On this page, you will find out how many watts a crock pot draws.
Slow cookers are making a comeback. In this fast paced world we live in, it felt like the crock pot went missing for a while. But now more people are dusting off their appliances or investing in modern iterations. I certainly love mine. You can fill it up and go about your day. When you arrive home you have a hot home cooked dinner waiting for you. The only problem is that you have to run the appliance for hours. Which means you are probably wondering about the power consumption.
Below we will discuss and test crock pot wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is a Crock Pot?
The average crock pot uses between 70 to 300 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your crock pot. For example, a smaller 3 quart machine runs at less than 150W when cooking on high. While a large 6+ quart model uses over 250W when cooking on high.
Adding to this, you should factor in the different settings available. The listed power consumption is the maximum when cooking on high power. Your slow cooker uses much less power when cooking low, often less than 100W. Plus, when left to ‘keep warm’ the wattage can drop below 50W.
How to Find Out Your Crock Pot Wattage
There are 3 ways you can work out the wattage of a crock pot.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the crock pot’s specification. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the appliance. If not, you can check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your crock pot to get instant information.
I used one to test my crock pot which gave a live reading of 168W on high and 54.1W on low.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your crock pot you can use this to find the running watts. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
Crock Pot and Slow Cooker Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts a crock pot draws. Below is a collection of modern crock pots with their listed power ratings.
| Slow Cooker Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| Crockpot 6-Quart Cook & Carry | 240 |
| Crockpot Design Series 3-Quart | 170 |
| Crockpot Design Series 4.5- Quart | 120 |
| Crockpot 6-Quart Easy-to-Clean | 260 |
| Elite Gourmet Electric Slow Cooker | 120 |
| Hamilton Beach 7-Quart Programmable | 340 |
| Courant Oval Slow Cooker | 320 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different crock pots and slow cookers. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does a Crock Pot Use?
You can use crock pot wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your crock pot.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, a crock pot drawing 200W would use 200Wh when running for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 200W crock pot running for 1 hour uses 0.2kWh.
In reality, you use a crock pot for 5 hours at a time. This means a crock pot uses a maximum 1000Wh or 1kWh electricity each time. So if you use it once a week that’s 4kWh a month and 52kWh a year.
That’s a rough electricity cost of $0.15 for each use or $8 a year to slow cook your food once a week.
Using a Crock Pot Off-Grid
Slow cookers are very popular with people traveling in RVs and semi-trucks. In this scenario it is important to know the power consumption. It enables you to pick the correct power products and know how long everything can run.
You can either use a power inverter, portable power station, or generator to generate electricity.
To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity.
Your power source, like an inverter, should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your crock pot. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To slow cook food, you will need at least 300W of power capacity. This will give you enough capacity to easily use your machine without overworking your equipment. Remember, it will be running for long periods so you don’t want it to be on the limit! You might need to go up to 500W+ for larger appliances.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the crock pot for the required amount of time. As we already know, it can use upto 1000Wh electricity for each usage on high power. This is the equivalent to 83.3Ah on a 12V battery. To reduce energy consumption by around 50%, try cooking on low instead.
How Many Watts Does a Crock Pot Use Summary
I hope you now have a clear understanding of how many watts a crock pot uses.
The power ratings of these appliances can vary depending on the model and function. You will find it uses more power when heating up and running on high power. While the electricity draw drops when switching to low or keep warm. The energy and power consumption in the article above is for cooking on maximum power. In reality, your appliance will use less than these totals. The wattage of a crock pot is very low compared to other cooking appliances. But remember you will be running for a long time so the total electricity usage creeps up slowly.
