4-Ingredient Slow Cooker Amish Farmhouse Potatoes

These 4-ingredient Slow cooker Amish farmhouse potatoes are the side dish I keep coming back to when I want something cozy, hands-off, and genuinely impressive without any real effort. You toss raw baby red potatoes in the crock with sour cream, butter, and salt — and a few hours later you’ve got the creamiest, most comforting potatoes that taste like you spent all afternoon in the kitchen. Perfect for Easter, Sunday dinners, or any busy weeknight.

Why You’ll Love This

Only 4 ingredients — baby red potatoes, sour cream, butter, and salt. That’s it, nothing else needed.
Totally hands-off — no boiling, no peeling, no babysitting the stove. Set it and walk away.
Incredibly Creamy texture — the sour cream and butter melt together into a rich, glossy sauce that coats every potato.
Flexible cook time — ready in 2–3 hours on HIGH or 4–5 hours on LOW, so it works around your schedule.
Crowd-pleasing every time — rustic, comforting, and goes with just about any main dish on the table.

A Few Notes on the Ingredients

Baby red potatoes are what I use and what I’d recommend. You want something waxy, not starchy — russets would turn to mush in here in a way that’s not entirely pleasant. The reds hold their shape better even as they soften, and the skins are thin enough that you don’t notice them at all.
Sour cream — I use whatever full-fat sour cream I have, usually Daisy or the store brand. Don’t use reduced fat here. It’s just not the same. I’ve tried. You’re making a rich farmhouse potato dish, not trying to sneak vegetables into a smoothie.
Butter. Salted. I know some people are very principled about salted versus unsalted and I respect that in their own homes. But salted butter in this particular recipe, with the sour cream, creates something slightly more complex than plain unsalted butter does. Or maybe I’m just used to it. I’ve probably made this thirty times by now and I’m not experimenting.
Salt — start with a teaspoon and a half, then taste at the end and adjust. The salt that’s right for you might be different from what’s right for me. I sometimes add a pinch of garlic powder to the sour cream mixture, which I’m aware is technically a fifth ingredient but I’m not going to be rigorous about it.

Ingredients

2½ pounds baby red potatoes, unpeeled — whole if small, halved if they’re on the bigger side
1 cup full-fat sour cream
½ cup salted butter, cut into pieces (I usually do about tablespoon-sized chunks, roughly)
1½ teaspoons salt, plus whatever extra you need at the end

How to Make Them

Spray or butter the inside of your Slow Cooker before you do anything else. This is not optional. Sour cream will cement itself to the sides of an ungreased crock in ways you will regret.
Rinse the potatoes and dry them off. Leave the skins on — they add something, texturally and visually, and peeling two and a half pounds of baby potatoes is not a job I’m willing to do on a Tuesday. If a few of them are noticeably larger than the others, cut those in half so everything finishes around the same time.
Spread the potatoes in the bottom of the Slow Cooker. In a small bowl, stir the salt into the sour cream — just so it’s evenly distributed. Then dollop that mixture over the potatoes. Don’t try to spread it evenly, just drop spoonfuls here and there, let some fall down between the potatoes. Then scatter the butter pieces over the top.
Lid on. Walk away.
LOW for 4 to 5 hours, HIGH for 2 to 3. I’ve tested both more times than I can count. LOW is a little silkier if you have the time; HIGH works perfectly fine if you don’t. The only way you’ll know they’re done is to pierce one with a fork — it should go in with no resistance, like through warm butter.
When you’re ready to serve, stir gently from the bottom. This is the good part — the sauce at the bottom comes up and coats everything, and a few potatoes fall apart slightly and thicken it. That’s not a mistake, that’s what you want. Taste for salt. Serve immediately or switch to WARM and let people help themselves.

Variations

A tangier, slightly lighter version works well with half the sour cream swapped for plain Greek yogurt. If you have leftover ham from Easter or Thanksgiving, dice it up and stir it in during the last half hour. Same with bacon — cook it, crumble it, add it near the end so it doesn’t go limp sitting in all that moisture. Shredded cheddar melted over the top in the last ten minutes is genuinely wonderful if you want something more substantial.

Leftovers

They reheat well in the microwave, covered loosely. The sauce tightens up a little in the fridge — just stir in a tiny splash of water or extra sour cream when you reheat. I’ve left them in the crock on warm for a couple hours during family dinners and they’re fine. Left in the fridge they keep about three days, maybe four if you live in a house where the refrigerator is colder than mine apparently is.