The one with Slow Cooker Orange Chicken
Posted by ashley jean on Jan 13, 2012 in Recipes | 0 commentsSo this week has been rough. Nothing major has happened, I’m just really dragging and feel defeated. There are several things I feel like I’m just “waiting” on to move forward. I know that the Lord’s asking me to realize that even in this wait He’s teaching me things and life can’t just be wasted while I wait for the next big thing. *sigh*
So anyway, yesterday when I realized that both Husband and I were going to be home for dinner (this week has been a little crazy) I realized that I should probably figure out what we were going to have. And I felt like doing something easy with minimal clean up. So I whipped out a Slow Cooker recipe…Orange Chicken.
I LOVE slow cooker recipes. I love being able to dump everything into a pot, and after a crazy day when I’d rather do just about anything then cook, our food is magically done! So I always love getting a chance to try a new one. So here you go ::
Slow Cooker Orange Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken, cut in 2-inch chunks
- 1/2 cup flour
- olive oil, for browning the chicken
- 1 tbls kosher salt
- 6 oz (1/2 can) frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed (I’d opt for no pulp. The pulp can taste a bit bitter when cooked)
- 3 tbls brown sugar
- 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
- 3 tbls ketchup
- * I also added green peppers. I LOVE them so I added a green pepper. This is entirely optional.
Directions
- Coat the chicken pieces in flour, and shake off the excess. (Throw away any remaining flour) Heat olive oil in a large skillet on the stove and brown the chicken on all sides. It doesn’t need to be cooked through, just brown it enough for the flour to stick and give coating.
- Drop the chicken pieces into your slow cooker. In a small bowl, combine the orange juice concentrate, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, salt, and ketchup. Taste. If you’d like the chicken to be a bit sweeter, add a bit more sugar. Pour sauce mixture evenly over the chicken, and toss gingerly to coat
- Cover and cook on low for 6 hours, or on high for 3 to 4. I would only use low or only keep on high for a short time. Mine burned the first time I left it on low-and it was less than 6 hours…so I think its best to really keep an eye on this and move it to warm whenever its gotten really cooked through. Serve over white or brown rice.
This was really yummy. And I did have to make the rice, and I made edamame to go along with it as well – but I made it easy. I used boil in a bag rice (my fav in Colorado because I still can’t manage to make rice well at altitude…something about the way water boils)…and I had purchased steam-in-the-bag edamame…so I just threw it in the microwave. Easy peasy SUPER yummy dinner!