Confession time.

I’m not usually a fan of boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

Yup, I said it.

I know, I know. They’re healthy, low-fat, convenient. A staple. Practically as American as apple pie.

They’re also kind of bland. Boring. Not to mention tough and dry if they’re overcooked, which is really easy to do.

For a long time, it seemed like our family only ate chicken breasts covered in some sort of not-so-healthy sauce (bye-bye, low fat!) or when my meat thermometer and I had the time to babysit every step of the way during cooking. Which, with our schedule, really wasn’t all that often. Even my trusty crock pot didn’t seem to work: against all odds, the chicken still dried out, or if I added enough moisture to prevent that, we ended up with a mushy mess. One consistency, one flavor. Not very appetizing.

But we live in Chicken Country. There are poultry farms everywhere in this area, which translates to one thing: chicken breasts are inexpensive here. I mean, really inexpensive. That counts for something when you’re feeding THREE teenagers. So I persisted.

Over the course of years (yes, I really do mean years), we experimented with all sorts of ideas for slow-cooker chicken, and eventually I stumbled on THIS recipe. My husband needs to avoid gluten, and tries to eat a low carb diet. This meets those requirements. He also loves Mexican food and salsa of almost any variety, and our kids have pretty much followed in his footsteps in that regard. So this recipe — and I use that term loosely, as it’s more of a preparation method that scales easily to work with any quantity of chicken — makes EVERYBODY happy.

5 INGREDIENT SLOW-COOKER VERDE CHICKEN

You’ll need:

• Slow cooker, 4-8 qt. (depending on how many you plan to feed)
• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts (4-10 large)
• Kosher salt
• Fresh-ground black pepper
• Ground cumin
• Verde salsa, any brand (1 standard jar, usually about 2 cups)

Instructions:

Please note: after contact with uncooked chicken, ALWAYS be sure you wash your hands with hot water and soap before touching anything else. Don’t reuse knives, utensils, cutting boards, or dishes that have come in contact with the raw meat. Please err on the side of caution and when in doubt, WASH to avoid contaminating other surfaces or foods.

Pour a small amount of salsa into your slow cooker, just enough that you can spread it to cover most of the bottom. If you like to trim excess fat or stray pieces of skin from your chicken before cooking, now is the time to do that. Then, place a layer of chicken on top of the salsa.

Sprinkle on a generous amount of kosher salt, then black pepper.

Next, the cumin. If you aren’t familiar with cumin, it’s pretty potent and too much can overwhelm a dish, so be careful here. Love spicy food? Sprinkle away. If you’re unsure, or if you’ll be feeding kids, use it sparingly. You can always increase the heat factor by serving a spicy salsa.

Next, pour more of the salsa on top of the chicken breasts. If all the chicken fit in a single layer, go ahead and use the rest of the bottle. If you are cooking more chicken and need to make a second layer, use only a moderate amount and save what’s left. Add another layer — chicken, salt, pepper, cumin — then pour the remaining salsa over the top.

Place the lid on the slow cooker, and select the LOW temperature setting.

Now … wait. Don’t open the lid for at least 3 hours (4, if you added a second layer of chicken). Seriously. Every time you let the heat escape, it lengthens your cooking time. It’s worse than opening the oven door.

After 3-4 hours, check whether the chicken is cooked through by removing the lid and using the fork test:

The tines of a fork will slide smoothly into a fully cooked chicken breast. If there’s firm resistance, or if the fork doesn’t go in at first but eventually presses through with a kind of “popped grape” sensation, the chicken isn’t done. Replace the lid and give it another hour before checking again. Repeat if necessary.

When the chicken is done, a fork will slide in smoothly with almost no resistance and each piece will easily pull apart:

At this point, you can remove the chicken from your slow cooker and shred it for serving. You could put some — or all — aside for later. (It freezes beautifully, FYI.) My kids won’t let me get away with saving it for later after hours spent smelling the aroma as it cooks; once this chicken is ready, we will be eating it for the very next meal.

To serve, we simply pull the breasts apart and ladle some of the juices over the meat. There’s very little fat, especially if you used well-trimmed chicken; to cut calories and fat even more, you can skim the top before serving or use a turkey baster to take liquid from the bottom of your slow cooker where there’s far less fat.

Serve with taco shells or tortillas (corn instead of flour keeps this gluten-free) and salsa, sour cream, cheese, shredded lettuce, chopped cilantro, a squeeze of lime juice, or any other condiment your family likes.

Yummy, gluten-free verde chicken in the slow cooker! Click To Tweet

Verde Chicken reheats or freezes well. We often make an extra-large batch, and use it in a layered, gluten-free Mexican dish that our whole family loves. Watch for that recipe in the near future. Better yet, enter your email address at the bottom of this page to subscribe to the blog, and have every post delivered to your inbox!

 

5-INGREDIENT SLOW-COOKER VERDE CHICKEN (printable Slow Cooker Verde Chicken recipe )

• Slow cooker, 4-8 qt. (depending on how many you plan to feed)
• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts (4-10 large)
• Kosher salt
• Fresh-ground black pepper
• Ground cumin
• Verde salsa, any brand (1 standard jar, usually about 2 cups)

Pour enough salsa into slow cooker to cover bottom. Place a single layer of chicken breasts on top of salsa. Season with salt, pepper, and cumin as desired. Pour over remaining salsa—or, if you have remaining chicken breasts, reserve some salsa and repeat layer of chicken+seasoning+remaining salsa. Set slow cooker to LOW and cook for 3-4 hours until chicken is cooked through. Shred chicken with forks and spoon remaining juices on top.