Saturday 29 November 2014

Slow Cooker Lemon & Garlic Chicken


My slow cooker obsession continues apace. At the moment, we’re still borrowing Matt’s housemate’s every few weekends, but I keep thinking about when we have our own place next year (and our own slow cooker – that’s a given). I’m going to use it for everything. There’s always be piles of shredded chicken for salads and sandwiches and plenty of pulled pork around to add into other things. Pulled pork mac ‘n’ cheese, I’m coming for you. We’ll make stews, soups, sauces, bread… it’ll be fabulous.

Slow cooking fits nicely with my love of batch cooking, but it’s even better in a lot of ways because it’s much less effort. I love that we can throw a few ingredients in it before bed and wake up to a ready-to-eat meal. It often doesn’t need any oil, and can be more economic too – for instance, when we do a chicken recipe like the honey garlic one I posted a while back, every last bit of meat falls off the bone.



Whenever we have a family party now, Matt and I always volunteer to slow cook something. We turn up with an impressive looking dish, cheerful in the knowledge that it took no effort at all. Which is exactly what we did with this recipe. I love the last slow cooker chicken recipe I posted, but it’s very sweet, so I wanted to try a fresher chicken recipe instead. This one was lovely, and I think would be great for a summer salad. The lemon and garlic smell amaaaazing together.

If we’d had time, we were planning to strip and shred the chicken, and mix it in a bowl with extra lemon juice (from the slow cooked lemons) and plenty of coriander. But we were very late, because the clocks changed. Yep, I know them falling back is supposed to make you an hour early, but we're special that way. Instead, we just tore off chunks and ate it as part of a salad, which was also fabulous.

Slow Cooker Lemon & Garlic Chicken
(adapted from here)
4 lemons
3 bulbs of garlic
1 whole chicken
Fresh thyme, rosemary or any fresh herbs (we used thyme)
All-purpose steak seasoning or salt & pepper

According to the Weight Watchers app a whole raw chicken is 52 SmartPoints, but if  you ate just the breast and no skin, this would be free.


1. Take 3 lemons and 2 garlic bulbs, cut them in half and lay in the bottom of the slow cooker (I recommend chopping the ends off the lemons so they lie flat)

2. Remove insides from chicken if it has any, then season well inside and out with steak seasoning or whatever herbs you fancy.


3. Take the leftover garlic bulb and peel all the cloves (worst job ever). Pop about half of them into the chicken’s… um… into the chicken.


4. Take the leftover lemon and chop in half. Cut one of the halves into chunks and pop them into the chicken too.

5. Lay the chicken on top of the garlic and lemon in the slow cooker

6. Crush the remaining garlic bulbs and sprinkle over the chicken.

7. Cut the remaining lemon half into slices and lay them over the chicken.


8. Cook on high for 4-5 hours, or low for 8 hours.


We brought this chicken to my Granny’s birthday party along with this Avocado Salsa and both were extremely popular. We popped the leftover feta and vegetables for the salsa into a pan along with the leftover chicken and coriander (and a pack of Philadelphia) and were left with a super tasty pasta sauce for dinner. I love a dish that can feed an army and still leave leftovers!

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2 comments

  1. This may sound stupid but I never actually thought of cooking a chicken in a slow cooker! I always just cook stews in there! Great idea - I shall be trying this!

    Laura | LAURAKATHREN

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm definitely trying this in my slow cooker!

    ReplyDelete

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