Slow Cooker Shiitake Congee

Slow cooker shiitake congee is a warming bowl of comfort, made with lots of savory, flavorful mushrooms and your favorite rice. Top it with your favorite add ons.

One of my favorite breakfast buffet dishes when we lived in southeast Asia was the big pot of congee or rice porridge with lots of toppings from crunchy little dried fish and sliced chili peppers to crispy shallots and sambal. Such a bowl of comfort! 

It’s super easy to make in a slow cooker as well. Simply slice up your mushrooms, throw everything in together and walk away. You can eat it plain or dress it up with toppings. 

Slow Cooker Shiitake Congee

I’m publishing this recipe – looooong overdue – with permission from my lovely friend, author Kathy Hester. It’s from her wonderful revised and updated cookbook, The Vegan Slow Cooker. <affiliate link Like all of Kathy’s great cookbooks, the instructions are clear and helpful adaptations are included. Everything I’ve made from ALL of Kathy’s cookbooks has been excellent! Highly recommend. This recipe makes 4-6 servings.

Ingredients

For the congee:

8 cups or 1880ml water or broth (IMHO: Broth adds more flavor.)

4 cups or 280g thinly sliced fresh shiitake mushrooms

4 cups or 280g thinly sliced button, baby bella, shiitake mushrooms or combination

1 cup or 185g rice (I used long grain. Kathy’s recipe says brown rice. Use your favorite rice.)

3 tablespoons or 24g grated ginger

Optional suggestions for serving:

Soy sauce

Scallions

Cilantro

Chopped chili peppers

Extra grated ginger

Leftover cooked veggies

Tofu cubes

Method

If you are pressed for time in the morning, you can prepare the mushrooms and ginger the night before and keep them in the refrigerator overnight. 

Otherwise, cut the hard stem ends off of the mushrooms then use a sharp knife to cut them into thin slices. If desired, set a few slices aside for topping. 

Then grate your ginger. 

Add them both to your slow cooker, along with the rice and the liquid of your choice, either broth or water. Normally I would use chicken broth but in deference to Kathy’s vegan recipe, I used a rich vegetarian stock. 

Cook on low for 7 to 9 hours. When time is up, give the pot a good stir. 

Kathy suggests (be still my heart that LOVES congee in a buffet!) to place your chosen toppings on the table and let everyone add what they like best. 

In our house, sliced chili peppers are an absolute necessity but we also enjoyed the suggested tofu cubes and scallions aka green onion tops. 

You do you but do make this comfort dish. You won’t regret it. And check out Kathy’s blog Healthy Slow Cooking (and her other books.) You won't regret that either. We are not a vegan family but we always love her creative and delicious recipes. 

Enjoy!

It's Multicooker Monday! Check out all the other Multicooker recipes my friends are sharing this month! Many thanks to Sue of Palatable Pastime, our group leader. 

• Air Fryer Pork and Vegetable Egg Rolls from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Air Fryer Roasted Broccoli from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Instant Pot Swedish Meatballs from Making Miracles
• Kerala Beef Olarthiyathu- Pressure Cooker from Sneha’s Recipe
• Slow Cooker Shiitake Congee from Food Lust People Love
• Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce from Palatable Pastime
• Southern Pimento Cheese Crockpot Potato Soup from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Toaster Oven Turkey Schmaltz Cornbread from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking

Multicooker Monday is a blogger group created by Sue of Palatable Pastime for all of us who need encouragement to make better use of our small appliances like slow cookers, Instant Pots, Air Fryers, rice cookers and sous vide machines. We get together every third Monday of the month to share our recipes. If you are a food blogger who would like to post with us, please request to join our Facebook group.

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