I have a confession – I used to be afraid of whole chickens…..whole dead chickens. Well, I guess I might be afraid of a live chicken too if it was to run after me, trying to peck me to death.
I mean, in the packaging it looks so…..chickenish. It really looks like a chicken. I mean, there are legs and wings and body parts. When I open a pack of steak, it doesn’t look like a cow. With the chicken, I feel like I need to apologize while I’m fixing it. Sorry bird, but you are quite tasty. Not to mention I have this weirdness about meat on the bone that I’m trying to overcome.
So, I set out to teach myself to cook a whole chicken in the crock pot. I read tons of recipes, and this method suited me the best. And guess what? It’s EASY! I love it! The meat is so tender and it just falls off the bone. This is my method for cooking chicken forever! This particular chicken is from Earth Fare.
After watching Food, Inc I can’t buy any more Tyson chicken. This chicken was $10, but let me tell you…..it was GOOD. Totally worth the $10 and knowing it came from an okay source – and plus, I got 3+ meals out of this 3 pound bird. It did not die in vain…..it died somewhere, but not in vain.
Okay, take that bird out of the packaging and give it a bath in your clean sink. Try not to look directly at the bird…..or just think about how nice it will look on your plate with some mashed potatoes or rice.
Dry him off. Isn’t that weird to say? *Shiver* I used to tell people I kept paper towels only for cleaning up grease and dog puke…..but now I’ll have to add that I also keep it to dry my chicken off after its bath.
Now, freak out because you just washed a chicken in your clean sink. Get the heebie jeebies, and then break out your peroxide to disinfect everything.
Time to make a rub mixture! I love rubs. I once saw an advertisement that said “Everything’s better with a little butt rub.” Don’t wig out, it was an ad for spicy rub for roasts. You need onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, black pepper, and sea salt. Or not. You can use a rub you already have, or make your own. I’m not particular…..okay, so I am particular.
Rub the mixture all over the chicken. Don’t take the skin off. It helps hold in the yumminess. If you don’t want to eat the skin later, you can just peel it off when the chicken is done. Coat the bottom too. Leave no breast behind! Ha, ha! Okay, that was funny. Breast? Behind? Okay, this post is really going to the dogs.
Break out some foil/parchment paper and make two small balls out of it for the chicken to sit on top of in the crock pot. Sorta flatten the balls out a bit. Pour some water down in the bottom of the crock pot for steam….don’t cover the foil balls. I think I had about ½ inch of water in total.
Pick your chicken up and let it rest on top of the foil balls. Now, wash your hands and counter like a maniac.
Put on the lid and cook on high for 2 hours. Set a timer. I’m always setting timers and making notes.
After two hours, turn it to low and cook for another 5 hours. AHHH!!! The wing is starting to separate! And your kitchen is starting to smell delicious….sorta makes up for the whole chicken weirdness.
Get your thermometer and test to make sure it’s done. It should read 160 degrees….mine was WAY hotter than that. You have a thermometer right? If not, stop right now and go get one. Thank you.
Ta da! I baked a whole chicken! I am woman, hear me ROAR! Or cluck maybe – cluck seems to fit better in this situation.
Slice it up and serve it for dinner. I had breast and Barry had legs…..again, that sounds SO WEIRD. Annie just had little bits of chicken that I chopped up. So, we ate this meal and I had 4 cups of chicken left (that will make two meals) and bones for stock.
Come back tomorrow and we’ll use the chopped chicken in a recipe. Then after that I’ll show you how to make chicken stock. Make sure you don’t throw ANY of your chicken away…..even the innards that were in the middle.
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Crock Pot Whole Baked Chicken
- 1 whole chicken (2-4 pounds)
- 2 teaspoons sea salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- Wad up two pieces of foil or parchment paper, and make them flat on top.
- Place in 5 quart or larger crock pot and pour ½ inch of water in the bottom.
- Rinse and dry the whole chicken. Clean kitchen with peroxide.
- In a small bowl, combine the spices.
