Cook a whole chicken in a Crock Pot and you will never look at your slow cooker the same. It was one of the easiest things I’ve made in in the slow cooker. It’s the perfect final recipe in a our month-long, mouth-watering Crock-tober series, I hope you’ve enjoyed the series as much as I have! Don’t start sobbing in your slow cooker, there will be more Crock Pot recipes. . . I can’t just stop slow cooking, it’s too easy.
INGREDIENTS
Whole roasting chicken, 3-5 pounds
Optional: Olive oil, garlic, paprika, rosemary. . . whatever “extra” flavors you might want.
DIRECTIONS
1.) Take the whole chicken out of the package. Pull out the innards from the chicken cavity (I hate this part, I really do, but I just try to remind myself how much money I’m saving). I cut off any excess fat flaps (gross, but true). Rinse chicken and pat dry with a paper towel.
2.) Place whole chicken breast side down in the slow cooker. If you want to get fancy you can season it. Or not. I decided to drizzle with a little olive oil, sprinkle with salt and rub with minced garlic (two cloves) and fresh chopped rosemary from my yard. Totally optional. Do not add any liquid, it will magically make it’s own.
3.) Turn on low for 7 hours (if you have a smaller bird, maybe 6 hours?)
4.) Stick a fork in it – because it’s done! Mine was falling apart after 7 hours.
I probably should have cooked it more like 6 hours. It should pull from the bone a little to indicate it’s cooked, but if you are at all uncertain, just measure the meat temperature and confirm it’s at least 165 degrees (according to FDA Food Safety website). We ate ours with potatoes and peas. Yum.
Don’t throw the bones out! Throw everything extra back into the slow cooker and make yourself some homemade slow cooker chicken broth while you sleep.
This is the lowest price ever on Amazon for this Crock-Pot SCVT650-PS 6-1/2-Quart Programmable Touchscreen Slow Cooker, Stainless Steel
Thanks. Off to cook. Just a little change for my use of whats in garden. Will use 1. Ripe Jack Fruit, two bits bright yellow.
2. 2 table spoons of white wine. 3. The flaps ect. When broth has cooled I will scrape/spoon off the dried fat. No use – flat. 3. One table spoon of water. I want some extra stock, No salt for me .
I have 3 whole frozen chickens we bought from Costco a few months ago. I can’t stannnnnnnd waiting for them to defrost. Am I s.o.l? The defrosting time makes me want to pull my hair out. I would love if I could just put it in the crock pot frozen and walk away.
I would be really hesitant to put a frozen chicken in a crockpot. I think the internal temp would be “warm” for longer than you’d like for safe food handling. 🙁 Just my 2 cents.
I made this Sunday – was away from the house so a 5 lb chicken cooked about 7 hours – that was too long!! Found the white meat especially dried out. Used it for a BBQ chicken salad that night for 2 of us, tonight I used most of the leftovers for shredded BBQ chicken sandwiches. Saved 2 good sized pieces for quesadilla later this week. I also used the broth – which I refrigerated overnight to solidify fat – for a good chicken orzo soup – I cut up one good size piece of white meat for that too!! I didn’t want the chicken sitting in all the greased all those hours so I had 4 stalks of celery, a half of onion, and about 4 peeled carrots under the chicken – this made incredibly good soup! I added one can of chicken broth some salt and pepper to the strained broth and about a 1/3 cup or orzo. I crushed up carrots and put those back in soup also. So out of one chicken I got 4 great meals. I will make this again but make sure I will be able to turn it off at 6 hours – I think that is plenty!!
I LOVE this idea… and I’m going to try it soon. But I had to comment on your pic of the raw chicken still in the package… “YOUNG CHICKEN parts of Giblets may be missing”…. what’s up with that? LOL!!! Someone stealing the giblets for their own use during packaging? I just thought that was funny!!!
Anyway, I think I’m going to try my chicken with a package of Lipton Onion Soup mix. It always makes baked chicken so tasty, I’m sure it would be fabulous with this too. Thanks for sharing!
