11 Best Slow Cooker Meats For A Flavorful Sandwich

If you are the type of cook who prefers to do the bare minimum and still end up with something that tastes like you spent all day on it, the slow cooker is what you need. Its perfect for those days when you need to assemble and prep ingredients in the morning, go do your thing, and return to meat that's tender, deeply flavorful, and ready to dive into. Ideally piled onto bread and layered with as little or as many toppings as you prefer, a good slow-cooked meat is a blank canvas for whatever combination of sauces, pickles, slaws, and toppings you're in the mood for. 

To get into the best cuts for the job, we spoke to three experts who know their way around both a slow cooker and a good sandwich. Chef Shawn Matijevich is the Online Culinary Arts and Food Operations Lead Chef-Instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education, bringing his professional kitchen perspective to this slow cooker conversation. Ashley Lonsdale is a French Culinary Institute graduate, former private chef, and currently chef-in-residence at ButcherBox, where she helps home cooks build confidence with quality meat. Scott Thomas is the founder of GrillinFools.com and CookinFools.com, known for foolproof, step-by-step recipes that take the guesswork out of cooking. Ahead, their picks for the cuts that genuinely shine when treated with the low and slow heat a slow cooker excels in, and the sandwiches worth building around them.

There's one cut of meat that practically screams to be slow cooked, and that's pork shoulder. The sheer structure of this cut with its stubborn connective tissue and intramuscular fat keeps things interesting when cooked low and slow. Also known as pork butt at the butcher counter, pork shoulder has enough marbling to survive a long cook without drying out or becoming fibrous and chewy. As the collagen breaks down, what results is something genuinely worth pulling apart or held together in the form of a sandwich. All three of our experts agree that pulled pork belongs in the slow cooker and on a sandwich. 

When piled onto a sandwich, pulled pork ideally should be combined with a tangy, sweet, tomato-based barbecue sauce. Once the meat is fork tender and easily shredded, Ashley Lonsdale recommends pairing it with soft and sweet buns, tangy pickles, and a zingy slaw to complement the variety of flavors and textures in each bite. Scott Thomas interestingly flags one pitfall worth keeping in mind: Large roasts can end up well seasoned on the outside and bland in the middle. His solution for fixing this: "An extra dose of seasoning before putting between bread or shredding the meat and leaving it in the tasty broth for a little while can accomplish this goal as well," leaving you with a flavorful sandwich through and through. 

Brisket can start out tough and unyielding (and understandably intimidating to many home cooks). But, persistence over impatience is the only way when it comes to mastering this cut of meat. For a luxurious mouth feel with still enough bite, low heat, moisture, and, most importantly, time, is what is needed for all that collagen to break down. That's where a slow cooker comes in handy.

Unlike cooking in an oven or in a BBQ pit, there is no precise moment where the meat is done and if not removed gets ruined. Instead, it stays in its optimal window for a while, which is exactly the kind of low pressure meal one appreciates. Chef Shawn Matijevich warns us, however, that "the key is not drying it out or cooking all the personality out of it." The goal should be to keep the meat tender and flavorful, not just soft. Ashley Lonsdale recommends "medium cuts of brisket fit well in a slow cooker and can be seasoned simply with salt and pepper or more festively with an array of spices like paprikas (hot, sweet, smoked), garlic powder, onion powder, chile powders, and the like."

When it comes to building the sandwich, the experts lean toward restraint. Lonsdale prefers her slices thin and piled onto a good bread with plenty of mustard while chef Matijevich goes the pastrami route — his preference being a slow cooker-adapted Reuben.

Short ribs come packed with fat and connective tissue that, when rendering down over hours in a slow cooker, results in something quite magical. There's depth and sauciness, and the meat itself becomes tender enough to shred or chunk without much effort. Keep in mind that when cooking short ribs, the slow cooker always gets it perfectly tender. What requires some juggling is how you build your sandwich. 

Short ribs are rich enough on their own that if you don't build in some contrast, the sandwich can become unidimensional after a few bites. Both chefs Shawn Matijevich and Ashley Lonsdale agree that acid is the move here. Chef Matijevich reduces the cooking liquid down into something concentrated and sticky to spoon back over the meat, then balances the whole thing with "pickled shallots, horseradish crema, arugula. You have to work hard to balance the richness here." Lonsdale goes with ciabatta as the base, adds acidic tomatoes into the slow cooker while the ribs cook, then finishes with pickled red onions and a pile of fresh herbs on top.

