When cooking potatoes, a pot of boiling water is one of the tried-and-true methods of cooking your spuds. In Ireland, many common potato dishes require boiling potatoes as a principal step before mashing and mixing the taters into casseroles, soups, and pies. When it comes to boiling potatoes, a slow cooker is the right tool for the right job, especially if you’re busy preparing a feast for St. Paddy’s.

But there’s a twist when boiling potatoes in a slow cooker. Don’t add the same amount of water to a slow cooker as you would any other pot on the stove; instead, you should definitely use less liquid for slow cooker recipes. A slow cooker works by building up steam in your pot, which condenses and drips down from the enclosed lid back into the pot. This water cycle means that most of the liquid content added at the start will remain until it’s done. If you have ingredients that release water when they cook, your water level will slowly rise over time, and the slow cooker might start to flood over.

One suggestion is to decrease the amount of water in your pot. Don’t get the water level to the brim. Instead, filling your pot from halfway to three-quarters is one way to prevent an overflow of H2O in your pot. While the water might not seem enough to boil your taters to perfection, remember that your potatoes will be steam-cooked from the top down.