Healthy Crockpot Recipes
Aprilfoolbride
Posts: 552 Member
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Homestyle Chicken
Start with 1 whole chicken, anything in the bag stuffed in cavity thrown away
Seasonings:
.5 T kosher salt
1 T paprika
1 T onion powder
1 T Italian seasoning
1 t thyme
.25t+t cayenne pepper
1/2 t black pepper
2 T crushed garlic
1 onion, quartered
Mix the dry spices together and rub all over the chicken, inside and out. Put the garlic and onion in the chicken. Put the chicken in the slow cooker, breast side up. Do not add liquid! Put the lid on and cook on high for 4-5 hours or on low for 8.
The chicken will fall apart when you take it out of the slow cooker. You will also not believe how good it tastes, especially in relation to how little work it is. I often make this the night before I'm making mac & cheese so we can eat the pasta with leftover chicken. Plus the chicken freezes beautifully for healthy lunches another time. Yum!0 -
Yay for the crock pot thread!
The chicken sounds delish with all those spices! I'm not sure if I'm ready to put a whole chicken in a dry crockpot. I might have to start out with a soup or something to build confidence. I could just see me somehow managing to ruin an entire chicken and then try to throw something together quick and cheap to make up for it. lol! Actually, the only time we ever do whole chickens is in the Winter, because there are these places here that sell whole rotisserie chickens for about the same price as a raw chicken from the store. When you factor the prep and clean-up and the way the oven heats up the kitchen, it doesn't make sense in the Summer, so we only ever do it in the Winter. But this might be a good alternative for Summer chickens without roasting ourselves in a hot kitchen! ;-)
Keep em coming! :-)0 -
Broccoli Soup
INGREDIENTS
1.5 tsp unsalted butter
1 bag frozen chopped broccoli (or you could buy fresh and cut it yourself)
Some frozen, diced onions
3 medium carrots, diced
3 cups hot water
1 tbsp chicken better than bullion or one chicken bouillon cube (Or, if you’re fancy, you could just use 3 cups of chicken broth)
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup milk (I use whatever I have, 1% or skim)
Salt and pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS
• Turn 5 to 7Q slow cooker on high, put in butter, and put the lid on until butter is melted
• Toss in the veggies to the crock and stir
• Dissolve baking soda into water and add to the crock
• Cook on high for 2-3 hours or low for 5-6
• Take out some soup, blend the rest
• Add milk, salt, and pepper
• Turn off the crock and wait 15 mins
This soup gets better with age, so you can make it ahead of when you want to eat it.
Happy crocking!
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Aprilfoolbride wrote: »Broccoli Soup
• Take out some soup, blend the rest
I'm going to try this!
But can you elaborate on this step^?
Thanks! Can't wait!
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My easiest slow cooker recipe is vegetable soup. I love soup in the winter and it's when the root vegetables are the most plentiful. I load the bottom with root vegetables; potatoes, carrots, onions, anything that I see and feel like adding. Then I add the other "long cooking" stuff, which for me generally is celery, raw chicken (boneless breasts or boneless thighs), beans, and mushrooms. My mother puts mushrooms with the short cooking stuff. I try to balance my potatoes and beans, so if I have a lot of beans I don't have much if any potatoes, and vise versa. Then I add water (8 cups for my big slow cooker), a bunch of spices, and let it go for some hours.
If I'm doing beans, I soak the dry beans in a lot of water overnight (8-10 hours) on low heat or for 3-4 hours on high heat. Then I dump all the water and put the beans back in the slow cooker over the root vegetables and do the soup.
Once the slow cooker has gone long enough, which varies based on whether I have it on low or high, I open it and add the shorter cooking vegetables; tomato paste, diced tomatoes (a can of each), and some frozen peas. This cooks on high for an hour and the soup is done.
I'm sorry that it's so vague, but I change what I put in and even the time as I'm getting closer to exactly what I like. The tomato paste and diced tomato combo was a new addition this time and I love it! I made two versions this last time I did it, one was more potato based and one was more bean based. I enjoyed the bean based one more at first with the initial hot soup and with the refrigerated/heated up soup, but the potato based one seems to be the one that comes out best after being frozen and then heated up in the microwave.
