All the Best Ways to Make Chicken in a Slow Cooker

Updated April 8, 2020

Making a good chicken dinner isn’t complicated when you have a slow cooker and these incredibly easy recipes in your back pocket. From classic dishes like chicken noodle soup and chicken pot pie to new favorites including slow-cooker root beer chicken and slow-cooker chicken enchilada casserole, any one of these recipes will convince you that slow-cooker chicken meals are anything but boring.

These best slow-cooker chicken ideas feature chicken breasts and chicken thighs, for the most part. These two cuts of meat lend themselves well to the slow cooker. Chicken thighs are an especially good choice for the slow cooker because they are moist and flavorful. They are also reasonably priced at the grocery store, so they make for an inexpensive dinner choice.

However, because chicken is a leaner meat, it often doesn’t lend itself to cook times that are super long (8 to 10 hours). The chicken will dry out if it’s left in the slow cooker for that long. Our favorite time to make chicken in the slow cooker is on the weekends when you can cook it for 4 to 6 hours while you take care of errands around the house, or when you’re working on meal prep for the week. Recipes like our Slow-Cooker Shredded Mexican Chicken are perfect examples of recipes that you can prep ahead in the slow cooker for dishes like tacos, burritos and salads that you’ll eat later in the week.