Slow Cooked Whole Chicken

I love making a whole roasted chicken.  It yields wonderful flavor, tends to be way juicier than say your traditional chicken breast, it can be used for multiple meals, and you can make broth as well!  A home run meal for sure.  Well, I've seen many ideas of slow cooking a whole roast in a crock pot and wanted to try it out.  I found the results to be just as good and the clean up was way easier for me.  Here is what I did for my chicken...

The Ingredients:

5 - 5 1/2 lb Whole Chicken (I get mine at Costco)

1 Large Lemon, cut into 12 pieces

1 Cup Red Onion, sliced (about 1/2 large onion)

3-4 Medium Carrots, (cut smaller ends in half + larger ends in quarters)

2 Tablespoons Fresh Rosemary (about 2-3 sprigs)

1/2 Tablespoon Kosher Salt

1 Teaspoon Paprika

1 Teaspoon Thyme

1 Teaspoon Garlic, (I used jarred crushed garlic)

1/2 Teaspoon Fresh Ground Pepper

2 Cups Water

The Steps:

1) Cut all of the veggies and place them in the bottom of the slow cooker.  Add the rosemary, salt, and water.  Stir to combine.  

2) Remove any packaging or giblets from your whole chicken.  Rinse off the bird and set on top of the veggies.  Add the garlic to the chicken and rub on top.  Sprinkle the paprika, thyme, and fresh ground pepper on top.

3) Cook on LOW for 7-9 hours or until internal temperature of the chicken reaches 165 degrees.  Take your first temperature check around 6 hrs., unless you have a chicken with a pop up thermometer.  

Look at how much juice, you get!  Now you have a delicious stock for your next soup!  I let it cool to room temperature and then place it in a freezer-safe bag to wait until my next soup or stew that calls for chicken broth. 

The skin on this chicken does not get crispy like it does when it is roasted in the oven.  If you would like to crisp up that skin, simply transfer the chicken to an oven-safe roasting dish and bake at Broil for about 6-9 minutes or until the skin reaches the golden-brown crispy skin you prefer!

To accompany the chicken, I served the cooked carrots from the slow cooker and then sauteed kale in olive oil over medium heat until it began to get crispy.  These were the perfect side-kicks to this lemon-y chicken.  Healthy AND delicious!