Slow Cooker Whole Chicken (Easy Crock-Pot Recipe) (2024)

Make things easy on yourself with this slow cooker recipe for cooking a whole chicken. A Slow Cooker Whole Chicken is great for serving as an easy meal with side dishes or for cooking seasoned chicken to use in recipes.

Either way, it’s an easy 3-ingredient recipe that practically cooks itself!

A Crockpot Whole Chicken is a simple, hands-free way to cook dinner. It takes just a few minutes of prep time and three simple ingredients, making it a perfect meal to serve for Sunday dinner or on a busy weeknight with very little effort.

Why Make This Recipe

It’s delicious.This is such an easy recipe that results in juicy chicken. Some people say it’s just like a store-bought rotisserie chicken, but my husband says it’s better!

It’s a good deal.Cooking a whole chicken in the crockpot—as opposed to cooking pieces—can be a great way to stretch your grocery dollar. Not only do you get an abundance of cooked chicken plus a carcass to makehomemade chicken stock, but you also benefit from lower prices and more tender meat. (Bone-in chicken tends not to dry out like boneless can.)

It’s a good way to cook a lot of chicken at once.A Crockpot Whole Chicken is also a great way to bulk cook and provide for many meals in one fell swoop. You won’t get the crispy skin that you do when youroast a whole chicken, but you’ll have great tasting chicken meat for a comforting meal and yummy drippings to use in stock or gravy.

It’s easy!Cooking a whole chickenin a slow cookeris one of the easiest and tastiest ways to prepare a whole bird. It’s not hard. The meat is tender and juicy. And it saves you a ton of time in the kitchen.

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make a Crockpot Whole Chicken:

a roasting chicken– You can find whole raw chicken in sealed plastic bags in the meat department of the grocery store. It may be labeled roaster or just whole chicken. When you see a sale, stock up as they freeze well. If you prefer, you can cook many bone-in chicken breasts this way as well.

butter– You can use dairy butter or plant butter. It will add flavor and make it easy for you to add seasoning under the skin. If you prefer, you can drizzle the outside of the chicken with avocado oil.

seasoned salt– I makehomemade seasoned salt, but you can use any spice blend you like as well as plain old salt and pepper. Sometimes I give it a heavy sprinkling of dried onion flakes as well as salt, black pepper, onion powder and garlic powder. Consider dried or fresh herbs, like thyme,herbes de provence, rosemary, oregano, basil, or sage to add to your seasoning. The possibilities are endless!

Instructions

Here’s how to make this slow cooker roast chicken recipe:

1. Place the chicken on a tray to catch drips and contain the mess. Pat the chicken dry and remove the neck and giblets from inside the bird. Sometimes they are packed in a bag, sometimes not. You can use these for cooking,like in homemade stock, or discard. Your choice. (I ditch them usually.)

2. I like to season my chicken with butter and seasoned salt. Rather than mess with softening the butter and getting your hands all greasy, cut the butter into pats and seasoned it generously with the seasoned salt.

3. With your hand loosen the skin from the chicken meat and slide the seasoned butter pats under the skin of the chicken. In this way, the melting butter and seasoning baste the chicken breast and keep it moist and flavorful.

Sprinkle more seasoned salt on the outside of the chicken.

4. The cooking chicken will accumulate quite a lot of drippings which is great for homemade gravy. However, it’s nicer for removing the chicken for carving, if the chicken cooks atop a rack of some kind.

You can use a collapsible steamer basket or a thick coil of aluminum foil or even foil balls to keep the chicken out of the juices. I prefer a steamer basket whose handle is removable. Makes it a lot easier for positioning the chicken.

5. Place the prepared chicken on the steamer basket in the bottom of the pot. Once the chicken is settled in the slow cooker, cover it and cook on HIGH for 4-5 hours or LOW for 6-8 hours. How long it takes to cook will depend on the size of your chicken. Chicken is safe to eat when it reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees F.

You do not need to add any liquid. Chickens today typically have some solution added, so they rarely need added liquid. At the end of the cooking time, the meat will be tender, practically falling off the bone.

This is why it’s so helpful to have the steamer basket for moving the chicken from crock to cutting board. The chicken is so tender, it’s liable to fall apart and send bits of chicken all over your kitchen. (Ask me how I know.)

To serve:

You’re now ready to carve the whole chicken. Depending on the size of your household, you can serve sliced chicken and chicken pieces one night and then have enough leftover for soup or chicken pot pie the next night.

Slow cooked chicken is delicious with Mashed Potato Casserole and a quick saute of Frozen Green Beans for an easy supper.

Make a Plan for Leftover Chicken:Promptly store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator, for up to 4 days. If you store your leftovers in clear containers, they’re more likely to get eaten. Freeze your slow cooker chicken to extend its shelf life.

Be sure to use the bones and drippings to make chicken stock as soon as you’ve finished carving the chicken. You don’t even have to wash the slow cooker!

FAQs & Tips for Success

Be sure to thaw your chicken completely. Typically whole birds are stored pretty cold, so even the ones I buy from the store are often partially frozen when I bring them home. Store it in the fridge in a dish to catch drips while it thaws.

More Great Slow Cooker Recipes

Originally published on January 17, 2012, this post has been updated for content and clarity.