Slow Cooker Boneless Chicken Breast

With just 3 simple ingredients, today I cooked this frozen boneless chicken breast in the slow cooker.  I’d bought it the other day, the packaging said “Cooks in 90 minutes from frozen” – but that is the oven cooking time.  I bought it to cook in my slow cooker.  This boneless chicken breast was from Aldi, the Oakhurst Basted Chicken Breast Joint, weighing 560 grams and my slow cooker is a 3.5 litre capacity (3-4 quarts). All I wanted to do was to cook this as a plain ‘roast’ chicken, no fancy rubs, nothing else really required.  I simply wanted to cook up some chicken breast, to use in meals later in the week, or maybe to freeze.

I wanted to keep it simple, just cook it as plain chicken – no rubs etc.  I happen to like “plain food” and “plain cooking”, but it also keeps things simpler.  This “recipe” for a slow cooker chicken breast can therefore be adapted easily enough as you know what the simplest recipe involves!

Ingredients: 

• 1 frozen chicken breast joint, defrosted.
• 1 red onion.
• 1 carrot.

Method: 

I wanted to keep this super easy and straight forward – all I wanted to do was “cook the chicken”.  I wasn’t making a crowd pleaser, it wasn’t a special occasion… I just have a frozen chicken breast and I simply wanted to cook it 🙂  This is a real Crockpot Dump Recipe.

Frozen or Defrosted? I defrosted the chicken the night before by putting the whole package in the fridge.  If you start with a frozen chicken, add an extra 1/3rd of the time roughly to the cooking time as the chicken first has to defrost.

1. Slice the red onion in 3-4 fat slices and place these on the bottom of the slow cooker.
2. Top and tail the raw carrot, peeled or not (I didn’t), then cut it into 2-3 pieces and place these on the bottom of the crock pot.
   
3. Remove all the packaging, film and container from the chicken breast joint, so all you have is the chicken itself.  Place this on top of the onion and carrot.  Add nothing.  No rub, no water in the pot.  Simply the onion, the carrot and the raw chicken breast joint on top.  (This one weighs 560 grams).
   
4. Put the lid on the slow cooker and turn it onto High.  Cook on high for 1½ hours (2 hours if you’re starting from frozen).
5. Turn the slow cooker down to Low and continue to cook the chicken for a further ~3 hours. (~4 hours if you’re starting from frozen).
6. Turn off the slow cooker and let the chicken rest for 10-15 minutes while you do the washing up, prepare your side dishes, or get your fridge/freezer ready if you’re cooking this to be used later.
   To remove the cooked chicken from the slow cooker in one go, I use a scoop colander – there are a variety of makes/styles, but they are handy for removing large/whole items from a slow cooker in one piece.  I happened to see one in a shop one day and it looked handy for the job – and it is!
   

Making Gravy With Chicken Stock:

1. Scoop out the liquid and onions and put them into a jug/bowl.  You can scoop out the carrots to place directly on your plate (that’s what I did), or you can include them in your gravy.  Your choice.
2. Using a fork (it’s only a small quantity), whisk it all together so it breaks up.
3. Add a heaped tablespoon of instant gravy granules and a splash of boiling water and whisk it all together.  Add more granules and/or water until you get the gravy the thickness you prefer it – we all like it a bit different don’t we.
4. Strain the gravy through a sieve if you wish (or you can leave it lumpy if you like it like that!), then pour your gravy over your chicken dinner!

You can store any leftover gravy in a small lidded pot in the fridge for 2-3 days, or you can freeze it, it’s a shame to waste it.

Served With:

I kept this as a simple chicken dinner today as I had to use up the carrots and needed to get through some potatoes.  I cooked the potatoes and carrots in the microwave steamer.  My plate also contains the three pieces of carrot I scooped out from the chicken juices, which are the three smaller pieces at the top of the photo.

Did the Chicken Breast Shrink Much?

The starting pack weight said 560 grams.  I did weigh it after cooking and it then weighed about 400 grams. So, as a “serves 3-4”, according to the box, that’s about 100 grams of meat per person.

Menu Cost: 

This is about 100 grams of cooked chicken breast, costing 62p.  The carrots were half a 27p/500g bag, meaning the carrots were 14p.  Potatoes were cheap, probably 6p’s worth there, it’s just two small potatoes cut into quarters.  The onion was one of a bag, so about 8p.  Gravy granules were about 5p.  So the total cost of this chicken dinner was ~ 95p.

Would I Buy This Again? 

Absolutely – this was a VERY moist chicken breast that tasted of chicken and was a delight to eat.  While I will also try other makes and brands, I’d willingly grab one of these and have it again!