This slow cooker corned beef and cabbage is seasoned corned beef cooked with potatoes, carrots and cabbage. A crock pot meal that’s perfect for St. Patrick’s Day!
Whether you’re looking to celebrate the Irish holiday or simply want a hearty yet easy meal, this crock pot corned beef is a great choice. Complete your holiday meal with a loaf of Irish soda bread and a Shamrock Shake for dessert!
St. Patrick’s Day is the one day a year that many people flock to the grocery store in search of ingredients for a corned beef dinner. This slow cooker corned beef and cabbage only has a few minutes of active prep work, and produces a festive and delicious meal that the whole family will love!
When you make your St. Patrick’s Day feast, try some of my favorite St. Patrick’s Day recipes like a refreshing Irish mule, stuffed cabbage rolls and Irish stew!
Table of Contents
Slow Cooker Corned Beef Ingredients
To make slow cooker corned beef and cabbage you will need a corned beef brisket, carrots, yellow potatoes, green cabbage, butter, garlic, parsley, salt and black pepper. You may want some grainy yellow mustard to serve with the corned beef.
How Do You Make Slow Cooker Corned Beef?
To make this slow cooker corned beef and cabbage recipe, first take the corned beef out of the package and rinse it off. Pat the corned beef dry and place it fat side up in a slow cooker. Pour the spices from the spice packet over the corned beef. Add cut carrots and potatoes to the crock pot. Pour 3 cups of water in the slow cooker. Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook it on low for 6 hours. Add your cabbage to the pot and cook it on low for 2 more hours. Remove everything from the crockpot and slice your beef against the grain. Serve the corned beef on a platter with the potatoes, carrots and cabbage. Whip up a little herb butter for the veggies if you like.
Crock Pot Corned Beef Tips
- This slow cooker corned beef recipe really works best on the low heat setting. I know the temptation is there to crank up the heat and have your meal done in half the time, but you run the risk of a tough corned beef if you do that.
- The potatoes and carrots get quite soft from cooking all day in the crock pot. If you prefer your veggies on the firmer side, try adding them halfway through the cooking time.
- Be sure to slice the meat against the grain for the most tender bites of beef.
- You don’t need to add any extra seasoning to your crock pot other than the packet that comes with the corned beef. The meat is plenty salty to flavor the potatoes and vegetables.
Quick Tip
I recommend putting your meat in the crock pot first thing in the morning to ensure perfection by dinner time.
Recipe FAQs
Corned beef is a beef brisket that soaks in brine and then cures with salt and seasonings. This cut of meat has a distinctive pink color from sodium nitrate which is an ingredient in the curing process. Corned beef comes in multiple cuts, and it’s always best to cook corned beef for a long period of time so that it becomes tender. Typical cooking methods include boiling, slow cooking or oven roasting the meat.
The first step to this recipe is to choose your meat. Most stores sell pre-seasoned corned beef, especially in March. There are a few different cuts of corned beef to chose from, including corned beef round roast, flat cut brisket, and point cut brisket.
Flat cut brisket and point cut brisket tend to be the better corned beef options. I used a flat cut brisket for these photos, as you can see by the uniform size and shape of the slices. Point cut brisket is the fattiest cut, but can also sometimes be the most tender. So it’s really up to you which cut you use!
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Flavor Variations
This slow cooker corned beef recipe is fantastic as written; however, you can modify it to suit your taste.
- Garlic Butter: I like to add a little drizzle of garlic and herb butter over the top of the veggies. It adds a nice finishing touch that you typically don’t see with corned beef meals. Simply mix together melted butter with minced garlic, chopped parsley, salt and pepper or add a little Italian seasoning.
- Leftovers: Corned beef makes for great leftovers. You can enjoy it in sandwiches, corned beef hash or in a reuben dip.
- Spicy: Add some heat with crushed red pepper flakes.
- Veggies: You can add other vegetables like large chunks of onions or celery.
This slow cooker corned beef is on our table every St. Patrick’s Day and we always look forward to it!
More St. Patrick’s Day Recipes
Slow Cooker Corned Beef Video
Love This Recipe?
Please leave a 5-star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 rating in the recipe card below & a review in the comments section further down the page.
Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage
Ingredients
- 1 corned beef brisket 3-5 lbs
- 3 carrots peeled and cut into large chunks
- 3/4 lb small yellow potatoes halved
- 1/2 head green cabbage cut into wedges
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
- salt and pepper to taste
- grainy mustard for serving optional
Instructions
- Remove the corned beef from the package. Rinse with cold water and pat dry with paper towels.
- Place the corned beef brisket (fat side up), carrots and potatoes in a slow cooker. Add 3 cups of water to the slow cooker, plus the seasoning packet that comes in the corned beef package.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 6 hours.
- Add the cabbage on top of the corned beef and cook on LOW for another 2 hours.
- Remove the cabbage, corned beef, potatoes and carrots from the slow cooker. Slice the corned beef against the grain.
- Place the butter, garlic, parsley and salt and pepper in a small bowl. Microwave in 30 second increments or until melted.
- Drizzle the garlic butter over the carrots, potatoes and cabbage. Place the meat, potatoes and vegetables on a platter and serve with mustard on the side if desired.
Notes
- This recipe really works best on the low heat setting. I know the temptation is there to crank up the heat and have your meal done in half the time, but you run the risk of a tough corned beef if you do that.
- I recommend putting your meat in the crock pot first thing in the morning to ensure perfection by dinner time.
- The potatoes and carrots get quite soft from cooking all day in the crock pot. If you prefer your veggies on the firmer side, try adding them halfway through the cooking time.
hello, the cook time you have listed is for 3-5lbs of meat. How long should I cook 4lbs? Thank you!
