Slow Cooker Shredded Chicken

It’s no surprise that our family is a fan of roasted chicken.  It shows up on our monthly meal plans at least once a month, and a lot of our chicken recipes are based around using up the leftover roasted chicken.

But sometimes we have a meal on our meal plan where we need shredded chicken, and I don’t have any leftover roasted chicken.  Then sometimes Hubs just wants some chicken to top his salads or use in buffalo chicken dip.  Rather than roasting a chicken for those few uses, or poaching chicken breasts {poaching never works out well for me… it always ends up too dry}, I use my slow cooker to cook the chicken for me, making perfectly juicy, shredded chicken for our meals.

It’s actually become our favorite way to prep chicken for slow cooker chicken and rice.  The slow cooker is already out, and all I have to do is mix in some cooked rice, some homemade cream of chicken soup, and some milk.  Dinner is done!

Now I need to point out that my method uses frozen chicken.  I’m well aware it’s not the recommended method.  It’s recommended that you start from thawed chicken.  Let’s be real though.  I have a hard enough time remembering to pick a dinner off my list before noon.  Let’s not even talk about trying to remember to take the chicken out of the freezer right after the kids get on the bus.

It’s recommended that you start from thawed chicken because if you start from frozen, the meat may be in the temperature “danger zone” for too long, allowing bacteria to breed, and potentially making you sick.  While we have never had this issue as my slow cooker cooks at a super high temperature, I can’t get through this post without letting you know that there is the possibility that your food may not have its temperature raised fast enough to get it out of that danger zone.

That said, this method should still work if you start from thawed chicken rather than frozen.

Ingredients:

• cooking spray
• 2 – 3 frozen chicken breasts – see note above
• 4-6 cups broth – I like to use chicken broth

Directions:

1. Spray the liner of your slow cooker with cooking spray.  I like to do this to make cleanup a breeze.
2. Place the chicken breasts into the slow cooker.  Cover with chicken broth.
3. Cook on high for 4-5 hours.
4. Remove and shred with forks.