Cuisinart v. All Clad slow cooker

[Anonymous]

I want to get a slow cooker and I'm willing to pay for the All Clad if it is really better than the Cuisinart. There is a 200 dollar price differential between the two so I would love to hear opinions from people who have used them. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Is the All Clad the one where the insert can be placed directly on the stovetop for browning? To me, that's a huge advantage, and I'd pay for that if I could afford it.

[Anonymous]

We had an All Clad ceramic insert slow cooker that I bought at Williams-Sonoma. After about 2 years of low to moderate use, it stopped working- it just died. I learn the hard way when after 14 hours, my short ribs were still raw and we had nothing else prepared for dinner. I went to the WS website and amazon.com to compare prices when I was thinking of replacing it and it turned out that the All Clad had a lot of bad reviews, so I didn't buy a new one. When the weather starts getting cold and I start craving slow cooker food, I think I'll go with a Cuisinart this time.

[Anonymous]

I got my all clad for about $150, so shop around. I bought mine at Dillards, maybe watch Macy's for sales in the DC area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had an All Clad ceramic insert slow cooker that I bought at Williams-Sonoma. After about 2 years of low to moderate use, it stopped working- it just died. I learn the hard way when after 14 hours, my short ribs were still raw and we had nothing else prepared for dinner. I went to the WS website and amazon.com to compare prices when I was thinking of replacing it and it turned out that the All Clad had a lot of bad reviews, so I didn't buy a new one. When the weather starts getting cold and I start craving slow cooker food, I think I'll go with a Cuisinart this time.

OP here--thanks for the input. I read a lot of reviews on the All Clad and that seems to be a common problem. I ended up getting the Cuisinart which has gotten much better reviews and is significantly cheaper.

[Anonymous]

Report back on how you like it. I tried to replace my old, old Rival crock pot with a new Hamilton Beach and hated it. It kept overcooking my food - it just worked completely differently than the Rival. I've since read that newer crock pots are designed to cook at higher temperature than in the past. On top of that, the crock cracked. So I'm back to square one and shopping around...

[Anonymous]

America's Test Kitchen (Cooks Illustrated) just did (Aug 2010) a slow cooker review of 7 different models including the Cuisinart and All Clad. The winner from the test was the Crock-Pot brand model # scvt650-ps for $129.99. I have found their recommendations to be very good - perhaps something else to consider.