It’s that time of the year when long-simmered soups, stews and chilies are my go-to recipes. My braising pots are on full rotation, as is my slow cooker. In keeping with the recipes of this blustery season, I’m sharing my Slow Cooker Pantry Chicken Chili recipe.
This slow cooker recipe is quite literally a combination of pantry and freezer staples. I hardly ever make it the same way twice, so it can easily be adapted to suit whatever you have on hand.
As an aside, this was never intended to be a blog post. If you’ve been following along on Instagram stories, then you know that I could have named this Outlander Chicken Chili, because, well, the slow cooker gave me more time to binge watch Outlander. Anyhow, I shared an image of the chili along with a comment made in jest about having plenty of time to binge-swoon. Quite a few readers asked me for the recipe and so here we are.
If you’re in the throes of a deep winter freeze, like me, and the farm markets are chock full of beautiful rustic breads and jars of jam and some greenhouse goodies instead of pulled-from-the-field produce, then this is the perfect recipe to use up any organic frozen or canned goods that you have on hand.
I layered the bottom of the slow cooker with onions and garlic, tossed the chicken breasts in whole (we’ll shred them later) and everything else was tossed in on top. A quick mix and on went the lid, and off I went with the remote control in hand headed to the Scottish Highlands, by way of my television at least.
At the end of all that slow cooking, I like to punch everything up a notch. In this case, we’ll add a generous shredding of Gruyère cheese, chopped roasted red peppers, and a cool dollop of sour cream for the perfect finishing touch.
Use the recipe below as a guide. Substitute with similar items that you might have on hand. Just make sure to have a greater ratio of liquids, just enough to keep some fluidity and movement to the chili so the end result isn’t a sticky, pasty heap.
Did you give this recipe a try?
If you give this a go, let me know! I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below or tag a picture on Instagram. Make sure to tag me @chasingtheseasons, so I can be sure to see it!
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Ingredients
- 2 medium onions, roughly diced
- 3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
- 15.5 oz great northern beans, drained and rinsed canned is fine
- 15.5 oz chickpeas or garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed canned is fine
- 15.25 oz sweet corn kernels if canned, discard liquid
- 28 oz San Marzano whole, peeled, tomatoes (with the juices)
- 4 oz mild green chiles, diced canned is fine
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
- 1 Bay leaf
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 2 chicken breasts
- 3 tbsp tomato paste, or more as needed
- Roasted red peppers packed in olive oil, chopped, as garnish (desired amount)
- Gruyère cheese, shredded, as garnish (desired amount)
- Sour cream, as garnish (desired amount)
- Parsley, as garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Using a crock pot, add the onions, garlic, beans, corn, San Marzano tomatoes, green chile peppers, red pepper flakes, chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper, bay leaf and broth. Stir gently to mix. Nestle the chicken into the pot and spoon some of the mixture over.
- Cover and cook on high for 4 hours – when there’s about 20 minutes left to the cooking, spoon in the tomato paste and give it a mix to incorporate.
- When cooking time is done, remove the chicken to a cutting board and with two forks, pull the chicken apart to shred. Add the chicken back to the pot and mix together with the other ingredients. Taste and adjust the seasonings if necessary.
- To serve, spoon the chili into individual bowls and garnish with roasted red peppers, generously shredded Gruyère cheese and a dollop or two of sour cream. Garnish with parsley if desired.
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