Chicken Crockpot Recipes: 4-Ingredient Salsa Chicken, Dump & Go in 8 Hours

Oct 19

2 min read

Updated: 15 hours ago

Shredded salsa verde chicken with black beans and corn in a slow cooker, with lime and cilantro

Dump and go, 8 hours on LOW, shred and serve

Four core ingredients, no browning, no chopping. Chicken, a jar of salsa verde, black beans and corn go into the slow cooker, and eight hours later you shred it in the pot. Serve it over rice, in tortillas, on nachos or in a bowl — it turns into about four different dinners from one batch.

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Why this one works

Salsa verde does all the work: tomatillos, chilies, onion and acid already blended and seasoned.
Adding the corn and beans at the start, not the end, lets them absorb the sauce instead of sitting in it.
It is roughly four minutes of actual work for six servings.

At a glance

Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 8 hr
Total time: 8 hr 5 min
Yield: 6 servings
Protein: 46g per serving
Calories: 396 per serving

Ingredients

The four

2.5 lb (1.1kg) boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs
2 cups (16 oz) salsa verde
1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 cups frozen corn

Optional but worth it

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1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
Juice of 1 lime

To serve

Cooked rice or warm tortillas
Chopped cilantro
Diced avocado
Crumbled cotija or shredded Monterey Jack
Sour cream

Instructions

Layer it in. Put the chicken in the bottom of a 6-quart slow cooker. Add the black beans and corn around and over it, then pour the salsa verde across the whole surface so everything is covered.
Season if you like. Scatter over the cumin, garlic powder and salt. The recipe works without them, but a teaspoon of each lifts it noticeably above jar-level flavour.
Cook. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 hours or HIGH for 4. Leave the lid alone — each time you lift it you lose roughly 20 minutes.
Shred in the pot. Pull the chicken apart with two forks right in the cooker so it soaks up the sauce as it goes. It should offer no resistance at all.
Brighten it. Stir in the lime juice. This is the step that takes it from flat to fresh — do not skip it.
Let it settle. Leave it on WARM for 10 minutes with the lid off so the liquid reduces slightly and the chicken drinks some of it back up.
Serve. Pile over rice or into tortillas and top with cilantro, avocado, cheese and sour cream.

Notes and swaps

Freezer prep: raw chicken plus salsa verde in a bag, frozen flat for 3 months. Add the beans and corn on cooking day.
Thighs give a richer result and are harder to overcook.
If the finished mixture is too loose, lift out the chicken and reduce the liquid on HIGH uncovered for 15 minutes.