If you are from the South or even visit the area occasionally, then you know about boiled peanuts. The traditional Southern snack is often made at roadside stands, sold in gas stations, or served by back-road barbecue restaurants.

Take the work out of boiled peanuts by using your slow cooker.

The traditional way to make them is to boil the shell-on peanuts in a large pot with enough salt to season them all the way through. A good boiled peanut will be soft, but not mushy or slimy. You should be able to easily open the shell with your fingers. The finished texture should be similar to an almost done brown bean, tender, but with just a little bite.

The perfect boiled peanut is soft and easy to peel but still has a little bit of firmness to bite through.

While the traditional salted variety is great, I like to kick the flavor up a bit with the addition of crab boil spices and Crystal hot sauce. We often serve them at deer camp to give everyone something to snack on between hunts and meals. Here’s the thing: Between hunting and cooking, there isn’t a lot of extra time to stand over a boiling pot of peanuts for 5-6 hours. Bring out the slow cooker. You can get the same results without the work by boiling your peanuts in your slow cooker. Just plug it in before the morning hunt and they will be ready when everyone comes in for the night.

Add crab boil spice to your boiled peanuts while they cook.

To make a good boiled peanut, you need dried raw or green peanuts, not roasted. If you live in the South, getting them is as easy as running down to the local store or stopping along the roadside to buy some straight from the farmer. If you live north of the Mason-Dixon Line, you might need to order them online or request them from a large supermarket in your area.

Use either raw or green peanuts for this recipe.

You can cook the peanuts from dry to finished in the slow cooker, but it will take a while. Soaking them in fresh, cold water overnight cuts the cooking time down to 8-10 hours, perfect for a day afield.

Soaking the peanuts in cold water overnight speeds the cooking process.

The process is simple. Add the soaked peanuts to your slow cooker, fill the slow cooker with fresh water so the peanuts rise to the top of the pot, pour in the hot sauce, Old Bay, liquid crab boil seasoning, and salt, give everything a good stir to blend, then turn the slow cooker on high. Keep the lid on and it should maintain a light boil all day. Give the peanuts a stir every 2-3 hours if possible to help them cook evenly.

Cover the peanuts with water, then add the spices and seasonings.

Serve them up the traditional way — dip them out and drop them into foam or plastic cups, then watch as everyone digs in. There’s a reason why Southern folks love their boiled peanuts. They’re just good eats. In my opinion, this crab boil version is even better than the original style.

They taste great straight out of the cooker, but to really kick the flavor up to another level, cool the peanuts and move the pot to the refrigerator overnight. Next day, plug the slow cooker back in and reheat. The overnight soak really pushes the crab boil flavor to a delicious level.