Whole Chicken in a Crockpot

Here’s a super easy way to cook a whole chicken, and make chicken soup the next day.
1 small whole chicken
1 small onion
paprika, seasoning salt, and garlic powder for seasoning
Rinse the chicken and remove any bags from the cavity. Peel the onion and place the whole thing inside the cavity. If it doesn’t fit you can cut the onion in half. Place the chicken into a crockpot sprayed with cooking spray. Sprinkle the chicken all over with paprika, seasoning salt and garlic powder. You don’t need to put any liquid in the pot, just cover it, turn it on low and let it cook for 6-8 hours. As it cooks you’ll see that it creates it’s own juices.

Cut all the meat from the bones (don’t throw out the bones, onion, or liquid in the crockpot- we’ll get to that soon). Put some of the chicken aside for soup the next day, and have the rest for dinner. We enjoyed our chicken with veggies and Pioneer Woman’s Crash Hot Potatoes (so delicious!).

Now, put the bones and onion back in the crockpot with the chicken juices. Break up some of the bones if you can. Add enough water to cover the bones, then 1 tsp of vinegar and cook on low heat overnight.
In the morning, pour the broth through a strainer to remove the bones. Place broth in the fridge. By the end of the day the fat should have hardened on top so you have remove it easliy with a slotted spoon. Now you have a tasty chicken broth for your soup.

Chicken Soup
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 stalks of celery, diced
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
5-6 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup of your favourite pasta
1 cup (more or less) of cooked chopped chicken

Heat oil on medium heat in a dutch oven or soup pot. Add onion, garlic, celery and carrots. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add oregano, basil, poultry seasoning, pepper and salt. Stir and cook for another minute. Pour in your homemade chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add pasta and cook for about 10 minutes, until pasta is soft. Add chicken and reduce heat. Simmer covered for 20 minutes. Taste and add more salt if desired.

This is such an easy and delicious way to use a whole chicken. It’s quite a bargain too, because one little chicken makes a lot of food. It gave us two full meals and lots of leftovers for lunches. Cole didn’t like the plain chicken very much, but he liked the chicken soup the next day, especially when he put goldfish crackers in it. According to Cole, goldfish crackers make everything good! I’ll have to keep that in mind.
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Welcome! I’m Megan.

My kids like to whine, especially when it comes to the food they eat, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to make tasty and healthy meals for them. Follow along as I share family-friendly recipes and reviews from my picky family members, who I lovingly call “The Whine Critics.” Read More…

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