Lisa Leake’s Slow Cooker Chicken Recipe from the
100 Days of Real Food Cookbook
As my regular readers know, I strive to cook natural, nutritious foods for my family. The vast majority of my recipes are “from scratch” with ingredients my great grandmother would recognize (not sure if she was familiar with Middle Eastern za’atar, but that’s a subject for another blog…). I’m blessed that I am able to spend a great deal of time in the kitchen, but not everybody has that luxury. For the average American family cutting out processed foods can be quite difficult, especially with the time restraints of a 40-hour work week, school and extra curricular commitments, etc. My friend Lisa Leake, the powerhouse blogger behind the site 100 Days of Real Food, challenged herself to live unprocessed for… you guessed it… 100 days! Her new cookbook,100 Days of Real Food: How We Did It, What We Learned and 100 Easy, Wholesome Recipes Your Family Will Love, is the result of her journey. The book is perfect for anyone hoping to leave processed foods behind. Between tips on how to get your family involved, how to shop at farmer’s markets, meal plans, and how to determine what unprocessed really means, Lisa covers it all.
I enjoyed Lisa’s book and learned a lot from it. I especially love her tips for eating out, how to avoid ordering unhealthy foods when dining out, travel snacks, etc. Her simple recipe for cooking a whole chicken in the slow cooker was a revelation. My family loves chicken and slow cooker recipes are always welcome– I love the ease of “set it and forget it.” This recipe is almost completely hands off. Just spice rub the chicken, place it over a bed of onions in the slow cooker, and by the time dinner rolls around your main course is already taken care of. I changed things up from the original recipe ever so slightly, adding some smoked paprika and stuffing the chicken with garlic cloves, lemon wedges and some fresh rosemary I had on hand. I also added a couple of bay leaves to the slow cooker. It’s a really flexible method, you can add fresh herbs and your favorite spices to enhance the flavor of the chicken. The key is not adding liquid to the cooker– as the chicken cooks the fat renders, creating its own cooking liquid. I served this chicken with my Spicy Roasted Sweet Potatoes for a truly warm and comforting meal, perfect for serving on a cold fall night. This cooking method is definitely going into our regular rotation. Enjoy!
And don’t forget to check out the 100 Days of Real Food cookbook. It makes a terrific holiday gift for families who want to start the path to an unprocessed life.
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Slow Cooker Whole Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 whole onion peeled and cut into large pieces
- 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
- 2 lemon wedges
- 4 cloves garlic
- l large whole chicken about 4 pounds
NOTES
Instructions
- In a small bowl, combine the paprika, smoked paprika, salt, onion powder, dried thyme, garlic powder, cayenne and black pepper. Set aside.
- Place the onion pieces in the bottom of your slow cooker.
- Remove any giblets from the chicken and stuff it with rosemary, garlic and lemon wedges (or whatever herbs and aromatics you like).
- Rub the outside of the chicken with the spice mixture. If you like you can also rub some of the spices on the inside of the cavity and beneath the skin covering the breasts.
- Place the spice rubbed chicken, breast side down, on top of the onion pieces and cover the slow cooker. You won't need to add any extra liquid.
- Cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 7 hours, or until the chicken is tender and falling off the bone.
- Remove from the slow cooker and serve.
Nutrition
I put the chicken (small) in the over first after I put the rub on it. I put it on a baking sheet and put it on 400 for 15 mins and then put it in the slow cooker with my veggies along with butter and 1 cup of chicken stock. It came out perfect!
A friend recommended me this recipe but I made it in the oven combined with another recipe where I could put carrots in with the chicken. If I were to put carrots in under the chicken in the slow cooker how much liquid might I need to add?
I haven’t tried it with carrots, but my guess is you won’t need any liquid – the chicken renders its own fat as it cooks, producing a lot of extra liquid. If you want to add a cup of chicken stock to be safe you can.
This has been my go-to easy weeknight recipe for months. Thank you for putting this online.
Update: 24 March 2019. Today decided to cook a 5 pound whole chicken in the slow cooker and follow the directions to the letter. The chicken was delicious, instead of making a slurry of olive oil and adding the herbs and spices just coated the chicken with the olive oil and rubbed the herbs and spices on the poultry, just as the recipe indicated. Next, put the chicken in the slow cooker on a bed of onions breast side down. Amazing by putting the chicken breast side down to cook it was easy to carve after cooking finished, and chicken rested for 10 minutes. Thanks,
Tori for sharing this recipe with your audience. This slow cooker whole chicken is now my family’s favorite chicken recipe. Lisa Leake’s Slow Cooker Chicken recipe is the best roast chicken recipe I have found on the web, and I have tried countless roast chicken recipes.
Made a few changes to the recipe, did not have fresh lemon, sprigs of rosemary, and onion. Instead, used 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 1 tablespoon onion powder, 1 teaspoon rosemary (needed to use my pestle and mortar to crush the rosemary) and the spices listed in the recipe. In small bowl added 2 tablespoons of olive oil, added the crushed spices made a slurry. Loosen the skin on the chicken, rubbed the slurry under the skin, rubbed the slurry on the chicken breast and sides of the chicen. Another adjustment used aluminum foil to create balls of foil, to keep the chicken above the juices while cooking. Cooked 4 hours removed the chicken from crock pot and let it cool. Removed the foil balls, let the juices cool, divided juices equally to make chicken gravy using corn starch the remaining juice to be used as broth to make a chicken noodle soup. The chicken soup was delicious. The soup needed the same spices used on the chicken, kosher salt and pepper. I would highly recommend this recipe. Thank you, Tori for sharing.
I’m sorry but awful recipe. After googling roasted chicken crockpot, of all the recipes I decided to go with this one because of the addition of Lemon and fresh rosemary. The cooking time is WAY TOO LOW for a whole chicken. The cooking time has to be 5-6 on high. As one commentor posted below the chicken looked pale and unappetizing. I’m surprised so many people gave this 5 stars. Basically threw away $30 in groceries to make this chicken.
I’m sorry you didn’t have a better experience with this recipe, many readers have enjoyed it. Slow cookers can vary in terms of how fast they cook on low or high setting. The original recipe calls for the times listed here, which work perfectly in my slow cooker.