I’m looking for a recipe for a party-sized batch of chicken taco meat that can be made in a slow cooker.
My basic plan was to take about ten pounds of whatever form of boneless chicken is cheapest at the market, dice it into half-inch or so chunks and simmer it in <something> for a few hours. Or should I leave the chunks larger with the expectation that the chicken will self-shred in cooking?
The main specs are that it needs to be crock-pot friendly as it’s going to be prepared the day before the party and then re-heated to serve. Ingredients-wise, garlic and cilantro are off the menu, and it should be “crowd-pleasing” and not El Scorcho Fuego de Diablo hot.
The easiest way to do it is to take a whole chicken and cover it about half the way up with salsa. Cook it on low for about 6 hours and just pull out the bones. The chicken shreds easily while you’re deboneing. Just use a salsa you like the flavor of and you can’t lose.
I can cook without cilantro, but no garlic? That’s just wrong!
We do chicken enchiladas by simmering a whole chicken in water with spices added. We use a bunch of chili powder, cumin, and oregano, plus whatever else sounds good.
That’s a basic taco meat seasoning also: garlic powder, chili powder, onion powder, cumin, oregano, plus some tomato of some sort (I generally use jarred salsa).
I’d cook it in larger pieces until it’s falling apart, then break it up into shreds before reheating. You could certainly use a whole chicken or bone-in pieces, which are cheaper, as the meat will come right off the bone. Those will require more cleaning to get the skin, fat, bones, etc., out, but it’s pretty easy to do on cooked chicken.
I think you’re on the right track-spray the bottom of your slow cooker with Pam; layer your boneless skinless chicken pieces uncut. Sprinkle witth 2tbs of taco seasoning, then cover with your favorite bottled salsa and slow cook for 6 hrs.
Shred with two forks; adjust the salt and pepper to taste.
Starting with whole birds makes sense, now that I think of the long cooking time. Diced chcken would just evaoprate.
As for the garlic and cilantro, there are allergies to be considered. Personally, I adore garlic, but at least two of the guests will be in writhing pain if they eat any. Once they recover, I’ll be in pain!
I like to use leftover grilled chicken for mine (ideally smoked, ideally a mix of white and dark). I slice a couple of onions into fat rings and saute them with a bunch of garlic (which I guess you could leave out, if you must), then add the chicken, a can of fire-roasted tomatoes, some chipotle puree*, a beer, cumin, salt (quite a bit) and pepper. Simmer it for a long time–I find that something magical happens around the two-hour mark. I’ve never done this in a slow cooker, but I think it could be adapted just fine.
It’s also good if you replace the chipotle puree with Tabasco or another hot sauce and the cumin with Tony’s and serve it on foccacia.
Just put a can of chipotles in adobo in the food processor. Keeps in the fridge forever.
I would personally avoid breasts altogether, leg quarters can usually be had fairly cheap (usually 50-75 cents/lb around here).
I’d put them in a steam table pan with whatever seasoning you decide on and bake covered with foil for a few hours at 300-325 F or so.
Breast meat just dries out too easily. The legs will shred very nicely.
There’s two ways I do chicken tacos: with shredded meat or with grilled (or sometimes pan-fried meat).
If you’re using a slow-cooker, then shredded meat is the way. You don’t need a whole bird. A whole bird is fine, but just thighs will do (and this is what I quite often use). I put this in the stockpot with some garlic, onion, peppercorns, perhaps a carrot and/or celery, and add water to cover. Cook until meat shreds.
But there’s more. After this, I fry up some onions in and garlic in a pan with some lard (or oil.) Strain the stock (and reserve for another use), shred the meat off the bone, and fry it for a few minutes with the onions and garlic to bring another layer of flavor to the meat. Salt and pepper to taste.
After this, I add whatever sauce or spices I am using, usually a simple red or green chile sauce, or mole, into which I reincorporate the chicken stock that was reserved.
If I am going the fast-cooking grill or griddle method, I buy chicken breasts. I make a simple marinade of lime, oil, and salt (or soy sauce.) I let this marinade for 2 hours. Pat dry, and grill/broil/fry until done. Let rest a couple minutes, then cut into slices. Depending on the thickness and evenness of your breasts, it may help to pound them down a bit to a uniform size.
On second read, you would probably be better off just slow cooking the chicken and whatever sauce you want to go with it together. I do the steps separately, as I usually need the extra stock for another purpose, but the above method does lose a good deal of chicken flavor into the stock if you don’t reintroduce it at some point (my sauce recipes usually call for a bit of stock, and the mole I use is reconstituted in that way.) Your other option would be not to use a minimal amount of liquid and let the chicken basically steam in your slow cooker. It’ll throw off plenty of liquid on its own.
Seconding this. Skip whole birds entirely and just go with leg quarters. The meat will stay more moist and the actual flavor of the bird will be more pronounced.
I’m going to break with most of the people here though and say that if you are using bone-in chicken then you want to cook, remove the bones, skin and fat and then shred the meat before you add most of the spices. If you add the spices before you do this then you’ll loose a lot of them when you discard these bit.
FWIW, here’s how I do it. I take my six quart crock pot and fill it mostly full with leg quarters and add canned chicken broth to cover by one half inch. Cook four to six hours. Remove the meat from the broth and allow to cool on the counter until you can shred it. Keeping them separate for now, put both the meat and the broth into the fridge until the fat separates from the broth and congeals so that you can remove it. After removing the fat, put the chicken back into the broth and return to the heat. For spices I use the following.
one tablespoon toasted whole cumin seed
one tablespoon ground cumin
two tablespoon chili powder
one small can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, blended with a bit of broth
(I would add a couple of peeled and lightly crushed heads -yes, whole heads- of garlic but I know this can’t work for your needs)
This is probably going to be pretty pungently spiced for your needs so you probably want to tone it down. Cook for at least 2 hours to give the flavors time to blend.
