How Many Watts Does a Crock Pot Use? Low, High, kWh and Outage Math

A slow cooker is a ceramic or metal crock sitting in a base with a heating element wrapped around it. It cooks with low, steady heat over many hours, and it does that with very little power compared with a stovetop burner or an oven. Crock-Pot is a brand name, but most people use it for any slow cooker.

Watts on low and high

Southern California Edison puts typical slow cookers at:

• Low: about 75 to 150 watts
• High: about 150 to 210 watts

For comparison, the same Edison guide puts an electric stove at 1,000 to 3,000 watts, a standard oven at 2,000 to 5,000 watts and an electric multi-cooker at about 700 to 1,000 watts.

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service says slow cookers generally cook between 170 and 280 °F, and that food cooks faster on high than on low. High delivers more watts, so the recipe takes fewer hours.

Find the number for your cooker

The figure that matters is on the rating label, usually a sticker or stamped plate on the bottom of the base. It lists volts (120 V in a US home) and either watts or amps. If it shows only amps, multiply by 120 to get watts.

The label figure is the most the cooker draws, which is normally the high setting. Some cookers hold temperature by switching the element on and off; others run a fixed lower-wattage element on low. Either way, the label gives you a safe upper number for planning.

A multi-cooker (the pressure-cooker style that also has a slow-cook mode) is a different appliance electrically. Its label will show a much higher figure because it is built to pressure-cook and sauté. In slow-cook mode it may not use all of it, but plan a circuit around the label, not the mode.

kWh: watts × hours ÷ 1,000

Energy use is watts multiplied by the hours the cooker runs, divided by 1,000. These are worked examples, not measurements of any model:

A high-setting recipe that takes half the time can end up using about the same energy as the low version. If your cooker cycles its element once it is hot, real use falls below these full-power figures.

The watts to kWh calculator runs the numbers for your own label and recipe time.

Running cost

Multiply kWh by your electricity rate. As an illustration at 16 cents per kWh:

• 0.6 kWh: about 10 cents
• 1.2 kWh: about 19 cents

Use the rate from your own bill. If your utility charges more during an afternoon peak, a cooker that runs through those hours costs a little more than one that runs overnight, though at these wattages the difference is small.

Amps and outlets

Divide watts by volts for amps. At 120 volts:

• 150 W is about 1.3 amps
• 210 W is about 1.8 amps
• a 1,000 W multi-cooker is about 8.3 amps

A slow cooker on its own is a light load for a kitchen countertop circuit. The time to check is when it shares a circuit with a toaster, a kettle or an air fryer running at the same time. The watts to amps calculator does the conversion at any voltage.

Food safety basics from USDA

USDA FSIS gives a few rules that also explain why the cooker needs steady power:

• Thaw first. Always thaw meat or poultry before it goes in.
• Start hot if you can. Use the highest setting for the first hour, then switch to low or the setting in the recipe. Cooking on low the whole time is also safe.
• Keep the lid on. Lift it only to stir or check doneness.
• Don't reheat leftovers in it. Reheat on the stove, in a microwave or oven to 165 °F, then the slow cooker can keep food hot at 140 °F or above for serving.

A crock pot in a power outage

FSIS is direct about outages:

• If you are not home for the whole cook and the power goes out, throw the food away, even if it looks done.
• If you are home, finish cooking right away some other way, such as a gas stove, an outdoor grill or a house that has power.
• If the food was fully cooked before the outage and you are home, it should stay safe for up to two hours in the cooker with the power off.

That makes a slow cooker one of the easier loads for a home battery. About 1.2 kWh for an 8-hour cook on low is a small share of a battery's stored energy, and the draw is low enough not to strain the system. The catch is the circuit: if the kitchen outlet it plugs into isn't on the critical load panel, the cooker goes off with the grid.

The critical load panel planner checks whether a battery can carry the circuits you choose. Refrigerators, freezers and sump pumps are the usual first picks on the home battery and backup projects Seamless Home coordinates, with kitchen outlets added where there is room. Get a free estimate to start. Coverage is confirmed per service area rather than promised as blanket availability.