Chicken in a Crock-Pot

All you need is a slow-cooker to make this perfectly cooked, delicious chicken.

Pull your Crock-Pot out immediately, go buy a whole chicken, and make this recipe.

Right. Now! This is good.

I really hate dealing with raw chicken, so I try to do it as little as possible. But the other day, the grocery store had whole organic chickens on sale for 79¢ a pound! Steal!

I got my 5 lb. chicken for $4!

Whole chickens can be a little intimidating… What do you do with it? How do you cook it? Is it going to take all day? Will I under-cook it/overcook it/mess it up?

These are all questions that used to run through my head every time I saw a whole chicken.

There are also some unappealing qualities in a whole chicken that make me dread buying them which include but are not limited to: cutting open the wrapper on the chicken and getting that red chicken juice everywhere, a lot of raw meat, those weird giblets & livers & gooey things inside the chicken cavity, the fact that something might attack me when I stick my hand into the cavity of a chicken, etc.

I’ve previously faced my fears of whole chicken by roasting it, and I’ve poached it.

Both resulted in big messes.

When I tried to roast it, I over-cooked it, and the drippings from the chicken splashed out of the roasting pan. [Update: I finally wrote about perfecting my roasting of a whole chicken]

Poaching it was easy enough, I guess, but it was kind of a disaster when I tried to make the chicken stock. And the chicken was pretty flavorless.

Moral of the story is: I’m dramatic. You should cook your whole chicken in a slow cooker and call it a day. More like call it a meal + leftovers + amazing homemade chicken broth and even gravy.

I basically followed this recipe from 100 Days of Real Food. I cooked mine on Low because I was not paying attention when I set the Crock-Pot. And I added a couple of extra spices, which I thought helped make it taste even better.

Like I said before, you really do need to make this chicken. It’s so easy. Really, it is so easy. I even made a little video for you on Vine:

And it’s quite possibly the best chicken I’ve ever made.

Chicken in a Crock-Pot

All you need is a slow-cooker to make this perfectly cooked, delicious chicken.

5 from 1 vote

Print Rate

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 8 hours

Total Time: 8 hours 5 minutes

Servings: 4

Author: Meme

Ingredients

• 2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp onion flakes or onion powder
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 3/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp lemon pepper
• 1 onion chopped
• 1 large chicken about 4-6 lbs.

Instructions

• In a small bowl, stir together all the spices {paprika through lemon pepper}.
• Put the onion in the bottom of the Crock-Pot.
• Take out the giblets & anything else inside the cavity of the chicken. Rub the spice mixture over the entire chicken and under the skin.
• Place the chicken in the Crock-Pot on top of the onion. Put the lid on the Crock-Pot and cook on High for 4-5 hours or on low for 8-9 hours. You want the chicken to be falling off the bone. Be careful when you take the chicken out because the bones are really brittle and can easily break.

Notes

*Remove meat from bones and make chicken broth for later

*You don’t add water while you cook the chicken. The chicken releases all of it’s juices, so when it’s done the crock-pot will be full of liquid & chicken. I use a slotted spoon to get the chicken out. Then I take the meat off the chicken, and add the bones back to the crock-pot for chicken broth.

Did you try this recipe?Be sure to leave a comment & recipe rating below. Bonus points for tagging @memeinge & #livingwellkitchen on Instagram! THANK YOU! xo

Tomorrow I’ll have a recipe for you to use the leftover chicken bones to make homemade chicken broth!

Meme