Recipe: Tips for cooking Chicken in a crockpot

Hi Connie,

This is a repost from Carolyn, Vancouver.(3-17-2005)
Hope this helps.

"Most of my gang prefers white meat to dark, and my experience is that it is rather difficult to avoid having it be dry when using the slow cooker.

My best outcome is to use bone-in, skin-on breasts...you can take the skin off before you eat it. (And obviously, you're not going to eat the bones, either. :-)) Also, if the chicken is marinated, even overnight, that seems to help. Some time ago I posted a slow cooker recipe for Chicken Marbella; I used to only use breasts in that, and we liked it just fine.

The other thing is, I find a lot of recipes say to cook breasts way too long...I always start the cooking on high (for say, an hour), and turn it down to low. But for breasts, my experience is that 4 or 5 hours on low, or its' equivalent (eg. one hour on high, 2 or 3 hours on low), is plenty. And any more is literally overkill.

Dark meat turns out way more flavourful and with a much better texture. And it can be just as convenient, if you buy skinless, boneless thighs, for example. I have recently convinced my family to "branch out" so now they are eating both.

Good luck, hope I have been helpful,
Carolyn!"