Slow Cooker Simplicity: A Place for "Few" Ingredient Recipies

I was born and raised with a slow cooker always going in the back ground. Grandma was always making soups and stocks. Using the slow cooker is a timing thing - prep the night before if need be, put it in the slow cooker in the a.m., come home from work and your house smells like heaven. EAT!

I would like the focus of this post to be simple, low ingredient recipes for the novice users - but please, post any and all slow cooker recipes. Maybe a rating system at the beginning of each; Easy, Medium Prep, Involved?

I want to share one of our house favorites that is ridiculously easy: Chicken Taco/Burrito Filling

We use 4-6 Chicken Breast
1-2 Jars of your favorite salsa (Bonus points for homemade Salsa!)
2-3 Bell Peppers, Jalepenos if you prefer a bit of heat, or both!
1-2 Onions

Optional: Cilantro

1) Saute Onions and Bell Peppers
I like to use 2 tbls of real butter for this part. I use 1 to start then add the second about the half way mark. I do normal saute of the onions first, then lower temp and add the bells and second spoon of butter. I prefer the onions "almost" caramelized, and the bells still snappy when they go in the slow cooker.

2) Add your finished Onion/Bell Pepper Saute to the slow cooker - I like it on the bottom of the cooker.

3) Pour Half a jar of Salsa on the Saute.

4) Layer Chicken Breast on top of Saute and Salsa.

5) Pour rest of Salsa on top of the Chicken Breast and Salsa/Saute mix. Depending on size of Salsa Jars you buy, this could be 1-2 jars total of salsa. You should basicly end up with the chicken just barely covered by salsa - the chicken will create moisture, so it doesnt need to be "floating".

6) At this point you need to figure out the timing if you are working, or serving this early, etc. I like to set the slow cooker on high for 4-6 hours, then have the wife turn it down to low depending on if the chicken is starting to pull apart with a fork. Our slow cooker is pretty accurate with chicken being done 8 hours on low, or done 4-6 hours on high.

7) Using two large forks, shred that chicken down! You know you did it right when the chicken just falls apart. Stir it into one big mixture. I also add Cilantro at this point. I like my cilantro fresh and leafy. Some like to add it early for a softer flavor profile.

8) Store or Eat! We like to use Lettuce and Cheese and flour tortillas, but it also makes a great taco salad, sammich filling, or just eat as is. It makes awesome party food too as nachos.



Notes: An alternate to this with not as healthy flair is to simply buy one of those Old El Paso taco or Burrito kits. Take the seasoning mix out of it, mix it with half a cup of water, put chicken in slow cooker, pour taco mix over chicken and slow cook as described. VERY EASY, and tends to taste more like fast food tacos. You get more sodium out of it this way, but you can still add as much veggie as you like to make it better. We do this a lot as well, because - lets face it - we all don't have time to saute in the morning!

Enjoy! Looking forward to other folks posting recipes too

\m/