- Rub into the chicken.
- Place chicken on top of foil balls.
- Cook on high for 2 hours.
- After 2 hours, switch to low and cook for 5 hours. Test for 160 degrees on a thermometer.
Eat for one meal, then pick the chicken from the bones. Save all the fat, bones, innards, and skin for chicken stock.
Help can I just do low for 7 hours instead of 2 high 5 low just because I’m not home to switch it over
Oooh, I like this idea. I love my crockpot (we call it a slow cooker here), but had not thought of cooking a whole chicken in it. I imagine it as tender as a chicken gets cooked this way. I’ll have to give it a go 🙂
I was just talking about this last night with my husband. It’s funny I always call it a Crock Pot…I guess it’s like how some people always call it Kleenex even though it’s tissue. 🙂
Is this for a frozen chicken?
No, I always cook it thawed.
Just put this in the crock pot for Valentine’s dinner today – can’t wait to try it!
Hope you liked it!
Just wondering if I can skip cooking it on high for two hours and instead let this chicken cook for 7-8 hours on low? I’m wanting to utilize my crockpot more because I’m a single, working mom and am trying to find ways to prepare healthy dinners that we can eat right away when I get home. Thanks!
Yes, that should work okay. 🙂
OMG, this post was a riot! A woman at the farmers market yesterday convinced me to buy a whole chicken because they are easy to cook in a crockpot.. So now I’ve been googling and I love your post!
So.. Do they all have their innards still in them? I just cook it with those in there and deal with it later?
You can do either. I have done both – these days I try to dig them out before cooking if I can bear it. LOL Lots of people like to cook them and then use them to make chicken broth.
My goodness, I love reading your posts! You had me laughing out loud at my desk at work with your apologizing to the chicken (maybe because I’ve felt the same way too!) and I love the Christ-like attitude you have that shines through. I’m definitely giving this recipe a try because it looks a lot better than attempts I’ve tried.
I hope it works for you!
This is going to sound crazy…but how do you cut up a whole chicken? That’s the part that scares me the most! I’ve only gotten a whole chicken once and felt like I ended up throwing a lot of it away because I didn’t know how to cut it up correctly. Also, when I had to pull out the innards, I almost threw up. Yeah.
I don’t cut it apart to cook it like this. But I’ve watched several videos online about how to do so. 🙂
No, I meant, how do you cut it up after it’s cooked (I know, it’s ridiculous that I don’t know this already!).
Well, I just use a knife to slice off some of the breast and we eat that for dinner. Then I just pick the rest of the meat off the bones with my fingers after it cools down. 🙂
Stacy, I think I just fell in love with you!!! Don’t get crazy. If you can talk breasts and butts , I can say” love”! lol. On a serious note, I have a daughter who is developmentally disabled and legally blind from eye cancer in infancy. She is now 27 years old and we are trying to expand her cooking talents beyond microwaved chicken nuggets. She is afraid to use the oven or stove top. She loves chicken and THIS IS PERFECT!!!! You have no idea how this recipe will boost her self esteem because this is a recipe she CAN MAKE HERSELF! I’ll show her the first few times and by next month she will be making me dinner. Thank you for this. I just found this…I actually dont know how I got to your page! But I need to live on one check , which arrives in the beginning of the month. Sometimes there is too much month at the end of the money. I think I am going to enjoy exploring your site very much! {{{hugs}}}, Sue
🙂 You totally made my day. Please holler if we can help with anything.
Thanks!!!
Stacy, the chicken has been rubbed ! She washed the carrots and potatoes. Put them on the bottom…popped in the whole chicken and put on the lid!!! She left for her theraputic riding lesson and I’m off to get the car inspected at no cost to me (!) ( using Pep Boy Rewards points) .: Will let you know how it all turns out.
Awesome!!! Thanks for keeping me in the loop!
