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Thursday, May 30, 2013

Slow Cooker "Roasted" Herb Chicken with Gravy

There's something magical that happens to chicken breasts on the bone when cooked in the slow cooker.  Doing so yields such succulent, tender and flavorful meat.  And, what I, also, love about this recipe is that there is hardly any work to be done in the morning to get the chicken going.  Throw in the breasts, sprinkle on some seasoning, pour in a little broth (or water) and put the lid on!  At mealtime, simple utilize the cooking liquid to make a quick pan gravy and serve it all with some homemade, buttery mashed potatoes.


I am providing the suggested spices that I use for the chicken, but any that you love with poultry and have on hand would do the job.  Watkins' Garlic Peppercorn Blend is pretty magnificent.  I use it in so many dishes.  It is a combination of sea salt, dehydrated garlic, black peppercorns, parsley and oregano.  Substituting those spices and seasonings would be fine in place of the Watkins' product.  Or, go with what you love with chicken!

Yields 2 - 4 servings.

For nutritional value information, visit my post of this recipe on My Recipe Magic.  Click the "Nutrition" tab at the top of the post there.


Ingredients:

FOR THE SLOW COOKER CHICKEN -

2 very large bone-in and skin-on chicken breasts (mine totaled 2 1/2 pounds together)
Watkins Garlic Peppercorn Blend (see paragraph above)
1 teaspoon (approx.) Herbs de Provence (a mixture of several dried herbs)
1 1/2 cups chicken stock or broth (or the same amount of water with the addition of 1 - 2 bouillon cubes)

FOR THE GRAVY -

Chicken cooking juices
2 tablespoons flour
Water
Kosher salt (as needed)
Black pepper

Directions:

Place chicken breasts in slow cooker.

Sprinkle the tops with seasoning and herbs to coat.  Pour in the broth or stock.  (If substituting water, toss in 1 - 2 chicken bouillon cubes.)

Lid and cook on low for 6 - 7 hours.


Turn slow cooker to warm.  Transfer cooking liquid to a small sauce pan.  Cook over medium heat until simmering. (Additional broth or stock can be added if the amount of liquid remaining doesn't look sufficient enough to produce a gravy.  With the initial addition of broth/stock at the beginning of cooking in the slow cooker and the amount of liquid the chicken produces during cooking, you should end up with about 1 1/2 - 2 cups of liquid total.)

Whisk together about a 1/2 cup of cold water with 2 tablespoons of flour until no lumps remain.

Whisk the flour/water mixture into the simmering cooking liquid.  The gravy will thicken over the course of 2 - 3 minutes.  Season with black pepper.  Taste and adjust salt as needed.  Reduce heat to low until ready to serve.

Remove chicken from slow cooker.  Serve with or over mashed potatoes.  Top with the pan gravy.


NOTE:  Preparing chicken in the slow cooker allows for the "fat" from the skin to somewhat "melt" into the meat.  Know that the skin will not get super crispy as if the chicken were roasted in the oven.  The chicken can be put into a very hot oven for a few minutes prior to serving if crispy skin is desired.  The photos within this post show the chicken as-is without "crisping" the skin.  I find that the chicken is wonderful without finishing it in the oven.

31 comments:

  1. Hi Angela.
    Wanted to let you know that I made this today. Honestly, this was my first time making chicken gravy and it was fabulous! I only had boneless skinless chicken breasts, so they weren't nearly as juicy as some nice bone-in meat would've been, but it was still quite tasty. Thank you for this simple idea!
    Jen

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  2. We had this tonight for dinner. Delicious and so easy!!! thank you for sharing. I'll definitely be using this recipe/ method again.

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  3. Made this for supper tonight. Added a little sherry to the broth and after five hours on low it smelled delicious. Tried small piece if chicken and it was very dry...at this point it was falling off the bone. I think my crock pot is more of a medium-slow cooker:( I turned it off and let it sit in the juices for a bit and then made the gravy. It was all good but the meat still dry. I wonder if you start them off meat side down if they would be juicier? I usually don't do chicken breasts in the crock pot for this reason but I wanted to try the recipe. I will attempt again with skinless thighs as I think the dark meat holds up better.
    Also if your cooker is "fast" like mine maybe 4 to 5 hours is enough time. I think the chicken breasts would have been inedible if they had cooked any longer but it sure smells great!!!!!

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    1. Love the sherry addition!

      Sorry that you had issues with the chicken turning out dry. You're right ... slow cookers can be finicky and vary. Maybe this is a good recipe for one to try while they are home to keep an eye on things after five hours or so. Thank you for sharing your experience!

      Angela

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    2. Doesn't chicken get dried out in a crock pot if it's placed directly on the bottom? I've read that it's good to place it on top of veggies or aluminum foil balls to elevate it a bit. Has anyone tried this?

