Slow Cooker Pepperpot is my favorite set-it-and-forget-it dish. Imagine setting your pepperpot on Christmas Eve and waking up on Christmas morning to a delicious pepperpot that slow cooked all night.

Guyanese Pepperpot in a Slow Cooker

A few years ago, I left all my Christmas prep for Christmas Eve. So here I was on Christmas Eve baking, cleaning, and thinking, “When am I going to get to the pepperpot?” When suddenly, “ah get a brainwave” (Guyanese creole for I got an idea).

So I decided to dump everything in the slow cooker and let it cook while I tackled cleaning up, wrapping presents, and sneaking them under the tree. The slow cooker pepperpot was a success!

I’ve made my pepperpot in the slow cooker ever since. Except for when I got my instant pot and decided to cook everything in there for a couple of months, but that’s a different story. You can find the Instant Pot slow cooker recipe here.

Why You’ll Love This Slow Cooker Pepperpot Recipe

• Hands-off Approach: When you have a long to-do list during the holidays, you don’t have time to stand over a stove. This cooks for hours with little to no supervision. Cook it a day or two ahead and it is even better.
• Tastes Like Traditional Pepperpot: The wonderful thing about the slow cooker is that it gives it the flavor of cooking your pepperpot for days without actually having to cook it for days. Each piece of meat is tender, falling off the bone, and full of flavor.
• Traditional Guyanese Meal: Christmas without pepperpot for Guyanese people is like a swimming pool without water. It just doesn’t make any sense! Make it in the slow cooker and no one will be the wiser!

Ingredients for Slow Cooker Pepperpot

For this slow cooker pepperpot recipe, I used all beef, but you can use any combination of tough meat.

• Beef shoulder or chuck roast: I used a shoulder roast that I cut it into 2 inch cubes.
• Beef neck bones: You can use oxtail instead of the neck bones or other cuts of bone in beef
• Cow heel/feet: The cow heel (or beef feet) I soaked in white vinegar and water until I was ready to add it to the slow cooker.
• White vinegar: Use this to soak the cow heel (a tough cut of beef) before adding it to the slow cooker.
• Oil: Use this to brown the meat before slow cooking.
• Garlic cloves: Chopped.
• Water: Used to soak the cow heel. You will also need water as the base for the sauce the beef cooks in later.
• Cassareep: This gives pepperpot it’s signature color and taste. It also preserves the meat so it can sit for days at room temperature.
• Cinnamon Sticks: To infuse the sauce with a spiced flavor.
• Whole cloves: For a warm taste.
• Sugar: This adds a subtle sweetness.
• Seasoning: Season with salt, black pepper, onion powder, and cayenne pepper.
• Wiri wiri pepper: Alternatively, use 1/2 scotch bonnet pepper or 1/2 a habanero for a spicy taste.

See recipe card for quantities.

How to Make Slow Cooker Pepperpot

Brown the Beef

Brown the shoulder roast before adding it to the slow cooker. Warm a cast iron skillet on moderate heat, then add 1 tablespoon of oil. When the oil is hot, add the meat and let it brown evenly on all sides. Once the meat is brown on all sides, remove it from the heat and set it aside.

Use the same pan to brown the beef neck bones. Since these bones are a thicker cut of meat, it takes about 5 minutes to get each side brown. When both sides have a good sear, remove the neck bones from the pan and set it aside.

Preparing Sauce for Slow Cooker Pepperpot

The next step in this dish is very important. Part of the guesswork of slow cooking is figuring out how much liquid to add to the slow cooker. I make this very flavorful sauce and pour it over the meat. The meat then slowly cooks in this sauce for hours and that’s the key to the slow cooker pepperpot.

To make the sauce, deglaze the pan with 3 cups of water. Then add cassareep, cinnamon, cloves, cayenne pepper, wiri wiri pepper, brown sugar, salt, and some onion powder. Allow it to come up to a boil and then remove it from the heat.

Layer Meat in Slow Cooker

How you layer the meat in the slow cooker is also critical to the success of the dish. I assembled all the meat in the slow cooker, starting with the cow heel that was soaking in the vinegar.

I removed the cow heel from the vinegar and water mixture, rinsed it with some fresh water, and placed it at the bottom of the slow cooker. Because it will take the longest to cook, you want to ensure it gets fully submerged in the sauce and liquids. I sprinkled about 1 teaspoon of salt over the cow heel before adding the other meats.

Then I added all the meat that I browned earlier. I added the neck bones first and then the cubed shoulder meat. Then I poured the sauce over the meat. I pushed the cinnamon sticks down to the side so that it is in the sauce.

This will add additional flavor to the sauce while it slowly cooks. Finally, cover it and let it slow cook for 10 hours on the lowest slow cooker setting.

Skimming the fat

After 10 hours of slow cooking, the pepperpot is perfection! Skim off some of the oil that forms on top then stir it up. Although pepperpot tastes better with time, this cooked over hours in the slow cooker so it can be eaten immediately.

Step by step youtube video:

Storage

When the slow cooker is done cooking most of them automatically switch to a warmer. So when you wake up on Christmas morning your pepperpot will be warm and ready! You can’t go wrong with that. You can also make this dish a day or two before Christmas and let it sit. It will be even more flavorful by the time you are ready to eat it.

Just remember to warm it up, once in the morning, and once at night to avoid having it go bad. But really I’ve never had an experience with pepperpot going bad. The cassareep is a natural preservative and cooking the meat keeps the meat from spoiling.

Tips for the Best Slow Cooker Pepperpot

• Use tough cuts of meat so that it doesn’t melt away in the slow cooker.
• After you pour the sauce over the meat in the slow cooker, push the cinnamon sticks down to the button. This ensures the flavor seeps into the sauce and not just the meat on top.
• You may need to stir the pot up a halfway through so that the beef on the top gets into the sauce. I’ve only had to do this once, when I added too much beef, but didn’t for this recipe.

Recipe Variations

• More or Less Spicy: For more heat; crush up the cooked wiri wiri peppers. If you don’t want the heat, keep them whole and remove them once the pepperpot is cooked.
• Onions: Instead of onion powder, you can add real onion. Just sauté them first. If you plan to have your pepperpot for more than a week, skin the onions all together as they tend to go bad over time.

Frequently Asked Questions