Stacy, the meal was delicious. She enjoyed seeing the end result of her effort. I had to leave the pot on when I left, so just to be sure nothing would burn I added about 2 ounces of water to it. The broth left after removing the food was phenomenal! I froze it to use for soup. The chicken literally fell apart when I took it out, so next time I am going to put a basket/steamer strainer type item under the chicken. Then she can just lift the bird in basket out of the crock pot when it’s done and not need to fish around trying to find pieces. The potatoes and carrots held up remarkably well despite the breakdown of the chicken. Thank you again!
It makes some of the most moist chicken EVER! 🙂
Just a heads up on chicken–Sam’s Club carries whole organic chickens for only $1.49 a pound!! I was stoked when I saw them!
I stopped by to see this recipe from you MPM post. I am going to try it this week. Thanks
Thank you for sharing this recipe! I’m going to try it this week. I love how you narrated it. I was amused while reading.
🙂 That’s how I roll.
Could you put a small bowl in the bottom of the crock, instead of foil? Ceramic or glass that won’t leach and can go in the dishwasher after seems as is it would be safe.
My chickens are usually too large for that. I use parchment paper now.
Tried this meal and we loved it. I placed Potatoes at the bottom of thru crock pot toehold the chicken. We has the rest tonight for dinner. I was hoping to get three meals, but my daughter loved it so much she said she had it as a midnight snack last night. Teenagers. Thanks, can’t wait to try more of your meals.
I always cook my chickens breast side down. The chicken breast comes out moister. I also give my chicken a little massage with olive oil or real butter before I season it. This also helps to lock the moisture in. I would not however use tin foil down in the food, (only ever using it for a cover). Your food will absorb a little of the aluminum and aluminum is not healthy for the body. It may be a minute quantity here, but cooking with aluminum all the time adds up.
That’s a good tip! Thanks!
http://www.drexel.edu/dontwashyourchicken/
Interesting info on not washing the chicken.
I was going to mention how much more unsanitary it is to wash poultry before cooking. Thank you from saving me the trouble of finding a link.
Hi Stacy! I made this last night and it was GLORIOUS! I posted your recipe on Facebook and used pics I took during the process (I made old-school chicken gravy in the crockpot after resting the chicken). Thanks so much for the recipe, I shall sign up for all your updates starting…now! 🙂
Used beer instead of water and carrots instead of foil! 7lb bird on low for 8hrs and high for 1hour!! Turned out perfect!! Have all the bones and skin simmering in beer and vinegar and water and spices! Can’t wait to see how it turns out! Thanks for the ideas! Great site!
Thanks a bunch!
I just ran across this post while searching for a way to cook a whole chicken. I’m so glad to find someone else that gets a bit squeamish with this! (I ordered a whole pasture-raised chicken from a local farmer, which I feel better about. However, it’s still an animal and I have a hard time with the idea of dismantling it.) I love your writing style and humor, along with the great tutorial. I look forward to perusing more of your posts. Thanks for this!
🙂 Nice to meet you! Holler any time.
I hope this recipe works great for ya! It’s my favorite way to cook them. 🙂
Hey Stacy, Thank you for this post. I usually use just chicken breasts, but sometimes you just gotta have a whole chicken. I don’t so much mind handling them. I won’t go into details, but lets just say it involved over a hundred pullet sized chickens, a pregnant woman and a hot summer day that turned into some of the best chicken this girl has ever eaten.
Anyhow, after having not cooked for awhile and just finding reason to cook again (a new man will do it every time) I know I’m gonna be trying this recipe soon in my new fancy slow cooker. I always look at those rotisserie chickens and think how yummy. But, I’m a little more afraid of those that’ve been hanging out under that light all day than the ones in the freezer case. Jus’ Sayin’. Thanks for the post and keep bloggin’ <3
I read on another blog that they did an experiment with whole chicken, bone-in pieces of chicken, and boneless/skinless chicken and found that you get the same amount of meat for the price without all the work if you use the boneless/skinless pieces. I’d love to see you do this experiment too, and see how the results come out.
