The Best Whole Chicken in the Slow Cooker - 100 Days of Real Food

I love to find recipes that are quick and easy and do not require a lot of steps to follow. These are great for quick meals a few times a week. The blurb for this recipe says that it is the most popular recipe on the 100 Days of Real Food blog, so I had to give it a try. Especially since it seems quick and easy. This recipe is actually still on the blog here, so try it for yourself.

Also, I find that I do not use my slow cooker very often and I feel like I should get more use out of it since it is there. I was very excited to try this one too because my whole family eats chicken well, so I thought this one is a home run. I will knock it out of the park with this new recipe and get to add it to our rotation. This will be great!

Things rarely turn out as we expect, do they?

I easily got his recipe prepped and put in the slow cooker after I got my younger two boys home from preschool and we got lunch going. So I set it on high to cook for the afternoon. I ended up leaving it in the slow cooker a little longer than recommended because our side dish of Cheesy Broccoli Rice Casserole was not quite done yet. I did turn the slow cooker down to warm while we waited.

The chicken was done very nicely, it fell off the bone and was juicy. I had tried to put the seasonings under the skin of the chicken when I prepared it because we do not eat the skin. I was still able to get a little bit of the flavor from the rub on the chicken, but not as much as I would have liked. The meat was very tender and easy to eat.

I did save the juices and the bones to make chicken broth in the slow cooker, so that post will be coming soon.

Timing: The timing was right on, it states less than 15 minutes of prep work and it took me 10 minutes to get this ready to go. I had mine in the slow cooker for about 5 hours on high.
Servings: The recipe states 5 or 6 servings depending on the size of the chicken. We ate the chicken and had leftovers for one, so 6 servings were accurate for us.
Leftovers: The leftovers were still moist and flavorful.


Family Ratings:
Me: I thought the chicken was nicely cooked, but it needed more flavor.
Hubby: He thought the flavor of the chicken was fine, but that it had cooked for too long and was mushy.
Big Man: He ate his serving and had a second helping. Very normal for this carnivore.
Bear: He ate his chicken with no complaint at all. He added pepper, but he likes to put pepper on all his food.
Mr. T: No problems from the youngest, he ate his chicken and seemed to like it.

Will I repeat: Possibly, it was very easy to do. We generally do not buy whole chickens, since none of us is a big dark meat fan, so this is not something we would do often.

What will I change: I would make sure to only cook the chicken for the timing recommended and not leave it in any longer. I would work harder at getting the seasonings under the skin of the bird.


I did save the juices and the bones to make chicken broth in the slow cooker, so that post will be coming soon.