Feeling too lazy to cook tonight.
I have a small slow cooker. My plan was to throw in a cut up raw chicken breast, some cut up smoked sausage, a can of pinto beans, and then top it off with some BBQ sauce and let it simmer.
Is that going to work? Or should I let the chicken cook through first and then add all that other stuff in? I’m afraid if I do it like that it will take longer.
It all depends on how long you plan on letting it summer. You can certainly cook raw chicken in a slow cooker, but most of my recipes are 4-8 hours long so everything gets cooked all the way through.
It will be fine. So long as your chicken is cooked all the way through, no problems.
I realize that. I’m wondering if I throw it all in at the same time, will all the other food stuffs be mush by the time the chicken is just getting done?
(Apologies, I didn’t articulate that very well in my OP)
I know it doesn’t quite fit with “lazy and don’t wanna cook” but i would recommend searing the chicken first in a separate skillet that you can get nice and hot. Doesn’t matter if it’s cooked through, but at least you’ll get a jump start on the outside, which should lower the overall cooking needed in the crock pot.
Plus the meat will have that nice brown crust, instead of just being boiled. Plus if you swirl a little bit of wine or even water in the pan and throw that into the slow cooker you’ll get the tasty brown bits that make everything so much yummier.
Alternately, cut up the chicken before throwing it in with everything else. That will reduce the time needed, too.
Smoked sausage, I find, is fine in long-cooking applications and the smoky flavor infuses with the broth. I often use smoked sausage as that smoky, porky base for something like bean soup in lieu of a hamhock or ham steak. Your other ingredients don’t seem like anything that I would worry about the texture being too adversely affected. Mostly, I worry about stuff like veggies that do turn to mush from long and slow cooking. The beans will end up mushier than if just heated through, but that’s not usually a bad thing with bean dishes, as I like them to end up mushy to thicken the soup (and I usually end up giving the soup a few swirls with a stick blender to thicken it up and mash the beans.)
… So how was dinner? 
Heh, thanks for asking. 
I actually haven’t eaten yet. (I eat late) I liked your idea, but alas, I’m a lazy gus. I gave the chicken a 2 hour head start then added the rest. I’ve sampled the goods and everything is quite tasty.
Fixing to make myself a bowl before I head off to bed.
Consider a pressure cooker, similar to a slow cooker in food texture, but no issues with mixing raw chicken with other foods at the start.