Hmmmm. I’ll do some thinking on that. 🙂
And for the record, I buy both….because I like both. LOL
LOL This made me laugh…because we don’t use foil any more. I just never updated the post to say we use parchment paper now. 🙂 I’ll do that now. Thanks!
This is great but don’t put foil in with your food! OMG NO! Aluminum is not a good thing to leach into your food. I too make this often but don’t add any liquid. I do put mushrooms and onions at the bottom and set the bird on top of those. The chicken and the veggies give off plenty of liquid. The other thing that is great with this dish is that any leftover skin, meat and the bones go back into the pot, get covered with water and a few Tbsp of vinegar. Leave that on low to simmer for 24 hours and you then have THE BEST broth ever!
Oh wow! This sounds so good! I’ve never thought of putting the chicken on top of foil like that inside the crockpot! How ingenious! Usually whenever I put a chicken in the crock it sits in the juices all day and just falls apart, its still crazy delicious but it just never looks like that! Love the color on that chicken…. I’m going to try this over the weekend!!!!
Good luck! 🙂 This is the easiest way EVER to make it!
This is EXACTLY what I needed! I have been wanting to cook a whole chicken, but I was more afraid of wasting a whole chicken by screwing up or giving my family samonella poisoning…I LOVE your step by step instructions!
Yeah – I was scared too…but now I make these all the time! So easy!
Butt Rub is actually an amazing mixture! We use it to season hamburgers and steaks for the grill. I’d never heard of or seen it until I moved to Texas, but I’m sure it’s out there!
I need to get me some of that butt rub.
Ill try this, I do this a lot but I throw the skin away afterwards because its gooey and chewy, yuck, but Ive never tried to cook it on high at first as suggested here. I use potatoes to hold the chicken up out of the drippin’s, take them out and dry them and you have roast chicken and roasted potatos, yum. I adore your blog.
Yum! I bet sweet potatoes would be kickin!
This is what we’re having for dinner tonight! First time I’ve ever cooked a whole chicken (besides boiling for casseroles). Can’t wait to taste! Thanks for the recipe!
Cooking it in the crock is SO easy! 🙂 It’s how I first started cooking whole chickens, as you read….but they still sorta freak me out. Ha!
Thanks for the recipe! My husband loved it!
Great! I need to make it again soon to stock my freezer with cooked chicken.
The chickens innards are not “sweet meat”. Sweet meat is the fat from the animal. I know this b’c I learnt at a very young age to LOVE the “Sweet meat”. My Grandpa DeWITT taught me. 🙂 The innards are just that, the gizzard, liver and heart. You can cook a bird with the innards still in there. When it is done and you clean up you can discard them IF YOU MUST. I WILL NOT LOOK! OMG, Did she throw out that GOOD MEAT? lol
🙂 Nah, I don’t throw it away…I give it to my Daddy.
Does cooking with the foil on the bottom prevent it from getting greasy? I slowcooked a whole chicken a month ago and it was so greasy it was almost gross. I didn’t add any water, just let it cook in its own juices, but the skin just made it so greasy.
It does help a bit…it keeps it elevated out of the juice. 🙂
You might just try skinning the chicken also as that will also eliminate alot of the chicken fat from the slowcooker. Makes for a leaner meal.
Sounds delicious!! I’m not a fan of messing with whole chickens either. My grandmas would be highly disappointed in me as a farm girl. And I am kind of a white meat snob…I just like it better, but my hubby prefers dark meat, so that works out nicely. 🙂 Your posts crack me up and keep my laughing, all while educating me. You are one smart gal. 🙂
It just feels weird messing with something that is so….naked.
Looks good, Stacy! 🙂 I’ve been doing something similar for a while and it’s my “go to” for a whole chicken. I want SIMPLE and the least amount of mess possible! I don’t bother with any water in the pot, foil balls or cooking for 7 hrs. 😉 My chicken always turns out moist and fall off the bone tender (sometimes almost too tender) even without the water!