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Oh, and there's the pork shoulder. Put a pork shoulder in the slow cooker, nothing else unless you want to put spices on it. I just do the shoulder. Cook it until it's done (I'd have to look that up on the internet again, but any pork shoulder recipe will tell you; they just have you doing all sorts of other things to it). Remove it from the cooker. Shred it up and pour on your favorite barbeque sauce, a little or a lot to your taste. Then divide up into baggies, one serving each, refrigerate or freeze. You can use it for sandwiches, on top of salads, or with vegetables for dinner.
I like to cook pork shoulders and whole chickens all by themselves in the cooker rather than putting vegetables, etc around them and trying to make the whole meal in there because it's so much easier for me to get it out of the fat that way. I find both meats are too fatty and I don't want all that fat swimming in my soup/stew/meal. Trying to skim it out with a spoon works some, but I'm happier to just not get so much in that I feel the need to skim it out.0 -
FromHereOnOut wrote: »Aprilfoolbride wrote: »Broccoli Soup
• Take out some soup, blend the rest
I'm going to try this!
But can you elaborate on this step^?
Thanks! Can't wait!
Sorry---that probably didn't make sense. I take out 1.5-2 cups of veggies, blend the rest (a handblender will be your BFF here), and then add the other veggies back in to the crock. I like my soup to be a bit chunky, I don't like it the consistency of baby food.
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I need a good split pea soup, if anyone has a recipe that works for them.0
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Okay, gotcha!
Now for my real problem: I haven't used my crockpot in AGES and I'd forgotten the instructions aren't in English. It'd be okay if it weren't digital and literally "no name" (can't find mfg name anywhere). So when it comes time to set the temperature and the time, I might get it all reversed. :-/. Maybe I'll attempt to understand the Greek, with help from the French translation and help from my son, lol. Good thing I have backup pasta in the cupboard. Gonna start this little experiment in the morning.
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It was great and easy (except for some chopping, it cooked itself!). I'm alllllll about crockpotting now! I've seen the light! Thank yall!0
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Oh yeah, after deciphering the instruction I found my pot has a timer to start, which is great for me b/c I often can't sleep but housework is too noisy when the kids are asleep so it's like I waste a lot of waking hours because of bad timing. but I could easily chop and prepare before sleeping and set the pot to start cooking in the early morning, to be done by lunch or after school for when DH gets home while I'm out. Love this!0
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This is one of my favorites. From Skinnytaste.com
crock Pot Chicken Taco Chili
There is nothing like a lazy Sunday when you have a meal cooking all day in the crock pot and the aroma of food is in the air, or coming home from work on a weeknight and having dinner ready when you get home. I love my slow cooker and this chicken chili is a delicious, low point, high fiber meal. It's so easy to make and it is great over rice, with multi-grain chips, topped with low fat cheddar cheese or low fat sour cream. This makes a lot and it is even better the next day for lunch!
Crock Pot Chicken Taco Chili
Gina's Weight Watcher Recipes
Servings: 10 • Size: 1 1/4 cups • Old Points: 3 pts • Points+: 5 pts
Calories: 203.7 • Fat: 1.4 g • Carb: 33.3 g • Fiber: 10.0 g • Protein: 16.9 g
Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
1 16-oz can black beans
1 16-oz can kidney beans
1 8-oz can tomato sauce
10 oz package frozen corn kernels
2 14.5-oz cans diced tomatoes w/chilies
1 packet taco seasoning
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
24 oz (3-4) boneless skinless chicken breasts
chili peppers, chopped (optional)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Directions:
Combine beans, onion, chili peppers, corn, tomato sauce, cumin, chili powder and taco seasoning in a slow cooker. Place chicken on top and cover. Cook on low for 10 hours or on high for 6 hours. Half hour before serving, remove chicken and shred. Return chicken to slow cooker and stir in. Top with fresh cilantro. Also try it with low fat cheese and sour cream (extra points).0 -
Hello, hello! Sherry, I'm so glad that the soup turned out well for you! I forgot to mention that when slow cooking you need the crock to be at least 2/3- 1/2 full, and you can put a smaller glass bowl (oven safe) inside the crock to cook if you have just a small volume of something.0
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Ah! I was sorta wondering about that, because my pot is one of those hugantic oval ones, not the old fashioned Crock pot brand round kind.Aprilfoolbride wrote: »Hello, hello! Sherry, I'm so glad that the soup turned out well for you! I forgot to mention that when slow cooking you need the crock to be at least 2/3- 1/2 full, and you can put a smaller glass bowl (oven safe) inside the crock to cook if you have just a small volume of something.
