This recipe for Crock-Pot Taco Chicken is truly a “fix it and forget it” recipe. Chicken breasts are placed in the slow cooker and then salsa, canned tomatoes, black beans and cream cheese are all dumped on top and everything is allowed to cook until the chicken in moist and tender!
Slow Cooker Taco Chicken
Crock-Pot Taco Chicken is a previous reader recipe by Joy Wren. We are updating most of our reader recipes to include more information about the recipe and to show you a picture.
This is one of the first recipes that I braved using salsa in a crock recipe as my family is rather picky about anything spicy. It turned out great and with just a mild salsa, it didn’t bother anyone. We will definitely be doing making this recipemore often! It was delicious!
If you want a spiciermeal you’ll want to use a hot salsa. But we just used a nice mild salsa to keep this recipe kid friendly.
This recipe is easily adaptable to using chicken breast tenderloins or chicken thighs, just make sure they are boneless. And if you are cooking for a larger family you can easily slip in a couple extra pieces of chicken and make this meal stretch to feed more mouths.
Typically I use a regular low sodium taco seasoning because we just don’t need all that extra salt in our diets. However feel free to use the regular or even a spicy version of taco seasoning. You can even make your own taco seasoning, it is super easy and then you know exactly what is in it.
If your family does not like black beans (or you just don’t have any on hand), go ahead and swap out another type of canned beans (pinto beans, navy beans, kidney beans – all would work great here).
We ate this chicken over brown rice that I cooked in my rice cooker. But you can serve it over regular white rice, Mexican rice, tortilla chips (think taco salad), inside taco shells or flour tortillas.
This is a typical crock meal in that it’s easy to adapt it to what your family wishes to eat.
This recipe for Crock-Pot Taco Chicken is Weight Watchers Friendly on the new Personal Points plan. You can see the WW personal points for this recipe here on the Weight Watchers website. Click here for MORE of our Weight Watchers Recipes
Crock-Pot Taco Chicken Recipe
Heidi Kennedy
With just 6 ingredients this recipe could not be any easier to make. Serve the creamy shredded chicken in tacos, burritos, enchiladas, nachos or however you like for a delicious dinner or lunch any night of the week.
Add the black beans, salsa, canned tomatoes with green chilies and taco seasoning on top of the chicken, giving it a quick stir to combine the ingredients.
Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours.
During the last 30 minutes of cooking add the cream cheese cubes and cover once again and let cook until the cream cheese is melted.
Stir once more to distribute the melted cream cheese and then serve chicken in tortillas, over chips or over rice.
Notes
Serve chicken over cooked white or brown rice, in taco shells or in tortillas.
Do You Need to Add Liquid? As long as the breast pieces are in a single layer, in contact with the slow cooker, then no, it's not necessary to add any chicken broth or chicken stock. If you're doing multiple layers, you will need to add liquid to cover the meat, but I don't recommend this.
Cover your crock pot and cook chicken breasts on low for 6-7 hours or on high for 3-4 hours. Chicken is done when the internal temp reaches 165 degrees F. Use chicken in your favorite recipes. Perfect for shredding!
Taco meat can dry out if you don't add extra water to the slow cooker. I suggest adding water before turning on the heat. This will keep the meat nice and moist, and serves the double purpose of helping the seasoning melt into the meat!
A general rule of thumb from Luis Sanchez, senior category manager for the appliance manufacturer Breville: To go from "High" to "Low" (or vice versa), multiply (or divide) the original time by 1.5 to 2.5 hours. And as with the cooking times for specific ingredients, these times are approximate.
Yes, chicken breast will become softer and more tender the longer it is cooked, provided it is cooked at a low enough temperature. If it is cooked at too high of a temperature, the chicken breast will become dry and tough.
Using a nice, long, low-and-slow cook time helps chicken breasts retain plenty of moisture - but you can certainly opt to add a splash of water or chicken stock to the crockpot if you like!
This moist environment allows you to leave food to cook for hours without risking it drying out. But because there is no evaporation, the liquid isn't able to reduce and thicken naturally in a slow cooker, often resulting in watery sauces and loose gravies.
However, washing raw poultry, beef, pork, lamb or veal before cooking it is not recommended. Bacteria in raw meat and poultry juices can be spread to other foods, utensils and surfaces. We call this cross-contamination.
Yes, you can put raw chicken in a slow cooker! Slow cookers and Crock-Pots are designed to cook raw meats. The direct heat from the pot, lengthy cooking time and steam created from the tightly covered container destroys bacteria, making slow cooking safe. You can put frozen chicken in a slow cooker, too!
For a whole chicken – Place it in your slow cooker breast side down. Cover with the lid and cook on High for around 4-5 hours or Low for 6-8 hours. For bone-in pieces - Arrange chicken pieces in a single layer in the slow cooker. Cover with the lid and cook on High for around 3-4 hours or Low for 4-6 hours.
Aside from accidentally overcooking the meals, the most common reason we see for tough, rubbery, or overdone chicken is customers using a Crockpot that is far too big. Each of our meals comes with a recommended slow cooker size.
What you're doing when you add water is helping the cornstarch create a smooth sauce flavored with the spices. The heat then activates the cornstarch, thickening the mixture.
Boiling ground beef is the best way to cook it so that it comes out in small, fine crumbles. Trust me, this is the secret to all those amazing tacos and pasta sauces at your favorite restaurant! It's also a healthier option, because the boiling process helps separate the fat from the meat, and it comes out quite lean.
Hailing from Mexico and the Caribbean, Beef Barbacoa is a dish of meat that's traditionally slow-cooked – often in pits – with seasonings or a light broth until very tender.
Low Heat Cooking – Cooking chicken breasts over low heat with a lid covering the pan helps them to retain almost all their moisture and prevents overcooking. It takes a few more minutes than normal, but it's well worth it!
Question: When I cook chicken, it always comes out tough. Am I cooking it too long, too short, too high or too low? The slower you cook chicken, the better. That's the overall rule for cooking protein.
Certainly, foods will cook faster on high than on low. However, for all-day cooking or for less-tender cuts, you may want to use the low setting. It's safe to cook foods on low the entire time -- if you're leaving for work, for example, and preparation time is limited.
If a dish usually takes: 15-30 mins, cook it for 1-2 hours on High or 4-6 hours on Low. 30 mins – 1 hour, cook it for 2-3 hours on High or 5-7 hours on Low. 1-2 hours, cook it for 3-4 hours on High or 6-8 hours on Low.
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