I large chop some carrots, onions and celery into the dry pot(pretty much whatever I’d normally put into my stock). I make up my rub ahead of time and put it into a small bowl next to the crock pot so I don’t have to touch anything else once I start handling the chicken. I use whatever spices sound good (I love sage, marjoram, garlic, paprika and sea salt). Then I rinse out the chicken, empty out the giblets and toss them into the crock pot (I don’t really have an issue with handling the chicken;)), drip-drain the bird into the sink, then transfer it into the pot. The crock pot now becomes my work space.
Using my bowl of spices, I rub the bird down all over, inside (I always use a defrosted and empty chicken), and sometimes under the breast skin. I then turn the bird BREAST SIDE DOWN on top of the veggies, turn the crock pot on “high” for 3 hrs (for a 3-4 lb bird), cover and let it cook. It always turns out wonderfully moist and tender, with lots of concentrated stock in the bottom of the crock (I use pastured/organic chicken so I know there’s no artificial moisture added). I’ve learned that I can tell when the bird’s done by whether there’s any broth in the bottom of the pot, as well as seeing if the leg moves in the socket. (I don’t bother with a thermometer). I have to add: I live at over 6000 ft altitude, so this may make a difference in the cook time.
An added note: absolutely no reason to use a separate pot to make stock (or waste what’s in there already). When the chicken’s done, I pull it and any of the veggies I’m going to eat out of the pot. I de-bone the chicken right then, keeping the large pieces like breasts, thighs, legs, etc. intact (without their bones and connective tissue), picking the rest of the carcass clean, and put everything I’m not going to eat back into the crock pot. Any meat I don’t use for that meal I refrig for later use. Then I fill the crock pot with water, turn the thing on low and just let it go for another 12-24 hrs. Voila! wonderful chicken stock, only one dirty pot. 🙂
Thanks for sharing! I’ve never made my stock in the crock pot…for some reason, I just like making it in my stock pot. I have several friends who make it that way though. 🙂
i have always made my stock in my crock pot. I love that i can prep it in the afternoon and then turn it on when we go to bed. It drives my husband crazy though when he gets up in the morning to smell chicken stock. He wants dinner now instead if breakfast. When it cools down a bit, i can put the whole insert into the fridge to finish cooling and get it out of my way. I also keep all my bones from when i get a cooked chicken at costco in a container in the freezer so i have a good amount for stock. i also keep all my washed vegtable trimmings in the freezer so i dont have to buy veggies for stock. mushroom stems, carrots, celery, just not cauliflower and broccali.
I have a chicken in the freezer who has volunteered for this recipe.
I really like chicken, always been a breast man myself …..
Thank you for your ideas.
I love chicken volunteers!
Well it turned out I had a spice rack that was uncooperative.
Salt
Pepper
Mrs Dash (not too much)
Garlic Salt (You are only as Italian as you wanna be)
and …
wait for it….
Pure Cane Sugar (a little less than not much)
It is like Popcorn and Junior Mints at the movies. A tangy taste with a hint of sweet.
I have another volunteer and some BBQ sauce …
Thank you again for the idea to use the Crock Pot.
BBQ sauce makes everything better!
I love this recipe! I like to add carrots, mushrooms, garlic and onions underneath the chicken. Last time I used Cajun seasoning and that was lovely on the chicken. Love your description too – I always think whole chickens look like little babies (eek) and I hate the freaky flap thing at the neck and the way the skin kind of moves over the bones. Lol.
*Shiver* Great idea on the Cajun seasoning! We love that stuff.
Nice but there’s no need to add water. The chicken has enough internal moisture to cook.
Also, I agree about the bed of vegetables, instead of foil. Carrots, celery and onion plus some garlic.
Next time, try chicken legs (or just thighs or drumsticks). Dark meat does better in crock pots than breast meat.
Cheers!
I fix this a lot and we just love it! I don’t care for chicken legs, so I have to fix the whole chicken or I feed the family and stay hungry. LOL I love the added extra moisture that the water in the bottom adds….I hate tough chicken. 🙂
I need to try the vegetables, but haven’t yet.
