I was doing a little Pinterest perusing. I came across this recipe, which looked so delicious. Upon examining the recipe, it seemed super easy! Thanks to My Chocolate Therapy for posting this yummy Crockpot Chicken Tacos recipe. Of course, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t tweak the recipe at least a little bit. I’m sure My Chocolate Therapy’s 3-ingredient version is delicious as well. I have to say, this chicken crockpot taco dish was outstanding! Honestly, Ryan took one bite and ran upstairs to kiss me!
Crockpot Chicken Tacos
Chicken – raw & thawed (I used 3 very large chicken breasts, probably about a pound)
2 envelopes of taco seasoning (double check the ingredients to make sure it’s GF. I used one regular and one spicy taco seasoning packets)
2 cups of salsa (whatever you like, I used Pace’s Medium Salsa)
1 bag of frozen corn
1 small can of diced green chilies
1 can (drained) black beans
Pour the salsa and taco seasoning into the crockpot, stir to combine. Add in chicken breasts (I spooned some of the sauce ontop of the chicken). Top with corn and green chilies. Stir to mix everything together. (Don’t worry, I didn’t forget the black beans, they’re coming). I am not a morning person at all. That’s why I prepped this whole meal the night before. The beans are still to come. My chicken breasts were actually still semi-frozen. I put the whole crock-pot bowl back into the fridge. I figured this still gave the chicken plenty of time to marinate in the sauce.
So, like I said, I’m SOOO NOT a morning person. I got up for work the next day. I remembered to plug the crockpot in. Unfortunately, I forgot everything else in the fridge. Yikes! So, I had to run home over lunch to put dinner on. Luckily, 4 hours on HIGH was perfect for cooking the chicken to tender deliciousness. According to Chocolate Therapy, you can cook on low for 6-8 hours. This is where the new-fangled crockpots come in handy. You can set the crockpot to cook for a certain number of hours. Then it switches to WARM automatically. Genius!
Ok, 4 hours after my mid-day dash home to start dinner, the crockpot automatically switched to WARM. It stayed that way until I arrived back home. The aroma in the house was intoxicating. I love food, but I was REALLY excited to EAT dinner that night. Yum! I got out a cutting board and two forks. I planned to shred the chicken with them. When I speared the first chicken breast, it melted into stringy pulled-chicken goodness. I literally shredded the chicken in the crock pot with the rest of the ingredients. Super easy, I practically stirred the chicken into shreds. I drained the black beans, gave them a quick rinse and threw them into the crockpot, while still on WARM. After about 10 minutes, dinner was ready.
I warmed a couple of corn tortillas in the microwave for 10 seconds. Then, I layered cheddar cheese and the chicken taco mixture on top. I recommend letting some of the juiciness run off before adding the chicken mixture to the taco. The mixture was a little soupy. The flavor dimension was fantastic. I ended up eating my taco with a fork, though, as it was a bit messy.
I think you could reduce the amount of salsa in the recipe. This would help with the juice-factor. Alternatively, you could serve it using a slotted spoon. I’m also curious about adding in some chicken stock and making this into tortilla soup.
I’m a big fan of bringing left-overs for lunch. Even before going gluten free, I’m not a huge cold sandwich for lunch kinda girl. But, since becoming gluten free, I find that quick, easy, and nutritious lunches are that much harder to figure out. The chicken tacos made an excellent lunch served over rice.