Cost: $10 / Time: 4 hrs / Servings: 4-6

While this is not the most beautiful chicken you have ever seen (apologies for cutting into the breast meat to see if it was done before I took this picture), it’s one of the easiest and tastiest chickens I’ve ever made.

The beauty of the crockpot chicken is that there is very little actual cooking time involved (maybe 10 minutes?), you can walk away and come back to a meal ready to eat, it serves (at least) 4-6, and all the things that you don’t eat (or thought that you couldn’t or didn’t want to eat) can become a beautiful bone broth, too.  (Mmm, bone broth.  Perfect for other cooking projects! Or eating as soup.)

THE PROCESS: 

1 whole chicken, thawed
6-12 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 handful parsley
2 TBSP fresh ground ginger
4 TBSP cumin
1 TBSP Curry powder
1 tsp. Marsala
1 tsp. Herbamare (or other herbal seasoning)
2 TBSP. Coconut Vinegar (or white or apple cider)
Enough water to (almost) cover chicken
Salt & Pepper to taste

Put your chicken in your crockpot along with all of the other ingredients and put crockpot on low. Cook for 4-6 hours or until your chicken is thoroughly cooked.

FOR BONE BROTH:

Remove chicken from crockpot, leaving liquid, and proceed to cut it into its sections (breasts, legs, etc.) and remove as much of the meat as you can from the bones. Put bones, cartilage and remainders from chicken carcass back into your broth and proceed to cook on low overnight. You’ll know that you made a good bone broth when upon refrigeration your broth is gelatinous (and, I hate to say it, kind of gross looking). You’ll want to remove the bones and cartilage.  (Note that they will almost crumble… I fed them to my dog since I wasn’t worried about splintering.  Another use! Nothing went to waste.)  Upon heating your bone broth will turn into a beautiful, brown, silky deliciousness that’s awesome to eat by itself, mix into cauliflower or eggplant puree (yes I did), season veggies, etc. Plus bone broth is incredibly healthy and restorative. Ever wonder why people talk about eating chicken soup when they’re sick? This is why. They didn’t mean Progresso.

OVERALL ANALYSIS:

This doesn’t get any easier. Talk about a cheap, easy, delicious and nutritious meal! I added all of the ginger and cumin not only for their awesome flavor (thanks goes to Terri McClernon, the Food Fairy, for teaching me how cumin and chicken soup are so nice together), but for their anti-inflammatory effects as well. The bone broth was a bit of an afterthought and way to use my ‘leftovers’ — but ended up being the aspect of this dish that I was most excited about. I think bone broth needs to be a weekly fare. After eating it plain like soup, mixing it into my eggplant and cauliflower purees (way to take these recipes to the next level!), and sending a container home with my girlfriend who is trying to heal the torn ligaments in her elbow, I put two containers in the freezer. I’d put bone broth up there with garlic, ginger, coconut oil, and balsamic vinegar as my preferred cooking ingredients.  (In other words, dear readers, get ready for other bone broth recipes. This one might be right up there with vegetable purees.)