Slow Cooker Corned Beef & Cabbage Dinner Recipe (2024)

Classic Slow Cooked Corned Beef and Vegetables is the perfect comfort food. If you’re looking for a hearty slow cooker dinner loaded with savory flavor, scroll down for the recipe.

While it’s often a traditional dish for the Americanized St. Patrick’s day season, corned beef and vegetables makes a delicious meal anytime of the year!

How to Get Tender Corned Beef

Corned beef can have a tough chewy texture if it’s cooked at a high temperature or too quickly. Slow cooking corned beef in the crockpot is generally the easiest way to achieve a tender brisket.

That’s why we used a slow cooker for this recipe, because tender and juicy is the best way to enjoy corned beef!

How Long to Slow Cook Corned Beef

Slow cooking corned beef on the LOW setting takes roughly 6 – 9 hours (depending on the size of meat and your slow-cooker’s actual temperature) to be fully done. Slow cooking on the HIGH setting will take roughly 3 – 4 hours.

How to Know When Corned Beef is Ready

You can tell when the meat is done cooking if it’s fork tender. The internal temperature of the brisket needs to be a minimum of 145°F to be considered safe to eat. However, for the most fork-tender texture, you should target a 160°F internal temperature.

Seasoning the Corned Beef

You might be thinking that corned beef and vegetables cooked in the crock pot will have very little flavor… Without the right spices, you’re right!

To make sure your meal is buzzing with flavor, be sure to use plenty of spices like dill, fennel seeds, black pepper, mustard seeds, and even cloves. In fact, this homemade spice rub is perfect for slow cooker corned beef!

Spice Rub Blend Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon dill
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 8 cloves (remove after cooking)
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
• 2 bay leaves (remove after cooking)
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1 teaspoon coriander seeds

Vegetable Ingredients

Corned beef is traditionally cooked together with cabbage, but it doesn’t have to be in order to produce a complete dinner. This recipe uses a combination of fresh vegetables without cabbage. In fact, due to the limited size of slow cookers, you’d be hard spent to fit a cabbage, vegetables, and corned beef into one!

Don’t worry though, these vegetables take on the savory flavors of the corned beef and spices to yield a tremendously delicious dish!

The vegetables for one meal:

We made two separate slow cooker meals since our family enjoys leftovers. Images reflect two meals*.

• 3 large russet potatoes halved
• 1 large onions halved
• 2-3 large carrots cut in thirds
• 3 large stalks of celery cut in thirds
• 1 small cabbage sliced in half

The Process

First, add 1 cup of water to the pot, then add the cut vegetables.

Next, rub the corned beef brisket with the spice blend. Place it into the pot.

Set the slow cooker on low heat and cook for 8 hours.

After 6 hours, stick the meat with a fork to test doneness. If it easily breaks apart, it’s done. If it still feels tough, you can cook it longer or check its internal temperature. We used two slow cookers to make double the meals so we could enjoy this multiple nights.

Not every slow cooker cooks at the same temperature. If yours is older, or less powerful, it could take up to 9 hours to be fully done.

Once your meals is complete, cut corned beef against the grain for the most tender cut!

Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Vegetables Recipe