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  4. This was awesome. tender,tasty,moist and so easy to make. Make sure to crisp it a bit in the oven. Just a few minuets on broil worked fine for me. The gravy was awesome as well. Will do this again and again.

    Rick

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    Replies
    1. So glad it was a hit for you, Rick. I appreciate you stopping back by to leave feedback.

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  5. I tried this today and it was delicious. My fussy seven year old devoured it!! Thank you :)

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  6. I don't normally comment on recipes, but I made an exception this time. I cooked this for supper tonight and it was just oustanding! The recipe was simple, easy to follow, and produced the most tender, juicy, flavorful chicken I've ever had. I was completely floored by this recipe! I usually don't like gravy (I know, it's insane,) but this gravy had me going back for seconds! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe, it is absolutely a keeper. :)

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    1. Awesome! Thrilled that you loved it. And, thank you for commenting with your feedback. Love it!

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  7. Can u start with frozen Chicken breasts or should they be thawed before putting in crock pot?

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    1. I have only started from thawed, so I am really not sure.

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  8. I don't have chicken bouillon will it be ok without it?

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    1. I apologize for taking so long to reply ... I would think that any gravy you make with the cooking liquid wouldn't be that flavorful without stock or bouillon ... but couldn't say for sure. You can try using salt, pepper or herbs to UP the flavor profile as needed.

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  9. Do you use Watkins garlic and herb and the herb de province in this recipe or just one of them?

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  10. Sure would be nice if there was an option to print the recipe out.

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    1. There should be a green Print Friendly button right at the bottom of the post.

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    2. i can't find the printer icon, either....tried on two browsers (chrome and firefox). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
      no biggie though - just an fyi

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    3. I made this for a family birthday dinner party, serving 8 people.

      I wanted a crispy skin chicken, and wasn't sure if I'd get that with this recipe, but went with this one because of all of the good reviews of people who have actually made it, and also because of the ease of making a good gravy.

      I used a large old crockpot (just low and high settings) and had 5 lbs of fresh chicken breast (laid flat, with a dab of butter under the skin of each one) as well as ~3 lbs of fresh chicken thighs crammed in around the edges of the crock pot. I doubled the herbs/spices and used a whole big carton of broth (which was a bit over double the recipe). I forgot to rinse/pat dry the chicken, I didn't use a liner, and I placed foil balls underneath the breasts so they wouldn't get soggy. I love how easy this recipe is! It was perfect for a busy afternoon/evening of hosting a dinner party! I just placed in the foil balls, then the chicken, herbs, and broth (and moved the chicken around so the broth sunk below the meat)....then I just left it alone for about 5 hours (as it cooked out of the way, on top of my dryer in the laundry room).
      I then rotated the lid so that some of the liquid could evaporate, and then left it alone another 2 hours or so. So easy!

      The skin wasn't crispy like I'd hoped, but I wasn't surprised or disappointed - it looked and smelled great! I didn't really even pay much attention to the exact timing of it all, since I was cleaning and prepping other stuff. I also forgot completely about putting the chicken into the broiler for the skin - next time. But once I got around to pulling the chickens out for plating, it was incredibly moist and tender (the non-crispy skin came off easily - yay, and the meat wasn't totally falling apart but was perfectly tender) and it looked and smelled delicious.

      The chicken was fantastically moist (not mushy or anything), and looked and tasted great because of the herbs (I also added a bit of paprika).

      And the gravy was phenomenal! It came in handy especially since we had some dense/drier stuffing as a side.

      And because of the liquid, clean up was a breeze - no need for a liner. I just left it to soak overnight in the laundry tub and did very minimal scrubbing the next day.

      This was a big hit! Thanks for such a great recipe!! I'll be using it again!

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    4. Just a PSA: Most browsers will let you print things like recipes and patterns if you right click somewhere in the text and select "Print." It also gives you the option of saving the file to a .pdf (Adobe) document on your computer. Be careful to review your print file and select the pages you want to print or you could end up printing 20 pages of comments!

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  11. Made this with frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts. It was so moist and had a lot of flavor. Thank you! I will definitely be making this again!

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  12. Can I double this recipe in the crock pot with 4 chicken breasts?

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  13. We loved it. Thank you for a stress free Sunday meal

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  14. We loved it. Cooked it Sunday for a nice stress free meal.

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  15. I just cooked this recipe today for my family. They all love it and we all want to say thank you, Angela! You have a great blog here and I can't wait to try the next recipe!

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    1. So awesome, Valeria. Thank you for the feedback and I'm so happy you all loved it.

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  16. Good evening Joyously Domestic,
    I made your recipe today (the only thing I changed was the spices) and followed the rest to a "T." This slower cooker dish was prepared with great care and attention to detail. The presentation and the taste were both perfect. The chicken was not dry, and the gravy was excellent. This was, without a doubt, one of the most luscious dishes I’ve ever had the privilege of experiencing. I will make it again, it was so easy to make! Thank you for sharing, Tammy

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