OK, so I got a slow cooker for Christmas. Tried to make some chicken in it.
The recipe was simple:
4 boneless breasts of chicken
1 can of mushroom soup
8 ounces of sour cream.
Cook on low 4-5 hours.
I cooked it for 4 hours 30. It was covered with liquid the entire time. It is still dry.
Any advice?
Lean meats easily go dry in a slow cooker. That might have been too long of a cooking time, regardless of what the recipe said. I had the same thing happen to a pork tenderloin.
Also, over on the LiveJournal community “what_a_crock”, I’ve read frequent commentary from people that modern slow cookers seem to heat much hotter than older models. How old is the recipe you used?
Don’t use chicken breasts. Make up the difference in fat by using low fat sour cream and low fat soup.
Whenever I slow-cook chicken I have some veggies in there. It doesn’t need much in the way of liquid — that is to say, marinade — if you’ve got some onions and celery chopped up in there with it.
Yeah, every slow cooker I’ve used, I’ve had to cut the suggested cooking time down by at least a third (especially when cooking meat). Don’t know why - maybe the recipes are written for people who may have really old, slower-heating cookers.
Chicken thighs all the way. More flavorful, and they stay moist.
After some similar experiences, I no longer cook anything in the crockpot that would not require fairly long cooking anyway. So chicken breast and lean pork roasts/chops are out. Beans and simliar soups, roasts, and relatively fatty meat meant to be shredded and eaten with lots of sauce are okay.
The only good luck I’ve had with chicken was a stewed whole chicken with umpteen cloves of garlic recipe that was meant to be falling off the bone by the end of the cooking process. I could smell it two blocks away when I got home.
(I will post it if I can find it again. It doesn’t seem to be in any of my usual crockpot books.)
I only ever use thighs and drumsticks when making slow-cooked chicken; breasts are just not designed for stewing, IMO. It’d be like stewing a filet mignon or pork tenderloin - they’re meant for a fast dry heat.
I’ve thrown chicken breasts into the slow cooker all by themselves and had them turn out fine. They were, however, frozen, with plenty of ice clinging to them, so that probably provided enough moisture.
I just made this recently and it turned out fantastic, even after cooking on low up to 10 hours:
1 can each of green beans, carrots, potatos, and corn
Thyme and oregano (didn’t really measure, just plenty of thyme and a little oregano)
2 frozen chicken breasts
2 cans cream of mushroom, 1 can of water
Dumped in the pot in that order.
The chicken was falling-apart tasty by 8 hours, not dry at all.
The only way you could cook a fresh boneless chicken breast for 4 to 5 hours and have it not come out dry, would be if you were using an EasyBake Oven.
So yeah, try a hardier cut of meat for the crockpot. Things that stew down in their own juices are awsome, like beef chuck or pork butt.