Can you cook a chicken breast joint in a slow cooker?  I cooked this Braemoor Chicken Breast Joint with Pork, Sage & Onion Stuffing in my 3.5 litre slow cooker.  Braemoor is a Lidl product range.

Costing just £2.49, this is a frozen chicken breast with a pack weight of 560 grams.  The other week I’d cooked the Aldi version, which is Aldi Oakhurst Frozen Basted Chicken Breast Joint., which is also 560 grams.  These two present as identical products, the same size and same price.

I had wanted to see if there was any difference. Unfortunately, somehow I grabbed the wrong product and brought home the Braemoor Chicken Breast Joint with a Pork, Sage & Onion Stuffing!  The writing was so small, I didn’t even notice it until I checked the pack after I’d cooked the chicken breast!  I’d have never “chosen” to buy a breast joint that was stuffed with anything, so, at first, was a bit miffed at my oversight and annoyed at myself!

This chicken breast joint is intended to be cooked, from frozen, in the oven – the pack makes no mention of cooking it in a slow cooker.  But, well, you know – that never stops me does it!   The packs have the date of freezing printed on the front, as well as the “best before” date, which shows that these frozen breast joints have a 2 year freezer life span.  A long life span is always a good thing to see as there’s no urgency to cook it immediately, although I did intend to cook this within 1-2 weeks.

To oven cook from frozen, this chicken breast joint takes 90 minutes.  They say if you cook it from chilled then you can reduce the cooking time.  But I intended to cook it in my 3.5 litre slow cooker.

Time to Cook the Chicken Joint in a Slow Cooker: 6 Hours

I didn’t set out to cook this for six hours, I set out with the intention of timing how long it took – and it took six hours in total.

Method:

1. I like to defrost a frozen chicken breast joint before cooking it in the slow cooker – simply because a slow cooker is “slow” and so I want to give it all the help I can if possible, so defrosting the chicken breast is one less job for the slow cooker to do and no worries about “but it’s chicken … isn’t that dangerous?”  There are too many fears these days, eh!   So – I put the whole pack into the fridge the day before.
2. I cut a red onion in half an put it onto the bottom of the slow cooker – this just raises the chicken breast off the bottom of the slow cooker, so that as the fat drips away the chicken isn’t swimming in it.
3. I then removed the packaging and placed the chicken breast in the slow cooker, with the skin side up, as it was presented in the package.
   
   I used a frying pan spatula to lift it out of the packaging (I don’t like touching raw meat, one of my foibles). The foil container was washed out with boiling water and discarded (well, saved “in case” I find it useful for anything).
4. I put the lid on the slow cooker, then turned the slow cooker on to the High setting and left it to cook for 1-1¼ hours.  I could then see/hear that “something was happening” in there, so turned the power down to Low and left it to cook until the total time it’d been in the slow cooker was 6 hours.  I could see it was cooked/finished!

I wasn’t going to eat this chicken breast joint straight away – having sat and waited while it cooked, I’d “gone off the thought of eating it” by the time it’d finished!  A lot of people are like that….

Getting the Chicken Joint Out of the Slow Cooker:

It was just before the chicken breast had finished cooking that I realised it had a stuffing!  I assumed that all the stuffing will have fallen out as I’d not realised and the stuffing side was at the bottom of the breast joint.  Stuffed or not, I wanted to get the whole chicken joint out of the slow cooker without it breaking up – and for this purpose I’ve got a nifty Collander Scoop, it scoops out the contents of the slow cooker, allowing the food to drain at the same time!

I then placed the chicken joint directly from the collander scoop into a deep plastic takeaway box, popped the lid on and placed it in the fridge – I’ve very little in my fridge, so I can put hot food in there without a problem.  If your fridge is full of food, then let the chicken cool down for up to an hour before putting it in the fridge – and make sure that any warm food you put into the fridge is well away from other foods that might need to be kept cool.

Chicken Joint Cooked Weight: 380 grams

I didn’t weigh this chicken joint before I cooked it, I trusted the pack which said it weighed  560 grams.  I did weigh it after it had been cooked and it weighed 380 grams when in the plastic container, so had lost 180 grams during the cooking process.

Serves 3: The packaging said this serves 3 people.  I’d agree with that.  I think as a regular meal I’d happily serve this to three people, but for a bit more of a special occasion or blow out I’d cut it in half and serve two portions.

Did The Stuffing Fall Out?

As I said, I hadn’t realised I’d bought the chicken joint with pork, sage & onion stuffing!  The stuffing completely stayed put.  NONE of it had broken up or dropped away, none was missing at all!  That was a relief, I’d have been double annoyed at it and myself if it had!

Recommend or Not?

A nice easy chicken joint to cook in the slow cooker.  I’ll definitely buy this chicken breast joint again and would recommend them to a friend.  I had a cheeky quick taste of the stuffing and it was gorgeous!  I have even considered using one of these as my Christmas Dinner for One choices this year as I’d not be disappointed if I did that, but, for me, “Christmas is Turkey Day”, so I’ll end up getting turkey “just because it’s Christmas”

This tastes best when cooked fresh – reheated it wasn’t quite so amazing as when it was freshly hot and cooked.  There was nothing wrong with it once cold/reheated, but I did feel “it’s just chicken” that time.

Perfect for making a quick chicken and stuffing sandwich filling for work lunches, if you’re looking for easy packed lunch ideas.

Menu Cost 83p

At a cost of £2.50, if you serve three people with this chicken joint then that’s 83p per person.  If you’re a bit strapped …. it’d stretch to four (costing 63p/person), just add more stuffing to pad the plate out a bit, or, my favourite, serve it in a giant Yorkshire pudding!  Everybody loves a giant Yorkshire pudding filled with roast dinner don’t they 🙂