Chicken Dinner Using Just a Slow Cooker and Microwave

You don’t need an oven and hob to make a simple chicken dinner, you can cook everything in a slow cooker and in a microwave oven (depending, of course, what’s on the menu!). If you’re just making a chicken dinner without all the trimmings, then here’s one menu!  Having eaten this I wish I’d remembered peas though!  I’m always doing that, thinking of something else I could’ve put on the plate when I’ve already eaten a meal!  I’d have preferred to serve this in a giant Yorkshire pudding, but time was cracking on and I was in a rush, so that’s for next time as I’ve still another portion of this chicken breast in the freezer!

Stuffed Chicken Breast with Boiled Potatoes, Brussels Sprouts & Carrots

• Chicken Breast with Pork, Sage and Onion Stuffing: I used the Lidl Chicken Breast Joint stuffed with sage and onion stuffing. Using a small (3.5 litre) slow cooker, this 500 gram joint cooked in 6 hours (1 hour on high, 5 hours on low).
• Boiled Potatoes: These were potatoes cut into chunks and microwaved in a microwave steamer. They took a total of 13 minutes’ cooking time, which included resting time.
• Brussels Sprouts: These were fresh Brussels sprouts, which had the stalk end snipped off and the outer (grotty looking) leaves peeled away. There is no need to cut into the stalk end, but if you’re using large Brussels sprouts, or have one particularly large sprout, you can do that if you choose to. They were added to the potatoes after 3 minutes’ cooking, taking a total of 6 minutes’ cooking time.
• Carrots: This was a single fresh carrot, cut before cooking. These were added to the potatoes in the microwave steamer at the same time as the Brussels sprouts were added, taking a total of 6 minutes’ cooking time.
  
• If you’ve pre-cooked your chicken and cooled it, you can microwave the chicken to reheat it – it’s better to slice it up to ensure the centre gets properly reheated. You can microwave chicken from frozen too, I’d set the microwave to defrost for 2 minutes, followed by 2-3 minutes of high power. How long it takes will depend on the size of the chicken portion and the wattage of your microwave oven – my microwave oven is 800 watts.

  In this dinner I’ve used a 100-110 gram portion of cooled chicken as I had cooked it 2 days ago in the slow cooker. I sliced the portion into four thick slices and then reheated the chicken in the microwave in a covered dish for 3x 1-minute, ensuring it was piping hot.
  

• The gravy is made from just 6 grams of Bisto granules – made with boiling water – you can use the hot water from the microwave steamer if you wish!

Alternative Microwave Vegetables: 

As I’m cooking for one, I don’t tend to have a vast array of vegetables at any one time.  I’ll typically have peas perpetually in the freezer and then just grab the odd fresh vegetable here and there as I spot them and fancy them.

Here are some other vegetables you can cook in a microwave: Microwave Vegetables

Menu Cost £1:

110 grams of chicken with pork, sage & onion stuffing cost about 70p, the brussels sprouts were bought at a price of 98p/Kg so these six Brussels sprouts cost 10p, the carrots cost 4p, the potatoes were 12p. At this point we’re up to 96p, so round it up to £1 to include the cost of the gravy.