Whole Chicken in the CrockPot

I love my CrockPot. I don't know about you, but I simply a~d~o~r~e that thing. It's so nice to have it slaving away all day while I am off doing my own thing. During football season, it's truly a godsend. We get home late in the evening from practice or an out-of-town game, walk in to an aroma-filled house and a dinner that's ready & waiting for us. Oh yes. Love my Crock.

Back in November we received a turkey from hubby's work and I decided I wanted to give it a try in the Crock Pot. I found a really good recipe with easy-to-follow instructions here. I altered that recipe slightly but found it worked beautifully just the same.

Since then, I've done several birds in the Crock. I've probably been doing about one every other week since November. Yep, that's how much we enjoy this recipe! For the most part I do them all the same way, but with slight variations. Here is my basic recipe for doing a whole chicken in the crockpot.

Ingredients:

Whole chicken (I prefer mine without the neck & whatnot, but that's up to you)
A small amount of olive oil (maybe 1/8 cup?)
2 Tbs. butter or margarine, cubed
1 small apple
1 slice onion (sorry, forgot to include it in the photo)
Mrs. Dash (whatever is your favorite blend. Ours is Garlic & Herb)

I took a closer shot of the label on my chicken because I wanted you to see how economical this meal is. I always buy the largest hen my grocery store has, and it's never yet been 6lbs. I always spend less than $6. This chicken feeds my family of 4 for dinner and lunch the next day.


Rinse off your chicken well, just like you do with a turkey. Pat it dry inside and out, just like you do with a turkey.

You want to core your apple. Slice it also. It is stuffed inside your chicken along with the cubed butter. The reason you want these sliced & cubed is because it can be a pretty tight fit. The type of apple does not matter as far as I know. Use whatever you like. If all your apple slices will not fit, take those left over slices and eat them. Go ahead. They're good for you. :-)


Using a basting brush, spread olive oil all over your chicken. Then sprinkle with the Mrs. Dash.


Flip her over and do the same thing on the other side. If you enlarge the above photo and look closely, you can see the green apple barely peeking out of her backside.


Place her in the crockpot. I've done them right side up and upside down. It does not matter. The whole chicken comes out equally juicy no matter what position you put her.

Place your onion slices on top. Set the crockpot to HIGH.

I leave my crockpot on HIGH for 2 hours. Then I switch it to Low for another 6 hours. If you work outside the home, perhaps you could put it on high in the morning while you're getting ready for work. Then switch it to Low right before you walk out the door. Maybe? In any case, mine cooks a total of 8 hours. (If you looked at that Turkey CrockPot link earlier, you noticed she cooked hers for 5 hours on HIGH the whole time). Both ways seem to work fine.


On this particular day I added 4 cups of water because I wanted additional broth for cooking the veggies and stuffing for the meal. I have also done this when I've known I'd be making chicken noodle soup out of the leftovers and wanted that extra broth. But let me tell you, you do NOT need to add any water at all. Your chicken will make LOTS of juicey broth all by herself. Only add water if you are wanting broth for another purpose.

This was Sportster's plate, all dished up and ready to go. The corn, green beans and stuffing had all been cooked using that extra broth I mentioned before. No additional flavoring or seasoning was needed; they were scrumptious just as they were.
The crockpot makes it so easy. I just went into the kitchen a half hour before mealtime, scooped out a bunch of the broth with a ladle and used it to fix the veggies and stuffing. And *bam* a delicious home-cooked meal for my hubby to come home to....with plenty of left-overs for his lunch the next day. (Actually, truth be told, this time around there was even enough left over to feed his partner lunch as well)


Here are some variations I've done with this recipe and have had success with them all:

Don't use an apple at all
Put the onion inside instead of on top (this is when I don't use an apple)
Use a Red Delicious apple instead of Granny Smith
Use minced onion instead of a real fresh one
Sprinkle the top of the chicken with minced garlic

One thing you need to know about this recipe: If you're looking for a beautifully browned, perfectly proportioned chicken for display in the center of your dining room table, this recipe is NOT for you. If that's what you need, then you should probably follow the instructions on that link about cooking on HIGH for 5 hours and then transferring to an oven for browning.

You'll notice I did not post any such pictures. There's a reason. I have not yet been able to get my chicken out of my crockpot in one piece. It all falls right off the bone. Which is a good thing. That's actually what I want, for the meat to be that done.

ALL the meat is incredibly juicy, even the white meat. I no longer have kiddos turning up their noses to dry white meat. And it all falls apart so easily, making the job of separating the meat for future soups or burritos or whatever SUPER easy.