Community Pick
Crock Pot Shredded Chicken Breasts for Freezing - OAMC
"Great to have on-hand for recipes. Just Place as many chicken breasts as you can fit into your crock pot as long as the lid fits on properly. I use bone-in, skin-on but I'm sure boneless, skinless would work too."
photo by A Marsteller
- Ready In:
- 8hrs 5mins
- Ingredients:
- 5
- Serves:
-
6-12
ingredients
- 6 -12 chicken breasts (use as many as you want)
- 1⁄2 cup water
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄2 teaspoon pepper
- 1⁄2 teaspoon garlic powder
directions
- Place the chicken breasts in the crock pot, Mix water and spices together and pour over the chicken.
- Cook on the low setting for 8-10 hours.
- Remove chicken breasts, shred or pull the meat from bones, removing skin (it should all fall off easily at this point anyway!).
- Place meat in individual freezer bags or containers and freeze until needed for recipes.
- Defrost and add to any recipes that call for cooked chicken.
- Great for casseroles, quesadillas, pizzas, burritos, pastas, soups, etc. or heat with BBQ sauce for hot barbecue chicken sandwiches.
- Tip: Use the juices that are left from cooking the chicken to make broth afterwards.
Questions & Replies
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Does it matter if the chicken is thawed, as far as taste is concerned?
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I could (and often do) eat chicken breasts daily. I'm concerned about the texture of the re-thawed chicken. I don't doubt the flavor & texture are great the day of cooking, but has anyone tried after freezing the meat a few days or weeks? Please help, as I'm very anxious to try this! -
Is this the way to make a review?
Reviews
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WONDERFUL!!!! This is going to make weeknight recipes so much easier! I just finished packing my ziplocs & placing them in the freezer. I don't like it when people review a recipe without following it exactly, so I did my best, Costco was sold out of breasts so I had to go with thighs. That's the only change. It was SO EASY and it really did just fall off the bone, so there was very little labour involved. Thanks so much Babzy!!!!<br/><br/>*Update=I think I've found the perfect marriage for this recipe. I used it in Food Network's Chicken Tetrazzini By Jubal Harshaw from this site. It's the highest rated recipe on foodnetwork.com & this chicken is meant for it! -
I put a little over 10 lbs of split chicken breasts in my 6 qt crockpot for 8 hours & it worked great. The easy part was cooking it, the labor intensive part is shredding & bagging it all! (but it will make future cooking so much quicker/easier!) I ended up with 20 cups of shredded chicken (after a cup or two was eaten in the shredding process). -
After reading other reviews I cooked this on high for 3.5 hours. It worked well but I had to move the chicken around after about 2 hours as the inner pieces were not cooking as quickly as those on the outside (my crockpot). Cooking on high resulted in chicken with a bit more texture - not so "fall apart" yet well cooked and delicious - exactly why I did it. I'll stash this in the freezer and use this for so many recipes - Thanks Babzy! -
Great recipe. I did as another reviewer recommended, placing water in the bottom and directly seasoning the chicken, differing only in the fact that I added onion powder as well. It turned out great. I used some straight out of the pot into chicken enchiladas and it practically shredded itself! I'll be using this recipe again and again! -
I made this a couple of weeks ago...it did yield a lot of shredded chicken but to be honest the texture was not at all pleasing, to the point where I actually wouldn't eat it. Chicken breast is very prone to overcooking and becoming chewy and dry and I found that following the recommended method and times of this recipe, the chicken turned out very chewy and sort of dry too. YMMV, but I won't be doing it again.
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Tweaks
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This is almost the method I use, but I replace the water with broth or stock to add just a little more flavor. Before freezing, I separate the drained chicken into batches, then season each batch differently by tossing with salsa, bbq sauce, marinara, curry, etc. This seems to help with the texture issues after defrosting. If I'm going to make a big Mexican dish for a crowd, I add onions, chile & jalapeno peppers, and Mexican/taco seasonings during the last hour or so. We never have leftovers! -
BBQ sauce -
The only change I made other than using boneless skinless chicken breasts was that instead of adding seasonings and using plain water, I used some already-seasoned brine as the liquid. Oh yes and I also cooked the chicken on high for about an hour before turning it down to low. I filled my crock pot to the very top with 10 or 12 chicken breasts. -
This was so simple even for someone that did not feel like cooking today...I used chicken broth instead of water and added some salsa too... -
I used boneless, skinless with broth instead of water. It came in handy for the buffalo chicken dip recipe I was making, but the chicken was VERY DRY! Probably, your bone in, skin on would have been better.
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