Slow Cooker Chicken Stew
If I didn’t find it slightly embarrassing I’d be gushing about how much I love my slow cooker right now. Even given the massive lifestyle change I’ve made this year – from working at a fashion magazine to testing recipes for SPC – there are lines I pledged not to cross when I became a parent. Yoga pants worn while not in an actual yoga class being the most important, obviously, but also purely social coffee dates during the work day and addressing my husband as Daddy in front of the kids. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with any of these things (except I do feel a bit squeamish when spouses call each other Mom and Dad). Everyone has to figure out their own way to enter Parent World, these are just the roads I avoid.
Enthusiasm for time-saving appliances just never made it on my list. So un-sexy, it just went without saying. But what can I say?
photo by Maya Visnyei
We’ve had the gleaming Krups slow cooker in a hard to reach cupboard for, oh, five years now. A wedding gift – thanks Eric and Sue! – that I’ve been meaning to pull down and figure out, it finally made its way out this weekend. What a fool I’ve been! Once I got over the initial weirdness of chopping carrots and potatoes at 8 a.m. I was hooked. About twenty minutes of prep, six hours doing its thing, quietly on the counter, and dinner is ready. What’s not to love?
Ingredients
- 6 chicken thighs, skinless, bone in
- 1 potato, peeled and cubed
- 2 onions, chopped
- 4 stalks celery, chopped
- 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
- splash vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme (1 teaspoon if you're using dried)
- 1 or 2 bay leaves
- 1/4 cup flour
- 2 cups low sodium chicken stock
- 1 cup fresh or frozen peas
- 1/2 cup light cream
Method
In a dutch oven or high-sided skillet, sauté onions, celery and carrots in a splash of vegetable oil for about five minutes.
Add the flour, thyme and bay leaves and stir for a minute.
Add the stock and stir until smooth.
Simmer for 3 or 4 minutes until sauce thickens.
Add the potatoes a good pinch of salt and pepper to taste
Place chicken thighs in the bottom of slow cooker and spoon the vegetable mixture over.
Seal and set for 6 hours.
Check chicken to see that it's cooked through. Add peas and cream.
Seal and cook for 10 more minutes. Serve!
Esme loved this dinner. I knew she was buttering me up in order to get dessert but I didn’t mind. Julian’s a bit small to handle broth on his own but he let me give him a bit and loved all the elements of this stew. And I’ll definitely be on the lookout for more ways to use my slow cooker. Got any ideas?
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We're Ceri and Laura, a couple of magazine-editors-turned-food-bloggers. Also, we're mothers obsessed with delicious, healthy, family food. We're constantly thinking of ways to make your time (and our own!) in the kitchen easier and more productive, but still nostalgic for the days when dinner was cereal eaten over the kitchen sink.
23 Comments
Terra
November 09, 18:40Another winner! Hands down the best use of our slow cooker yet. Darren and I couldn’t get enough. And I’m sure Rosie would have loved it if it wasn’t for that pesky time change…
Ceri
November 09, 20:26So glad to hear it!! Oh, no, is Rosie not switching over? Maybe she and Julian can meet for a 5 am breakfast!
Terra
November 09, 21:00Ha! Not that early, thank God (poor you) but she’s a bit of a wreck by the end of the day. Add a new baby brother and it makes for a distracted dinner time.
Andrea
May 17, 11:46Hi… I’m making this right now… what temp do we set at? High or low?
Ceri Marsh
May 17, 11:49Hi Andrea,
I believe that it depends on how long you want it to take. So, High would take 4 hours and Low would take 6 – which is what I wanted the day I made this. Let me know how it goes for you!
Ceri
Andrea
May 18, 12:43Thanks! It turned out great and I love that it made enough to have for lunches the next day. Yum!
Ceri Marsh
May 18, 14:32Don’t you love it when one cooking effort nets multiple meals? It’s the best! So glad you liked it!
