I got the recipe off Pinterest and tweaked it a little, however before I get into the actual recipe...I have to brag on Kevin a little bit! He really is the best husband in the world!
So, I woke up Tuesday morning earlier than normal to get the crock-pot meal started. I walk downstairs and he's already in the kitchen hand-washing the dishes. This is not unusual. Kevin hates a dirty kitchen and since I don't particularly love to wash dishes, he does it just to have the reward of the clean kitchen, even though it's not his favorite chore either! Not only was he washing dishes, but the chicken breasts that I needed for the crock-pot meal were in a bowl of warm water defrosting! I had placed them in the fridge the night before, but my sweet husband was "on it" speeding up the process. I had nothing to do, so I ran back upstairs to shower and came back down to help cut onions for the meal! I cut up my onion and then left the kitchen again with nothing to do because he was using the microwave to further defrost the chicken and putting it all in the crock-pot! He even started the cooking process and made sure the crock-pot was on low before leaving for work, since I was already on the road to work. Sweet, sweet man!
There is some debate about how to safely cook chicken in the crock-pot. I think the general idea is as long as the chicken gets warm enough to cook all the way through and doesn't get under a certain degrees while cooking, then it kills the bacteria, doesn't give them a chance to multiply, and you're safe. I've read many differing opinions, but here's what I did and we haven't gotten sick yet, so it must work! I don't recommend putting frozen chicken in the crock-pot, hence the reason Kevin was defrosting in the microwave. We preheated the crock-pot before adding the ingredients and then cooked on high for an hour before turning it to low and leaving it on all day while we were at work. The recipe says to cook on high for 3-4 hours or low for 7-8 hours. We cooked on high for the first hour and then cooked on low for 8 hours plus the extra 2.5 hours it took for Kevin to get home (which I alternated between putting it on warm when I got home and then putting it on high just before he arrived home to heat it all up really good) and everything tasted great! If you are really worried about the chicken, I'd recommend saving this recipe for a Saturday and cooking it on high the entire time, for 3-4 hours. Then you're there to watch it!
So, here we go:
Ingredients
(4) boneless skinless chicken breasts (mine were the BJs prepackaged 2 breasts to a pack, and were LARGE, so I probably could have gotten away with only using 2 or 3, but I put all 4 of them in there)
(1) large onion, chopped
(1) 8 ounce box of Zatarain's Yellow Rice Mix, cooked according to directions on the box, which include cooking it with 2 tablespoons of butter (so don't forget the butter at the grocery)
(1) cup of cheddar cheese
(1) 10.5 ounce can of cream of chicken soup (regular or fat free)
(1) 15 ounce can of whole kernel corn, drained
(1) 10 ounce package of frozen chopped broccoli
Preparation
Place chicken in the bottom of the warming crock-pot.
Dump the chopped onion on top
Spoon the Cream of Chicken Soup on top of everything
Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or on high for 3-4 hours. No harm in cooking on high for an hour and then putting it on low for the rest of the day. (Don't worry about it being dry! Mine was so moist and juicy when I got home! I took two forks and barely touched the chicken...it just broke apart so easily!)
Feel free to cook the yellow rice the night before (I didn't, I cooked it and the broccoli when I got home from work). About 20 minutes before you plan on serving dinner, stir in the cooked rice, cheddar cheese, yellow corn and cooked broccoli. And I put the crock-pot back on high for those 20 minutes so the cheese had a chance to melt!
Enjoy the goodness!
The recipe serves about 6-8 servings, so Kevin had plenty leftovers for lunch the next day and dinner for both of us an additional night!
The original recipe didn't call for broccoli, but it looked like a yellow mess without it! I like to see a little green in there and get that extra veggie! And I'd say feel free to add other veggies to the mix and try a different kind of rice if you can't find the yellow rice! Wild rice might be fun! I was also against the corn when initially thinking about the recipe, but the corn gave the whole dish an added crunch that I really liked! I'm glad I stuck with it!
This recipe was fool-proof and a winner for the hubby! He does favor his cheese, rice and broccoli recipes! I've got a great recipe from his mom that he grew up eating and just LOVES! It includes basically the same ingredients, but takes about 2 hours of prep time! When we make it, we double or triple the recipe, so we'll have lots of leftovers! I'll have to share that another time!
Gonna have to try this!
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