Tips For Cooking the Best Crockpot Chicken Meal

Get to know tips to cook a crockpot chicken dish.

Chicken, is one of the most popular poultry item, consumed in every household. You can cook this in a hassle free manner by using a crockpot. The moist interior of this slow cooker lets the meat cook thoroughly and retains all its delicious flavors. Crockpot is a good appliance when you are planning to cook a leisurely meal for your family. You can start your crockpot chicken recipe overnight or early in the morning as it takes a long time (between 6 to 10 hours) to make.

However if you want to simmer that perfect crockpot dish, you have to keep in mind few techniques and tips that are very important. Every appliance has its own characteristic and you need to understand this before using it. This will help your meals turn out to be exactly how you planned it. So, let us discuss these tips for cooking the best crockpot chicken.

Firstly, you should not cook skinless portions of chicken in the crockpot. The skin will help retain the heat and juices inside the chicken while it is being cooked. If the skin is removed then the chicken will become dry and hard. Secondly, you should let the ingredients simmer in the pot for the required amount of time. Lifting off the lid time and again during the process will make the heat and moisture escape. This sets back the cooking time by about 20-30 minutes. Also, since the crockpot uses a low setting to cook, the loss in heat could spoil the dish.

The temperature that you keep the dish at is of utmost importance. The low temperature setting varies between 170 to 200 degrees F and the high setting around 300 degrees F. Whenever you are cooking a crockpot chicken make sure that the heating level goes at least up to 170 degrees, as at this point, any harmful bacteria that is there in the meat will be killed and the dish will be safe for you to eat.

It is ideal to use the leg and thigh portions for cooking a crockpot chicken recipe. These portions come cheap and are very low on any fat. It will serve best as the fat brings about an unpleasant texture in the whole thing. You also need to realize the importance of layering. The layering in a crockpot recipe is the pattern in which you add the ingredients to the pot. Since the vegetables take longer to cook than the chicken, they should be added first. This is to ensure that the vegetables are completely immersed in the liquid, which in turn helps it to cook better. So, when you are making French stew with chicken, add the vegetables first and then the meat pieces.

If you follow all the above tips while cooking your crockpot chicken meal, you will definitely have a finger licking audience for the same. These recipes are very good for your diet and can be combined with different varieties of side dishes like fish fry or grilled prawns, etc. If you want to make this for dinner, then add a rice course with some starters and sugar free dessert (incase anybody in your family has diabetes) to have a complete course!