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Yesterday I made pulled barbeque chicken in the crock. It's so easy I'm showing you what a lazy cook I really am! Here's the "recipe":
Just put raw chicken (I use skinless, boneless breasts or thighs) in the crock, fill about halfway with water, and add 1t salt and 1T liquid smoke.
Slow cook on low for 6-8 hours. When you get home, take the chicken out of the crock and put it in a big bowl. Shred with forks and add barbeque sauce. That's it. Super good. Made a steam bag of broccoli and called it dinner.
Leftovers are great on salad (me), sandwich (hubs) or nachos (everyone, come on, who doesn't like nachos?).
PS--My crock is a 6Q oval.0 -
Okay, so you guys are posting yummy recipes, but believe it or not, some of these ingredients are too exotic for me. Like, taco seasoning, liquid smoke, and canned anything (besides canned tuna)! I'm not kidding. There's no canned food section in Greece. No canned vegetables or beans (black beans sometimes in the exotic foods section), no canned soup, no canned Chef Boy R Dee, etc! There's also no Mac n cheese, hot dogs, peanut butter. Well, there is sometimes hot dogs and PB, but not easy to find. I remember when my parents were coming and I was trying to prepare, and they assured me I need not worry. Mom said as long as she had her simple PB and crackers she'd be happy. I went all over the neighborhood to find PB and to find saltines. Lol! And Dad said as long as he could have morning coffee and read the paper....
I went out and bought a French press and ground coffee in Athens, to pack for the island because I knew I'd never find it there, but when we got to the island we found that the international paper was only delivered about once per week and was two days behind! Haha! It's a strange life here! Oh yeah, the meat cuts are totally different here too! They just butcher things differently, so don't even know how to get pork shoulder. I'd have to go to the butcher or the central meat market and try to communicate what I'm wanting (I've heard tales of expats actually mooing and oinking and clucking at butchers, to no avail because animals don't make the same noises in Greek!! Lol!!)
Anyway, when Dh gets back and there's more mouths to feed, I'm going to break the crock pot back out again. Might even dig through my old recipes and post. :-)0 -
I actually make my own taco seasoning since the packets have a lot of sodium, but why not ask DH to pick up a bunch when he is in the US? They weigh practically nothing...
Chicken Fajitas
Roughly 1.5lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into strips (or chunks)
2 onions, sliced (white or yellow or whatever you have. If I am out, I just toss in frozen diced onion)
2-3 bell peppers, sliced (or more if you really like peppers)
1/2 c chicken broth
Seasonings:
1/2-2 t chili powder (depending on how hot you like it)
1 t paprika
1 t seasoned salt (or plain, whatever)
1 t onion powder
1/2 t garlic powder
1/4 t cayenne pepper
1/4 t cumin
Combine everything. Crock for 3-4 hours on high or on low for 6-7. Eat in tortillas, with tortilla chips, on salad, or just with a fork. YUM!0 -
PS--Could someone pin this to the announcements board?0
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Aprilfoolbride wrote: »PS--Could someone pin this to the announcements board?
I wasn't sure I knew how to do that in the new forums, but I did!
The chicken fajitas recipe looks totally do-able. I think I have all those ingredient in the pantry on any given day and I always have chicken breasts, wondering what to do with them "different". Might try this in March when DH is away. (He tends to be fairly critical & a hopeless victim of routine, which is why I don't try these new ideas with him around.) Yay!!
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