Six ingredients, 15 minutes of prep, and a meal that feeds six for under $10 — the Slow Cooker Hobo Dinner is one of America’s most enduring comfort recipes. Rooted in Depression-era cooking, this one-pot dish combines beef, potatoes, carrots, and onion in a rich, savory broth that slow-cooks to fork-tender perfection. No stirring, no fuss, and almost no cleanup.
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- —Ready with just 15 minutes of hands-on prep
- —Feeds 6 people for under $10
- —Inspired by Depression-era campfire foil meals
A Depression-era campfire meal reinvented for the slow cooker
The Hobo Dinner traces its roots to the Great Depression, when travelers and workers known as hobos would wrap whatever ingredients they could find — scraps of meat, root vegetables, onion — tightly in aluminum foil and cook the bundle directly over open coals. The result was a self-contained, no-waste meal born out of necessity.
