Chicken Recipes: Easy Slow Cooker Orange Chicken

I found this recipe on the GroupRecipes.com site while searching for a good crock pot chicken dish—something I could throw together quickly in the morning and have ready for dinner when I was finished with work for the day. The recipe is called “Easy Slow Cooker Orange Chicken,” submitted by “Desireesweet,” who describes this dish as an “easy way to cook orange chicken while at work,” so it seemed to be an appropriate recipe to suit my needs. The word easy definitely belongs in the title, because the recipe was as simple as it could be to prepare.

Ingredients List:

• 8 small boneless and skinless chicken thighs
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1/3 cup orange marmalade
• 1/3 cup of your favorite barbecue sauce
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon grated fresh gingerroot

Directions:

• Toss the chicken with the flour in the slow cooker.
• Stir in the remaining ingredients; then cover the slow cooker with the lid.
• Cook the chicken on the low heat setting for 6 to 8 hours or on the high heat setting for 3 to 4 hours.
• Serve the orange chicken atop a bed of cooked rice.

I actually cooked the chicken for a little more than nine hours (on the low heat setting), because I was unable to return home from work until then, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. The extra cooking time might have made the meat fall apart a bit more readily, but it didn’t turn to mush or anything similar. This was a very tasty recipe that I will definitely make again.

 

Chicken Recipes: Slow Cooker Russian Chicken

Talk about easy, this recipe is so simple that even a first time cook could make this with no trouble whatsoever. And the results—well, in a word, fantastic! “Slow Cooker Russian Chicken” is a recipe I found on GroupRecipes.com, a Website that I’ve been using quite often when I want to find a new chicken recipe.

Ingredients List:

• 1 – 16 oz Bottle of Russian dressing (Note: if you can’t find Russian dressing, you can use Catalina, but the flavor of the dish will not be as rich.)
• 1 envelope of dry onion soup mix
• 1 – 10 oz. jar apricot jam or preserves
• Assorted chicken pieces (Note: the recipe didn’t describe how much chicken to use, so I simply cut chunks from the breast, leg, and thigh meat of a whole 3-pound chicken.)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Combine the first three ingredients in a medium size bowl.
• Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper.
• Place the chicken on the bottom of the slow cooker and pour the dressing mixture over the chicken.
• Cover the slow cooker, turn the temperature setting to low, and cook for 6-8 hours. You may also cook it on the high temperature setting for 3-4 hours.

The author of the recipe noted that the dish can also be cooked in the oven. The steps are followed exactly except that everything is placed into a casserole dish and baked at 350ºF for one hour. It seems that this is quite a versatile dish. I served it over plain white rice as suggested and found that it was a big hit. Bon Appétit!

 

Chicken Recipes: Election Day Chicken

Wow! Just when I thought the grilling season was coming to a rapid end, comes the month of November and some of the best weather imaginable: a lengthy string of days (that actually began before Halloween) with highs in the seventies and lows in the fifties, which is more typical of September than November in southern Minnesota—perfect San Diego weather I call it. Feeling a dose of spring fever again, I was itching to grill out and dine al fresco, but since daylight saving time is over and I knew that it would be dusk before I would get home from work, that plan didn’t seem too realistic. Besides, it was election night, and being a political junkie, nothing was going to prevent me from parking my butt in front of the television and watching the election returns, so I went to plan B and cooked up a one-pot meal in the slow cooker that was ready to eat when I arrived home.

I’ve never really had a name for this chicken recipe, which I concocted several years ago: I always referred to it as simply, “Slow Cooker Chicken,” but now I’ve decided to name it officially, “Election Day Chicken.” I’m sure there are other recipes out there that are quite similar to this one; in fact, a friend told me that she made something almost identical to this, but her version didn’t include red bell pepper, and the liquid she used was just plain water rather than the chicken broth that I use. This simple recipe has been a real hit with everyone who has tried it.

Election Day Chicken

Ingredients:

• 4 to 5 pounds chicken pieces—any combination of thighs, legs, wings, and split breasts
• 6 to 8 red potatoes cut into quarters
• 1 yellow onion, coarsely sliced
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 24 (or more) baby carrots
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced into strips
• 8 to 12 garlic cloves
• 1 envelope onion soup mix
• ½ cup chicken stock or broth
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Place the quartered red potatoes, sliced onion, chopped celery, baby carrots, sliced red bell pepper, and the garlic cloves in the bottom of a slow cooker.
• Add the chicken stock or broth to the pot and sprinkle about half of the dry onion soup mix over the vegetables.
• Place the chicken pieces on top of the vegetables.
• Sprinkle the chicken with the remaining onion soup mix.
• Cover the slow cooker and turn the heat to high.
• Cook the chicken on high heat for about 6 hours, or cook on high heat for 2 hours and then turn the heat down to low and cook for an additional 8 hours.
• Season the chicken and vegetables with salt and pepper to taste.

How much more simple could it be? This is a perfect dish for a busy day, and the leftovers are great, too (if there are any leftovers, that is). I hope you’ll try it.

 

Chicken Recipes: Chicken Noodle Dip

A friend recommended this delicious chicken dip that she found on the Recipe Tips Website, which, by the way, is one of my favorite food sites. (I learned how to cook by following the detailed instructions in their “Tips and Advice” section—practically an online cooking school.) I told her that I had already seen the recipe, but with my reluctance to use canned soups in cooking, I was hesitant to try it. (See 3/6/08, “Shortcut Chicken Cordon Bleu,” for another canned soup recipe.) Anyway, based on her recommendation and my faith in Recipe Tips, I tried the “Chicken Noodle Dip” recipe, and I was pleasantly surprised. It really is one of the most delicious dips I’ve ever tasted. There are only five ingredients, but the combination is perfect. I served it at a winter party and my guests wiped it out. I used those baked chips shaped like a scoop and everyone simply spooned the mixture into them for a warm bite-size hors d’ oeuvre. “Chicken Noodle Dip” may not be sophisticated, but it is irresistibly good, which in my opinion, is what counts the most. Enjoy!

 

Chicken Recipes: Slow Cooker Chicken and Biscuits

One of my current favorite chicken recipes, “Slow Cooker Chicken and Biscuits” is one that I found on a terrific site called “Recipe Tips.” Prior to making this dish, I rarely used my slow cooker, but now I’ve used it twice during the last three weeks to make this really tasty, easy to prepare one-pot meal. This chicken recipe is my definition of comfort food. Use this link, “Slow Cooker Chicken and Biscuits” to see this delicious recipe, which is not only described, but is also prepared in a step-by-step, illustrated demonstration.