I can’t believe I never tried this until I read your post today. The Cornish game hens in the freezer needed cooking and I needed an idea for a dinner that would cook itself while I take care of my sick kids and hubby. As always, the bird was frozen solid when I started. Normally, I’d stick the whole thing in the oven and wait 3 hours, but heating the oven and entire kitchen all day for dinner is far from frugal. The crock pot worked wonders! There were three minor changes I made to cook from frozen–first I did wash the little bird and melt the outer ice off before powdering with various spices; second, I heated the crock pot prior to putting anything in; and third, I started with boiling water in the heated pot to get the steam going right away. Great stuff! Thanks for being there.
Well, I”m so glad it worked out! Do you know I’ve never had a Cornish game hen?
YOU MUST try Cornish hens…..they are absolutely lovely….I’ll keep an eye out for some and do them this way, but today, this is how I am cooking the chicken.
I’ve been watching for those – haven’t seen a good deal yet, but I have my eyes peeled! 🙂
I just did this last night, and the chicken turned out great! One concern, though: As I was drifting off to sleep, while the chicken cooked overnight, I thought about the foil, and the likelihood that aluminum was leaching into the water. The plan was to do the follow-up making of stock with the bones and such, and while I’m still going to do that, I don’t feel comfortable using the liquid from the bottom of the crockpot – the stuff that marinated in the aluminum all night. I’ll be discarding it, sadly, and just using the bones and skin that wasn’t right in the water.
Anyway, LOVE the recipe, and will be doing this again, for sure! Next time, I’ll use a rack, instead of foil balls, and would humbly suggest that others consider something similar, or just using vegetables to raise the chicken, like Jenny suggests.
Thank you!
Darby 🙂
Good tip on the vegetables. 🙂 We’re trying to cut down on our aluminum foil usage too, but I still do use it now and then.
I used a sweet potato. Sliced it about 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick 4 slices out of 1 potato. It cooked along with the chicken and my hubby ate those slices ASAP. Just another idea for the people who don’t want to use the aluminum balls.
Genius!!!
From books I’ve read written by nutritionists comes this information. American diets are usually excessively high in phosphorus. Aluminum cookware may leach into the food it cooks but that aluminum binds with phosphorus and is expelled harmlessly from the body. Suggestion for a homemade rack that will exactly fit your crockpot: Tie canning jar rings together with twine.
I know this post is a little older, but I seem to have missed it.
I have one question, what about the inards? This is the one thing that keeps me from cooking whole chickens. There is no way that I will stick my hand up a chicken’s butt to find it’s “sweet meat.”
Gross.
Yeah….it grosses me out too – the whole naked chicken thing. Anyway, I just cook it with those in there. They’re easier to deal with when they’re not raw. Then I just throw them into my pot to simmer with my bones to make stock. 🙂 No eating required.
Instead of the foil balls, you can throw some veggies down there to keep the meat off the bottom. They get really tasty when cooked in the meat juices. Carrots and celery are my favorite for this, and I always eat them while taking the chicken out, rather than saving them to go with dinner. They do get kind of mushy, but I like them that way.
I love chicken this way. I’ve never got the skin very crispy but the meat is tasty and moist. Taste just as good as the rotisserie chickens from the store (that they charge $5 or more for them). Cooking them yourself you know what ingredients are used and you can adjust the seasonings to your own and your family’s taste. Which reminds me, I have a bird in the freezer yelling out to me… “Cook me, cook me!!” LOL.
I love how your cooked chicken looks! I have never done the foil balls, but I am going to have to try that now. =D What a great tip!
http://livingsoabundantly.blogspot.com/p/give-back-thursday.html
Thanks! 🙂 I think your Tuesday Tips are great too! Your tip for separating treats is great. I usually recycle the bags out of cereal boxes for that. They work great.
Ha I may have to try this… I too find whole chickens completely terrifying. I’m honestly not even sure where to find them in the store.