved it! We r not fans of horseradish so we left that out, but it doesn’t matter because it was yummy without it! I am going to make this EVERY St Patrick’s Day!
So happy you enjoyed the corned beef recipe, Joann! Thank you so much for your review!
I am cooking this for just me and I got a 2.5 lb Cornbeef. How long should I cook it for? I am so excited to try this. I am cooking for myself tomorrow. Hope to hear back from you.
I recommend checking it periodically and cooking it until it’s fork tender! You can also use a meat thermometer to gauge the doneness – aim for an internal temp of 145° Fahrenheit and then let it rest 5 minutes before slicing.
Can you cook on high and if so how long?
High would be 3-4 hours or so.