Get ready to impress your family with this delicious Slow Cooker Cheesy Chicken Penne. It’s a flavorful pasta dish that you can prepare in no time!
Who says that making an incredible pasta dish has to take up all your time? If you want to make a restaurant-quality meal at home with a few ingredients and minimal effort, try this Slow Cooker Cheesy Chicken Penne. It’s creamy, cheesy, and SO fulfilling.
Chicken Penne in the Slow Cooker
Preparing Chicken Penne in the slow cooker makes the process of preparing a hearty and flavorful meal for the family that much easier. So, if you have a slow cooker at home, you’re in luck because you can make this meal for the family without doing much work at all. The food will cook throughout the day while you’re working, doing household chores, or simply relaxing!
Why You’ll Love This Cheesy Crock Pot Chicken
The Chicken Penne combines the flavor of cheese with chicken and a creamy base that makes it taste amazing.
You can assemble this meal in minutes and then allow it to cook on its own without worrying about it.
Not only does it taste good fresh, but the leftovers of this dish are just as good!
Ingredients for the Chicken Cheesy Pasta
Chicken – Use around a pound and a half of chicken breast for this recipe.
Cream of Mushroom Soup – One can of cream of mushroom soup gives this pasta more flavor and adds a creamy texture to it.
Cream of Chicken Soup – The cream of chicken pairs perfectly with the other ingredients in this dish.
Penne Pasta – Be sure to cook and drain a pound of penne pasta to use when preparing this meal.
The other ingredients needed include onion, shredded cheddar cheese, chicken broth, and sour cream!
What type of chicken will I need to use?
It’s best to use boneless, skinless chicken breast when making this slow cooker meal. If you don’t have chicken breast, you can use boneless, skinless chicken thighs as an alternative. You can also make this a meatless meal by leaving the chicken out of it if need be.
Can I skip out on using the cream of mushroom soup?
If you don’t like cream of mushroom soup or don’t have it at home, you can omit it from the recipe and replace it with an additional can of cream of chicken. You could also use cream of broccoli as an alternative!
Is it possible to make this meal with other types of pasta?
Of course! While penne tastes great with the chicken and cheese, you can always use other types of pasta, such as elbow noodles or rotini.
Recipe Notes
Be sure to season your chicken with a bit of salt and pepper. You can also use your favorite blend of seasonings for the chicken.
Combine the cream soups with the chicken broth and mix well before adding them to your slow cooker.
Feel free to add a few extra ingredients to the slow cooker, such as broccoli!
How long does it take to prepare this meal?
It takes about 10 minutes to prepare the ingredients. Once you’ve placed all your ingredients into the slow cooker, they’ll need to cook for roughly six hours.
Can I add some veggies to the dish?
Yes. If you love veggies and want to add them to this dish, go for it! You can add frozen corn, peas, carrots, or even broccoli to this meal. It all depends on what types of vegetables you like most.
Can I make this meal in advance and freeze it?
Yes! If you’d like to make the meal in advance, allow it to cook and then cool off before placing it in a freezer-safe container with an airtight lid. Put your chicken pasta mixture in the freezer, where it can stay for up to three months.
What to Serve with the Chicken Cheesy Penne
Because this dish is so fulfilling, you won’t need to serve anything with it if you don’t want to. However, if you’d like to serve it like you’d get it at a restaurant, a side salad and some garlic bread would go great with this meal. You can even dip your garlic bread into the creamy sauce of this delicious meal.
Using a nice, long, low-and-slow cook time helps chicken breasts retain plenty of moisture - but you can certainly opt to add a splash of water or chicken stock to the crockpot if you like! If you're worried about dry chicken, you can also swap boneless skinless chicken thighs in for a bit of extra moisture.
Pour water over the chicken breasts so that it just barely covers them. Sprinkle the chicken breasts with plenty of salt and pepper. Cover your crock pot and cook chicken breasts on low for 6-7 hours or on high for 3-4 hours. Chicken is done when the internal temp reaches 165 degrees F.
Aside from accidentally overcooking the meals, the most common reason we see for tough, rubbery, or overdone chicken is customers using a Crockpot that is far too big.
Yes, you can put raw chicken in a slow cooker! Slow cookers and Crock-Pots are designed to cook raw meats. The direct heat from the pot, lengthy cooking time and steam created from the tightly covered container destroys bacteria, making slow cooking safe. You can put frozen chicken in a slow cooker, too!
When cooking meat or poultry, the water or liquid level should cover the ingredients to ensure effective heat transfer throughout the crock. Some manufacturers of slow cookers recommend adding liquid to fill the stoneware 1/2 to 3/4 full. Follow the manufacturer's recipes and directions for best results.
However, washing raw poultry, beef, pork, lamb or veal before cooking it is not recommended. Bacteria in raw meat and poultry juices can be spread to other foods, utensils and surfaces. We call this cross-contamination.
This is because cooking the chicken at high heat in a slow cooker can quickly dry out the meat, resulting in a tough and unappetizing texture. By using low heat, the chicken has more time to cook slowly and evenly, allowing the natural juices to be distributed throughout the meat, keeping it moist and tender.
You can overcook chicken in a slow cooker. If the chicken is cooked too long, it will become dry and tough. Check your chicken for doneness early, especially if it is one of your first times making it.
Place boneless skinless chicken breasts inside your slow cooker. Liberally sprinkle both sides of each breast with sea salt and ground pepper. Add olive oil and apple cider vinegar to the slow cooker, if using. Set your slow cooker to cook on low for 3-4 hours or high for 2 hours.
For a whole chicken – Place it in your slow cooker breast side down. Cover with the lid and cook on High for around 4-5 hours or Low for 6-8 hours. For bone-in pieces - Arrange chicken pieces in a single layer in the slow cooker. Cover with the lid and cook on High for around 3-4 hours or Low for 4-6 hours.
Cook on low for 5 hrs, then check that the chicken is cooked by wiggling the wing – it should feel very loose. Tip the chicken up so any liquid inside flows out, then cook on high for 30 mins. If the chicken isn't cooked through after the initial time, cook for another hour, then turn the heat up.
Question: When I cook chicken, it always comes out tough. Am I cooking it too long, too short, too high or too low? The slower you cook chicken, the better. That's the overall rule for cooking protein.
We've found that these three techniques really help keep those boneless skinless chicken breasts tasting good: 1. Low Heat Cooking – Cooking chicken breasts over low heat with a lid covering the pan helps them to retain almost all their moisture and prevents overcooking.
Ginny has been working with slow-cookers for over a decade, and her advice is to use the 'Low' slow cooker settings as much as you can, finding that most dishes really benefit from a slow, gentle heat to really bring out the flavours.
The lower rack will cook the thighs, but might not get the chicken skin crispy and brown. And BROWN means FLAVOR. In the middle. Higher will have a broiler effect causing the top to brown and the lower dries out the pan and may burn the pan inside.
Typically, the middle rack is the best location for most foods to cook evenly. But, placing your meals on the highest or lowest rack closest to the heating source can yield faster cooking times and crisping due to the hotter temperatures.
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