Easy Crockpot Jamaican Chicken

Once in a while, your spouse is willing to cook dinner and give you a break. If you're the spouse who usually cooks (and if you have half a brain), you're grateful to get a day off from cooking.

Now, if your spouse is smart, he or she will find a hilariously easy recipe, make it, and then bask in quantities of credit and gratitude far beyond the actual effort involved.

I've been doing this for years, and Laura never caught on until recently. Now, however, she's started playing my game, and she's finding hilariously easy recipes herself--and even developing a knack for modifying them to make them still easier. Now she's the one basking in glory and gratitude for days after every easy meal. Very, very smart.

Today's post is one of her latest successes, and it's laughably easy, healthy, cheap and delicious. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Easy Slow Cooker Jamaican Chicken
[Modified and simplified from The Food Network]

Ingredients:
1 medium-large onion, sliced into coarse slivers
2-3 carrots, chopped
2-3 stalks of celery, chopped
4 lbs bone-in chicken thighs, skin removed (about 6-7 thighs)
Salt and black pepper, to taste

1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
Juice of 3 limes (about 1/4 cup)
1 Tablespoon chipotle chiles, finely chopped
1 Tablespoon adobo sauce (from the chipotle chiles, see notes below)
3 cloves garlic, finely minced or pressed

Directions:
1) Place onions, celery, carrots in base of slow cooker, then place skinless chicken thighs over vegetables. Season to taste with black pepper and/or salt.

2) In a separate bowl, combine tomato sauce, lime juice, chiles, adobo sauce and garlic. Pour mixture over chicken.

3) Cover and cook in crockpot/slow-cooker on high for 3 hours, then reduce to low setting and cook for 1 additional hour. Serve with rice, brown rice, or a side of rice and beans. Optional: top with diced avocado.

Serves 5-6
*****************************
Recipe Notes:
1) Like most crockpot/slow cooker recipes, this dish involves little more than doing some prep and putting all the ingredients in the crockpot. Then... just wait.

2) Chipotle chiles: we just buy the small cans of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce made by Goya--you can find them in the Latin aisle in any standard grocery store. Also, note: you can easily freeze the remainder: just putting the opened can into a ziploc bag and store it in your freezer for the next time you make a batch of Smoky Brazilian Black Bean Soup or Chipotle Crockpot Chili!

3) Finally on the meat: I recommend using chicken thighs--and only thighs--for this recipe. The higher fat content of thigh meat is critical to keep the chicken moist. As a general rule, chicken breasts tend to dry out and cook quite poorly in crockpot recipes.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.