You would cook for the same amount of time listed!
Best recipe! Thank you ❤️ Simple and easy slow n low cooking is the best.
This was just amazing!
This is not my Grandmother’s corn beef! This recipe was great! The garlic butter was awesome and made the meal!!!!! I put my veggies in half way through cooking time and they were tender but not mushy. I used napa cabbage and put it in the last 45 minutes. It was cooked perfectly. The kids 9 and 6 even at this meal and didn’t complain!
This was delicious! We ended up making sandwiches with the meat on fresh rye bread.
Great recipe!
This was absolutely perfect and so easy! Love the grainy mustard with it too. I added an onion (because why not?) and actually ended up skipping the garlic butter step because I kind of forgot and everyone was hangry – I can only imagine that would make it better but it was fantastic as is! Thanks for a great recipe, this will be our St. Patrick’s Day staple 🙂
Just a note for others – the corned beef shrinks A TON when it cooks so err on the larger size when choosing your piece.
Recipe was very helpful. One question. How does the cabbage have to be cut when you add it on top of corned beef. 1/2, quarters or smaller??
I cut into quarters or sixths!
Should the corned beef and vegetables be completely covered in the water when cooking in the crockpot?
It should be at least halfway covered but does not need to be completely submerged.
Hi. My corned beef brisket is in the crockpot now!!
It’s my first time doing one.
For the melted butter sauce at the end, can I put it on the veggies after everything is on a platter? I’m telling you, that sauce sounds amazing!
My brisket is 3 pounds. I’m planning on 8 to 9 hours. Potatoes and carrots going in halfway through, cabbage for last 2 hours.
Thank you.
Yes that all sounds perfect!
I forgot to post back after our meal. The recipe is spot on! DELICIOUS! Butter sauce was DELICIOUS! I made extra sauce. Thanks so much for this great, easy to follow recipe!
Hi, I am planning to make this recipe for tomorrow. I have 7 lbs of corned beef. How long would you recommend I cook? Should I double all ingredients as well? Thanks. Cheers!
You can double the veggies if you like, and the total cooking time should be 10 hours on low.
Can I cook this on High for half the time if I dont have enough time?
It’s really better on low as it takes a while to get tender!
I am getting my corned beef from a butcher shop so I don’t have the spice mix that usually comes in a store. Can you let me know what I can use for spices? thanks/
If the beef is already cured it’s fine to skip the spice packet, or you can add a tablespoon of pickling spice.
How many pounds of corned beef for 6 people for this recipe?
You’ll want a minimum of 3 pounds but I recommend 4 pounds as it shrinks quite a bit when it cooks.
Can you make this on the stove top instead?
Yes you’d need to simmer in a covered pot for at least 3 hours.
When can I add the potatoes ? Can I use baby carrots? I’m cooking the corn beef on low 8hrs
I add the potatoes at the beginning, but if you like them firmer you can add them halfway through the cooking time. Baby carrots are fine!
This was the best corned beef BEef I’ve ever had. Fabulous recipe thank you!
By the way, I agree that yellow potatoes are a good choice, since they do not get as mushy as white, red or Idaho (resset) potatoes. This is because they actually contain primarily a different starch than the other varieties. It is like the difference between long and short grain rice. Also, with the price of tiny carrots having dropped a lot over the years, using them is a lot more convenient than peeling and cutting whole large carrots. I have never, ever added onions to my corned beef, and will try it next time. But, frankly, I am not optimistic that it really complements this dish. However, if onions are separately braised until brown, and then added, I can see that that would be a good complement. Some people might think that using red cabbage would be a nifty idea for color, but when cooked for a long period of time, the result is not a particularly attractive color.
I agree that you generally do not need any seasonings other than the spice pack provided with the pre-cured corned beef. Some garlic and whole allspice berries won’t hurt, but aren’t necessary. And, adding beer or broth, as some people suggest, is also OK, but not necessary. That spice packet, by the way, is just regular pickling spice mixture (coriander & mustard seed, bay leaf,.red & black pepper, dried ginger pieces, allspice berries, garlic pieces, cinnamon….though, obviously, proportions will vary by the brand). Sometimes, the spice packet will be a perforated version, if which case you can drop in the whole packet and the flavor will diffuse out, without having to pick off the spice pieces later…since, as you know, some spices like bay leaf never soften, regardless of how long they are cooked.
This recipe was amazing! I have a family of seven and we all loved it. The sauce gave it a wonderful taste.
The first time i ever made this I helped a friend make it for a crowd. She made it with whole small onions in addition to the potatoes, carrot s and cabbage.. i’m making this tomorrow and will use baby carrots, small yellow potatoes and onions in a large slow cooker.. (with cabbage, of course.)
Do you substitute broth for water. Original recipe says water
Can you start with the beef frozen? Or should it be thawed First?
I would thaw it, otherwise it won’t get tender enough during the cooking time.
I wondered the same thing but the USDA says it needs to be thawed first
I made this for dinner tonight: it was absolutely delicious and a huge hit! Thank you!
I love this recipe and make it often. I just bought a bigger crock pot and 3 cups of water didn’t seem to be enough. Do you think it’s important that the meat is covered with water ? I added an extra cup or so and hope it doesn’t change the taste. What do you think?
The meat should be about halfway covered, it does not need to be totally submerged. It’s ok to add more water it won’t affect the taste!
Oh my gosh, this was the most tender corned beef my husband and I have ever had! I didn’t have beef broth, so substituted vegetable broth. I am not a fan of spice packet getting into food, so put spices into cheesecloth ball. I too agree with other reviews, I added more vegetables. The sauce I tripled. It totally made the vegetables amazing!
Hi! Can you use baby carrots and add halfway through?
Yes that’s fine!