The details differ, but the instinct is the same: Add something pickled, pair it with something sharp, and balance it out with something green. And, don't sleep on the bread either. A ciabatta or a good toasted loaf is what is required to carry the weight of all that meat and sauce. Now's not the time for flimsy slices. 

Not everyone is convinced that chicken deserves a place in a slow cooker. Usually it comes down to the cut used. Breast meat should be kept as far away from any slow cooking process as possible. It dries out and loses texture, and overall gives you very little in return for the time investment. Thighs are a completely different story.

Chef Shawn Matijevich insists that thighs are the only option worth considering (unless of course, he says, tongue firmly in cheek, you have access to a proper stewing hen that's spent its life running around a farm). With chicken thighs, there is enough connective tissue and a higher fat content to prevent a slow cooker screw up. Ashley Lonsdale echoes this, noting that bone-in or boneless thighs both work well, with enough fat to keep things juicy. Just make sure you pat the chicken thighs nice and dry every time before adding to the pot for an extra layer of crispness. 

Now for the sandwich! It's here where our experts veer off in slightly different directions. Chef Matijevich leans toward a chicken salad situation rather than a straightforward pulled chicken sandwich, which is actually a smart call, since slow cooked thigh meat, chilled and dressed well, makes an excellent filling. Lonsdale prefers a more casual route. For her "the juicy results are great to stuff inside of a sandwich, but even better inside a corn tortilla! Top with fresh pico de gallo or your favorite salsa for something fresh and satisfying."

Odds are, if it's not around Thanksgiving (or at a county fair), you are not paying much attention to turkey legs. And that's a crying shame because the slow cooker is basically purpose-built for them. Intense dark meat, filled with flavor (and let's get a little technical here — full of connective tissue that just begs for low and slow heat), the results are just as worthy of a sandwich.

Chef Shawn Matijevich goes so far as to claim he'd take turkey legs over chicken in a slow cooker any day of the week. For him. the meat has more flavor and more structural integrity than chicken, and it handles a long cook without falling apart into nothing. Ashley Lonsdale approaches the cook with a mission. Hers is to sear the legs first, then cook them low and slow with plenty of woody herbs and garlic. For the sandwich build, Lonsdale goes in a festive direction: "Stuff fluffy slices of sandwich bread with chopped turkey meat, fig jam, mustard, cheddar, and crisp apple slices for an off-season, festive sandwich recipe." Chef Matijevich prefers to keep things simpler, but the underlying logic is the same: Turkey legs have enough flavor to anchor a sandwich without needing much help. Plus they are affordable, widely available, and genuinely excellent with a few hours of cooking, and a handful of herbs. 

If you love your spices and prefer your meats boldy seasoned, lamb is the protein for you. In short, subtle seasoning doesn't do lamb any favors as it has enough character to hold its own. The slow cooker is where that combination of strong flavors and fatty meat meet to create something quite compelling. According to chef Shawn Matijevich, lamb is an underrated slow cooker choice. Thanks to its fat content, the meat remains moist while the connective tissue breaks down into something silky. Best of all: The already strong flavor of the meat opens up beautifully when you lean into strong aromatics. His approach is garlic, rosemary, cumin, and coriander — preferably a generous portion of one (or all). This is not the cut to play it safe with. As he puts it, "lamb doesn't want to be treated politely." In terms of cut, lamb shoulder is worth seeking out over leg of lamb. Alternatively, lamb neck is another option, if you can find them, with even more collagen and ultimately bolder flavor.

When planning a lamb sandwich, it's best to turn to the Mediterranean for inspiration. Shredded meat piled into pita or crusty bread, yogurt sauce, pickled onions, fresh herbs. Each of these elements work together to create a wholesome, harmonious bite, from the cooling effect of the yogurt, that cuts through the richness of the meat, to the pickled onions and herbs, which help balance out the fattiness and introduce an element of zest. 

It's probably safe to say that duck legs are one of the last things you may have thought about putting into your slow cooker. But, our experts believe this should change and here's why. Chef Shawn Matijevich is the advocate here and he believes that "duck absolutely belongs in this conversation. Duck legs especially. Slow cook until the connective tissue gives up, shred, crisp if you want texture, then pair with something bright." Once the meat is shredded, don't forget to push it just that little bit further to crisp it up for some much needed texture in the final sandwich. That last step will take your meat and sandwich to the next level. Duck carries a lot of fat, and without some textural contrast the whole thing can read as soft and one-note. A hot pan for a few minutes after the slow cook changes the result entirely.

