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crock pot rotisserie style chicken (gf, df, Paleo, Whole30)

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Crock Pot Rotisserie Chicken // One Lovely Life
I know I’m not the only person who feels the time crunch around Christmas. One of the easiest things it to do on a busy night is pick up a rotisserie chicken from the market to use for a meal. While I’m totally not opposed to doing this in a pinch, Michael and I are trying to eat higher-quality meat less often. I’ve really wanted to master preparing a whole chicken, since it’s often the most economical choice for free-range organic chicken. They went on sale last week, and I bought one, not quite sure just how I’d prepare it.

After reading about a method for preparing a rotisserie-style chicken in a crock pot, I knew EXACTLY how I’d prepare it. What I ended up with was a tender, juicy chicken even better than what I can pick up from the grocery store.


Crock Pot Rotisserie Chicken // One Lovely Life
Roasting a whole chicken is usually a pretty scary thing for me–I’m never quite sure if I’ll over- or under cook it and never want to ruin a whole chicken. Cooking it in the crock pot eliminated the guess work and produced a tender, juicy chicken with only about 5 minutes of actual hands-on work. No trussing, no thermometer needed, no joke.

It couldn’t be easier–chop some onion and celery, rub a spice mix on the chicken, and cook it on high about 6 hours. It will be so tender it will practically fall apart as you lift it out of the crock pot. (You can see that’s what happened with mine above)

We ate it for dinner one night and used the leftovers in other meals. It’s DEFINITELY something I’ll be doing again and again. A super economical and easy method you’ll definitely want in your arsenal.

Crock Pot Rotisserie Chicken // One Lovely Life

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Crock Pot Rotisserie-Style Chicken


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5 from 1 review

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 (3.5-4.5lb) chicken
  • 2 stalks celery, cut into 2” pieces
  • 1 onion, cut into 12” pieces
  • 2 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder

Instructions

  1. Place onion and celery on the bottom of your slow cooker. Remove and discard any giblets or neck from your chicken. In a small bowl, combine salt, paprika, pepper, thyme, and garlic powder. Rub spice mixture over chicken. Place chicken on top of the onion and celery.
  2. Cover and cook chicken on high 5-6 hours or until very tender.

Notes

*You can prepare the chicken the night before and store it in the refrigerator. Then, all you need to do is turn on the slow-cooker the next day.

Method adapted from Dinner or Dessert

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17 Comments

  1. I will definitely be trying this — especially after poisoning you last year with a store-bought roasted chicken, and recently totally ruining a favorite soup recipe with a waaaaaay over salted Costco roasted chicken. It’s absolutely time to cook my own now that I know how to!

    THANK YOU!

  2. Mmmm…crock pot whole chicken is one of our favorite meals. Ever. But we do the unhealthier version where we dump a can of mushroom soup in, and sprinkle it with onion soup mix. Then serve the chicken (and resulting gravy-esque juices) over rice. It is delicious. And so simple, I even made it as a college student quite often. Perfect for those all-day class days. I am trying your recipe just as soon as we finish up all the turkey in our fridge…

  3. That is one of my favorites! There’s a nicely flavorful rub on a recipe from allrecipes.com–I think it’s called rotisserie sticky chicken or something like that. It’s one of our faves!

  4. I make this a lot and don’tpout anything in the crock pot but the chicken and it still comes out great! One hint is to put the chicken in breast side down – it comes out even jucier if that is possible!!

  5. I have made the crockpot sticky chicken before, but I always end up with at least an inch of fat in the bottom of the crockpot, so the chicken is sitting in the grease. I’ve tried trimming off the large pieces of skin, but I still end up with a lot of grease. Do you have any suggestions for how to stop this? I usually leave the chicken in the crock pot for about 10 hours while I’m at work.

    1. Elizabeth, that is definitely one problem with roasting a chicken with the skin on. I found that by putting my chicken on the bed of vegetables, it helped lift it out of most of the drippings. Part of the chicken was still in the drippings, but it helped alleviate the problem. When you take it out to carve it, you can also give it a minute or two to rest on the cutting board/carving plate to allow any remaining drippings to drip off, then give it a quick pat down with some paper towels. I hope that helps!

      1. Another question — do you ever do anything with the chicken carcass, like making broth? I don’t know if there can be much left to get out of the chicken at that point, but whole chickens can be expensive when trying to buy organic.

        1. Elizabeth, I have actually tried making crock pot stock out of the chicken carcass and some fresh vegetables. I pop everything in the slow cooker with water, salt, and pepper and let it go 3-4 hours on high. The chicken carcass has definitely been well-loved by this point, but I’ve found I can still get some good flavor from it. You can certainly do it on the stove-top too in a large stock pot and let it simmer 2-4 hours as well.

  6. Hi, I have been making your crock pot chicken for a while now, its so good! I just realized I haven’t left a comment to tell you. I make soup with the leftovers and its awesome. Thanks for getting me inspired to use my crock pot.

    Londen

  7. This has been on my mental “to make” list for some time now. I’m obsessed with whole roasted chicken, but the crock pot means I don’t have to heat up the whole house (plus I don’t actually have a roasting pan so I just fake it with vegetables in a big frying pan with deep sides).

    Anyway, the worst part of making a roast chicken, dealing with raw chicken. Thawing the chicken. Having to lysol the whole sink and any counter space I think touched the raw chicken, sticking those raw chicken dishes in the dishwasher stat…it’s all very OCD of me.

    Good thing I get to eat a roast chicken when it’s all over. And it makes my husband a happy man.

    This comment somehow got epically long. And epically is apparently not a word…but i think you know what i mean.

  8. I made a Turkey Breast in my crock pot and it came out very good. I liked the taste of rotesserie so I added some chyanne pepper 1/4 tsp and some Montreal Steak Seasoning also…the trick is low and slow..cooked like 10 hours. It fell off the bone and made the best Turkey salad sandwich mix with walnuts,seedless grapes,celery. To dress out this goodness Combine M W, Dejon mustard and a touch of horseradish for a taste that will have your tongue slappin your brain






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