How To Cook A Whole Chicken In The Slow Cooker - And A Random Recipe To Use It In

If you're like me, you always see those whole chickens in the grocery store and you just keep walking. I had no idea what to do with one and assumed it would be easier for me to just by a cooked rotisserie chicken for $5-$7 if I needed one.

I saw that the whole chickens were on sale for less than 95 cents/lb, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I threw my $3.90 chicken in the cart and took it home.

This is my whole chicken. I had never seen a whole chicken out of the wrapper, so I was a little unsure as to what I would find. I unwrapped Lucy(yeah-I named my chicken) and opened her legs. The organs were just sitting there and I dumped them out in the trash-I'm sure some of you may use those-NOT me-I'm NOT that adventurous. I rinsed her off really well with water and got her ready to put in the crock pot.


This part is all personal preference-you can put whatever you'd like on your chicken. I don't claim to be a good cook and have no clue when it comes to most things so I just grabbed spices that sounded familiar from my spice rack. I rubbed salt, pepper, basil, oregano, and some other randomness all over Lucy. I then poured a cup of water in with her. You don't have to do that, but if you do-you'll have some homemade chicken broth and the recipe I was going to use called for chicken broth. If I wasn't going to use the chicken stock in the recipe that night, I could have put it in the refrigerator or freezer until I needed it.


I put the chicken in my smaller crock pot because it fit. I was unsure of how long to cook it, but figured everything always cooks at either 4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low. Mine cooked for about 4-5 hours on high and was completely done-you'll know because the meat will be super tender and falling off of the bone when you move the chicken.


See all that yummy FREE chicken broth? I would have bought 2 cans on sale for about 65 cents each for the recipe I was planning to use that night and I was able to just use this instead.


I poured it through the strainer twice and then put the broth in the pot that I was going to be cooking in. Again, I could have just put that broth in containers and kept it in the freezer until I needed it.


I let the chicken cool on a platter and then I took it off of the bone. I used the whole chicken for this recipe(it makes enough to feed our family of 4 TWICE). I had already put all the chicken broth from the crock pot into the pot and then added the chicken that I took off the bone. I then added a can of corn, a can of tomato sauce, and a can of diced tomatoes. (you can also add sausage and other veggies to make it more of a gumbo). I prepared 2 cups of rice in another pot and added it to the chicken yumminess.


I always buy my canned products on sale(buy one, get one free) and keep them in the pantry. The chicken was less than $4, so I was able to make this recipe that fed us TWICE for about $7 or less.

I haven't been posting recipes, but I plan on putting more up soon. I ALWAYS have to see pictures before I cook something, so I will be using pictures of the ingredients and the finished product in my posts.