As for the sandwich, duck lends itself effortlessly to something clean and Asian-inspired, like hoisin and cucumber, for example. Pickled cabbage works well too, adding the acidity and crunch that rich meat needs. The deciding factor should always be something to cut through the fat and keep each bite interesting, rather than overwhelming.

Pork belly definitely works well in the slow cooker. The risk here is that it works too well. There is a very real danger of the meat getting too soft when it is braised until tender. That's why chef Shawn Matijevich is firm that when handling pork belly, it is absolutely necessary to take the extra step of crisping the exterior before it goes anywhere near bread (or bao). Just like you wouldn't sleep on the crackling of a good pork roast, the slow cooker method requires the same finishing touch.

The crisping step doesn't take long either. All you need is a hot pan and a few minutes skin side down, and you get that the crispy, crunchy bite, which makes pork belly worth eating. Skip this step and you have something that's technically cooked correctly, but falls short in terms of texture and contrast. For the sandwich, by now you know the drill. Balance out the richness of the mat with acid and crunch. Think pickled vegetables, herbs, and a smear each of mustard and mayonnaise for a banh mi-inspired roll. As chef Matijevich states, "Rich meats need contrast or they become exhausting."

Chef Shawn Matijevich believes that beef cheeks are a sleeper cut. Alongside oxtail and goat meat, beef cheeks respond exceptionally well to regular slow cooking. The common denominator across all of them is fat and connective tissue. As he puts it, "the slow cooker is not a miracle machine for lean protein," it's a tool built for exactly these kinds of cuts, and beef cheeks are one of the best examples of that principle in action.

Cooking beef cheeks is similar in approach to short ribs, but the results are arguably more impressive. Thanks to the long cook, the meat becomes silky and the braising liquid reduces into a sauce that's unctuous enough to spoon over, almost like a thick gravy. Because of this, it's important to choose your sandwich bread wisely. Toasted sourdough or a sturdy ciabatta works well. Something acidic on top is non-negotiable. Pickled shallots or even just a good mustard will help to cut through the richness.

If you have a slow cooker, you've probably already thrown a chuck roast in there at some point. Its about as straight forward as slow cooking gets. No detailed instructions to your butcher. No special sourcing. As a preferred cut of meat, chuck roast is a budget-friendly steak that is perfect for pot roast 

The humble pot roast is a favorite of Scott Thomas. For him, a chuck roast slow cooked all day, then pulled apart, and served on a simple sourdough or marble rye is as perfect as it gets. The method is simple and the results are always reliable. Thomas is also emphatic about bread. It has to be hearty, dense, crusty bread that can stand up to meat that's spent hours developing flavor. A flimsy supermarket loaf is not going to cut it here. 

Similarly to pork shoulder, Thomas advises going bold on seasoning to ensure every bite is as tasty as the last. Allowing the broth to do some of the work with pot roast is a must. Spoon a ladle of the juice over the shredded meat in a sandwich for an unforgettable lunch, rather than "just ... bland meat on bread."

When you think of slow cooker sandwiches, ground meat may not be on your list. But Ashley Lonsdale makes a strong case for it via one very specific and very good application: The chili cheese hot dog. According to her, the slow cooker is excellent for chili. And, what's an ideal accompaniment for chili? For Lonsdale, it's a hot dog. Her recommendation is to go with a ground meat that has around 20% fat content. This is the perfect ratio to stay flavorful and rich through a long cook without drying out. Remember, for the best ground beef, let the meat sit for a while on the heat to caramelize before stirring and adding any liquids. This will ensure the best texture. While most people would reach for ground beef, if you like to experiment with flavor profiles and textures, ground pork and lamb are compelling choices as well. 

When layering the hot dog, pay heed to the order of ingredients. A good bread bun that holds its shape no matter how much it's loaded up with is non-negotiable. Next up is a premium hot dog with some bite and flavor (enough to hold its own but also neutral enough to take a back seat for the more intense ingredients to come). And, finally, a slow-cooked chili ladled generously on top. Finish up with some sharp, freshly shredded cheddar, rather than the pre-bagged kind, and sliced scallions. Lonsdale calls this "an exceptional summer treat," and it's hard to disagree.