We use a stand up roteserie . it fills the pan at the bottom with the fat/drippings.I will try this in the croc and toss the juice … we allways fill the cavity with sliced sweet onions and hot or green peppers and cover the outside with cumin,galic pepper/salt,etc..I wonder how potatoes cut up would taste cooking in the juices with the chicken?
This recipe was a great success and allowed me to cook dinner without worry whisk we went out for the afternoon.
I ended up with lads of juices, so the next evening I used the slow cooker stock recipe , and left overnight as suggested. Next morning 3 pints of gorgeous stock, 2 pints of which are now in the freezer.
This was AMAZING!!!! Falling off the bone and delicious. I didn’t have any fresh rosemary so poured some dried rosemary inside the chicken…yummy yummy yummy 🙂
So glad you liked it!!
Thanks for the idea!
Love baking & roasting a whole chicken–they make multiple meals!!
Thanks for the idea, will try it as I usually roast chicken in the oven. I wonder if you could make good soup with the left over bones etc? Don’t get too grossed out over the innards????, can be fed to pets to enhance their diets. Thanks again for all your good ideas, love crock pot recipes!!
I Have been out of the loop, I will trying every one of the Crock-tober series! I am back reaching in a long term position and I need EASY Meals right now! I am off to Fred Meyer for the Chicken 🙂
“teaching”
Can’t wait to try this recipe! My family loves your Crocktober recipes that I’ve tried so far 🙂
Thanks for the great recipe! We are planning to have this tonite with mased potatoes and green beans! Love crockpot cooking!
Fred Meyer is one of my favorite places to shop. Quick checkouts and Friendly cashiers!
Did you know that if you pull out those nasty insides when you first bring home that chicken from the grocery store and THEN freeze it, that you can put it in the crock pot frozen? It cooks perfectly every time.This is a great way to take advantage of those fabulous prices on whole chicken that Fred Meyer has and know that you have a delicious meal in your freezer ready to be made.
I was scouring the comments for just this kind of information. Thank you Sara! Do you increase the cooking time or temperature when you put it in frozen??
the skin on that chicken look a lot better that i would have expected from a slow cooker.
My husband and I have been trying to do more slow cooker recipes so this giftcard would be GREAT!
I am soooooo going to miss your Crocktober series, so many awesome ideas that I have thoroughly enjoyed!
That looks so yummy! I am amazed by you I want to learn how to do this so bad. Thanks for making it a little easier on me.
Oh man I love roasted chicken in my crock pot!
looks delicious – i shop at freddies regularly, this gift card would be awesome
Yummy!!!!
Awesome idea and thanks for the giveaway!
Yum! I love finding great slow cooker recipes. Thanks.
I can’t wait to try this!
This GC would be great for stocking stuffers
This is a great idea! I will try it tonight!
Recently I heard that rinsing the chicken is unnecessary and for most people is probably a bad idea because they don’t disinfect their sinks afterward so the sink becomes even dirtier than it already was. But that doesn’t mean I don’t do it!
I would love to win!
Yummy! Looks easy and delicious!
I hope I win to try this out.
No pun intended, but I’m a total chicken when it comes to cooking! This sounds like something I can do & not mess up! Thanks!
love this site!
Don’t forget that whole chicken will be on sale for $0.88 per lb. starting 11/04/12!
I’m totally going to try this out this week.
Can’t wait to try chicken in the slow cooker!
I’d love to try this..yum
Mmm, My favorite way to cook a chicken! Many’s the night i’ve come home to a chicken in one crock pot and baked potatoes in the other. Might be mac and cheese in the second one now with the recipe you posted earlier this month…
I have been looking for a “recipe” for roasting a chicken, thank you so much for sharing this one. It is going to come in handy!
I can’t wait to win! I bought a slow roaster (like a crock pot) last week because my oven can’t seem to cook a bird! I planned on making the turkey on it’s maiden voyage but why wait?!! I could roast 2 chickens at a time in that bad boy!!
Great idea! Thanks for sharing and for the giveaway.
I am definitely trying this in my slow-cooker! Thanks!
thanks for all your fabulous ideas!