Ceri
Norine
May 23, 19:03Perfect for a ‘picky-eater’ toddler! Use a Thermo-pot and you don’t even have to waste electricity while it’s cooking.
Denise
February 05, 10:28Aren’t slow cookers great? I love to make baked potatoes in mine. Wash and dry potatoes, give them an olive oil massage, sprinkle with garlic pepper seasoning, wrap in foil and put into the crock. Depending on how many potatoes you have, it will take 6 – 8 hours. I start on high, then switch to low after an hour or 2.
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Caitlin
February 09, 13:07Any idea whether it is possible to make it take longer, like 10 hours? I know that sounds odd, but my problem with crockpot recipes is that they are always for 4 or 6 hours, which means they can only be used on weekends, since I’m away at work for at least 10 on weekdays.
Eric
February 10, 23:47Worried that your slow cooker recipe will be ready to serve TOO EARLY in the day? Here are two solutions: 1) prepare the recipe the night before, but keep it in the fridge overnight. The next morn, set up your cooker to run, and allow an extra hour since everything started cold. AND/OR: 2) Plug the whole cooker into a vacation-light timer so it won’t turn on until you’ve been at work a couple of hours.
Ceri
February 11, 07:09Eric – thanks for those great ideas in solving Caitlin’s dilemma! I also think that most slow cookers turn themselves off but do keep things quite warm. And this kind of dish won’t be worse for sitting in the slow cooker until you get home. And most slow cooker recipes tend to be like that – stews that can wait for you. But I love that vacation timer idea – let us know if you give it a try!
sunny
February 13, 19:53Why do you parboil the potatoes? In my experience when they cook for 6 hours they become mushy? Are you using them to thicken the sauce? Maybe my slow cooker cooks to fast, I think it does.
Wayne KNIGHT
February 16, 18:04Hi – would love to have printed-off this recipe, but 5 pages is just too much for a single recipe. Is there any other method of printing such recipes on 1 or 2 pages rather than 5? Tks…WK
Gwen
February 18, 22:54Wayne,
I always face the same problem–copying pages and pictures, etc. to get the recipe. I’m just too frugal to print out all the extra stuff. I simply highlight the recipe and copy it and paste to a Word page. Works great.
Lori
March 06, 15:58You know over a 4-6 hour period the cut potatoes will turn to mush. Also, I don’t know about anyone else in the working world, but I work 8 hours over a 9 hour period (accounts for lunch and getting to/from work). This might do very well with Turkey thighs and par boil the potatoes in the am. Microwave for a minute or 2 and then throw them in with everything else.
The problem with a regular crock pot – you know the ones that come with off, warm, low , high is that they still cook too fast.
I might make this on the weekend when I am home, but the chicken will be dry and the potatoes mush if I do it on a workin’ day.
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Rose
July 17, 18:42Can I adapt this recipe to cook in a saucepan on the stove?
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Janinne
December 06, 13:23If cooking time is an issue, try starting with frozen chicken. That will make it take longer. I also wondered about the parboiling of the potatoes. I don’t plan on doing it when I try this recipe.
greenjohn
February 05, 20:34I have just tried this recipe for the first time,
and when I returned 4 hours after leaving it at 325 Degrees F on the variable settings of my RIVAL cooker,
my wife mentioned that she had checked and the chick was cooked to the point of falling off the bones, so she has removed all the bones. which is great –
this tastes great even before adding the peas and cream.
Question: what temperature would you suggest for this recipe on a cooker where setting a temperature is an option.
We love our slow cookers – We still have a one which still working almost forty-two years on, and it sees regular service.
Ceri
February 14, 10:50Hi! We’re so glad you enjoyed the recipe! I’m not totally sure since most slow cookers don’t tell you an exact temperature – most say low and high as options – but from looking around the internet it seems that low is 190 degrees F and high is 250. And that sounds about right to me. What brand is your slow cooker – it is obviously a very good one!