There have been a number of culinary innovations over the past century, and the one that many of us just can't live without is the slow cooker. The first slow cooker was only granted patent approval relatively recently (in the grand scheme of things, at least) in 1940, and today, it's an invaluable asset that allows you to cook something low and slow, even if you don't have time to sit and watch a pot for hours. Now, let's say you're planning on making some easy slow cooker beef stew in the coming days, and maybe you're even planning on making a unique twist on this old idea with something like a beef stew with prunes and apples .
You'll probably pick up stew meat, right? Stew meat doesn't necessarily come from the same cut of beef all the time, it's just the name that's given to cubed meat that's from tougher cuts that need some serious cooking time to get tender. That's definitely a great option, but there's another vastly underrated cut of beef that a slow cooker can work magic with: Beef cheeks. While there are plenty of foods with wildly misleading names — like figgy pudding , which doesn't contain figs and isn't even a pudding — beef cheeks actually are the cheeks of the cow.
While that might have something to do with the reason many people might think twice before buying this particular cut, it definitely shouldn't deter you from using it in your slow-cooked dishes, and here's why. Beef cheeks are delicious, tender, and flavorful Different cuts of meat are known fo.