Sunday Savings Tip: Crockpot "Rotisserie" Chicken

I love the ease and convenience of the supermarket rotisserie chicken. With no effort at all, you can bring home a great roasted whole chicken for about $5-6.00. However, it is much cheaper to buy a whole chicken and do it yourself. Not to mention when you do it yourself, you know exactly what is going into your family's food! I, personally don't have a rotisserie but I discovered that roasting it in your crockpot will give you a similarly tender result with about the same amount of effort as buying a pre-cooked one!

Okay, this "recipe" is so easy its almost embarrassing! I had specifically asked for a larger, oval crockpot for my birthday over 2 years ago for the sole purpose of being able to cook whole chickens in it (well that and larger pot roasts). And yet, embarrassingly enough, yesterday was the first day I ever did it. The results were nothing less than spectacular. I can't believe it took me so long to get around to it. Soooooooo easy!! Soooooooooo tasty!! Soooooooo little effort!!

I had the opportunity to pick up some nice pasture raised whole chickens at a good price. As I am new to this whole pastured meat thing, I had heard that sometimes the meat can be a little bit tougher (since the chickens actually run around and stuff). And as a result, they really benefit from low & slow, moist cooking. I gave a new spice rub a try-- #33671 from www.food.com. I only made a half batch but the skin portions still ended up being a little strong on the paprika for me. I think next time I'll just stick to my preferred lemon pepper/garlic salt combo.

I spiced up the chicken, popped it into the pot, put on the lid and set the temp to low. I let it cook for approximately 6 hours. I checked the temp in a few places and it was completely cooked through. I wanted to take a nice "after" picture with the roasted chicken on a plate but the whole thing was so tender that both wings and one whole leg & thigh fell off when I was taking it out of the crock pot. The whole chicken was super tender and moist. And, there was tons of concentrated chicken stock at the bottom of the pot.

We ate all that we wanted the first night and made burritos out of the leftovers the second. This still leaves a chicken quarter for Hubby to take to work for lunch! Yay whole chickens!!

Do you have any "its so easy I can't believe I didn't know about that" type tips?? Comment below!

Click the like button below to follow us on Facebook!