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As the weather turns colder, many of us feel the urge to make comfort food: those reliable old favorites that take us back to childhood. Like chicken and rice, a classic family dinner. It’s a warming, delicious, utterly cozy meal. And it’s the perfect kind of dish to make in a slow cooker. So, we rounded up our five favorite crock pot chicken and rice recipes to share with you.
With the help of a slow cooker, you can let a batch simmer while you run Sunday errands and end up with a week’s worth of dinners ready to go. Or simply throw the ingredients into your crock pot before leaving for work, and arrive home to the enticing aroma of chicken and rice waiting for you to dig in.
There are certain things you can expect from a chicken and rice crock pot recipe. You want juicy chicken, tender vegetables, and fluffy, perfectly-cooked rice. But within those parameters, there’s more room for creativity than you might realize. Let these five recipes inspire you.
This classic chicken and rice crock pot recipe comes from Erin Clarke, who uses minimally-processed ingredients to create wholesome, budget-friendly recipes that taste incredible and shares them on her blog, Well Plated.
She calls her easy slow cooker chicken and rice recipe “the minivan of healthy slow cooker recipes. It’s not flashy. It’s not exotic. Strangers will not stop to take photos standing in front of it. On a Monday night (actually on just about any night), however, you can forget the Ferrari. Give me the reliable. Give me the practical. Give me the Crock Pot Chicken and Rice!”
Mild enough to appeal to kids with finicky food habits, yet flavorful enough to satisfy an adult palate, her hearty recipe is rich in fiber and protein, tastes just as delectable the day after you make it, and freezes well. Plus, Clarke includes a number of helpful tips with her recipe, like her advice to always use long grain brown rice, which is not only healthier than white but also can be cooked alongside the other ingredients without turning mushy.
Get the recipe here.
Lindsay, a former 4th grade teacher turned full-time blogger, posts her recipes on her blog Pinch of Yum because she wants to share yummy, approachable, healthy dishes with other people who love food as much as she does.
She’s always adored chicken and wild rice soup—“I’m from Minnesota, the homeland of things like creamy delicious Wild Rice Soup,” she writes—which inspired her to create a slow cooker version of her beloved recipe. The result? A delicious and satisfying dinner that’s “so darn easy to make.”
She suggests enjoying the extra time you’ll have on your hands while your crock pot chicken and rice soup cooks, then serving it piping hot with some crusty bread. You can even follow along with her helpful recipe video!
Get the recipe here.
This creamy chicken and rice crock pot recipe is easy to prep and brimming over with flavor. According to its creator, Chelsea, who shares the easy, nutritious, and tasty recipes on her blog, Chelsea’s Messy Apron, this recipe is basically chicken and wild rice soup in casserole form. “How do you do comfort food better than that?” she writes. “It’s the perfect cold weather meal!”
To keep the hands-on time for this recipe even shorter, Chelsea notes that you can use pre-chopped veggies. “There is usually a carrot-onion-celery mixture, which is exactly what you need in this casserole.” If you have a little bit of time, she suggests chopping up a sweet potato too.
The slow-cooking process essentially transforms the rice into a rich risotto that’s “ultra soft and melds perfectly with the cream addition.” Depending on the crock pot you use, Chelsea notes that cooking time can range between 2 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours. “ You’ll know it’s done when most of the liquid has been absorbed and the chicken shreds easily,” she explains.
Get the recipe here.
Brandi Crawford, a self-taught cook and fitness enthusiast living in Kansas CIty, Missouri, gave her healthy crock pot chicken and rice a beautiful Southwestern twist. Crawford shares the quick, easy recipes for healthy food she relies on, plus a few more indulgent ones, on her blog Stay Snatched.
With her slow-cooker chicken and rice recipe, she mixes up the traditional formula by using veggies like bell peppers, black beans, and corn as well as spices such as cumin, paprika, and chili powder. Plus she uses zesty tomato sauce to tie it all together.
She says her recipe is “the perfect cure for a busy lifestyle.” Always in a hurry and pressed for time as she accomplishes the many items on her to-do list, she relies on slow-cooker recipes to make healthy cooking fit into her schedule. “It is so simple to just pile ingredients in a pot, set the timer, and come back later when you have time,” she writes. To save time on clean up, Crawford recommends using a slow-cooker liner.
Get the recipe here.
Cookbook author and food blogger Tieghan Gerard shares her healthful, whole-food recipes on her blog Half-Baked Harvest. Since chicken and rice is one of her ultimate comfort foods, she enjoys finding new ways to serve it. Her slow-cooker Herbed Chicken and Rice Pilaf requires a bit more effort than the rest of the recipes on the list, but the end result is a delectable meal that looks attractive enough to serve at a dinner party.
To infuse the chicken with slow-roasted flavor, Gerard seasons it with fresh thyme and sage, then sears it in a screaming hot cast iron skillet before combining it with the rest of the ingredients in the slow cooker. “Yes, I am telling you to take the extra effort to dirty a skillet,” she writes. “Trust me, I wouldn’t tell you to do this if I didn’t think it was needed. But searing the chicken locks in so much flavor.”
Her carefully-crafted crock pot chicken and rice pilaf recipe results in a flavorful dinner that makes your whole house smell incredible as it cooks.
Get the recipe here.
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