It was another one of those “I have no idea what to make for dinner” days. Since I had nothing defrosted, yet again, I had to either use the crock pot or make eggs for dinner. No one would have been happy with eggs, so I had to figure out something else. After surveying the fridge, I found a bag of frozen chicken breasts and some beer that no one was going to drink. I haven’t had much luck cooking chicken in the crock pot lately, so I needed a good recipe from a reliable source.
I headed over to The Crock Pot Guys on Facebook and asked if they ever cooked chicken in the crock with beer. Almost immediately, I got a reply with a recipe! It sounded sooooo good! (And tasted even better!!!) Its called Easy BBQ Beer Chicken. I had most of the ingredients on hand so I decided this was going to be What’s For Dinner.
Easy BBQ Beer Chicken
- 4-6 Chicken skinless, boneless breasts
- 1 bottle of beer (red or ale) I used a Harvest Wheat Ale
- 3-4 cups of favorite BBQ sauce. (amount depends on amount of chicken used) *
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp basil
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp salt
Put all of the ingredients in the crock pot, except bbq sauce.
Cover and cook.
When chicken is cooked, shred it all with fork and toss it back in the crock pot.
Add all of the bbq sauce to the crock pot and mix well
Cover and cook on low for 20-30mins.
Pretend you worked hard on it.
I’ll use a red or an ale. You can use anything really. If you don’t want to use beer, use a soda. Ginger Ale works great. We serve these on hamburger buns.
Cover and cook.
When chicken is cooked, shred it all with fork and toss it back in the crock pot.
Add all of the bbq sauce to the crock pot and mix well
Cover and cook on low for 20-30mins.
Pretend you worked hard on it.
I’ll use a red or an ale. You can use anything really. If you don’t want to use beer, use a soda. Ginger Ale works great. We serve these on hamburger buns.
3-4 hours high or 6-7 hours low – 4-6qt
*Now I didn’t have 3 cups of BBQ sauce. All I had was 1 cup of Chipotle BBQ Sauce and 1 can of tomato sauce. It worked just fine. I cooked on high for almost 4 hours. I was in a rush so I admit that I only skimmed the recipe. I didn’t realize that you wait to add the bbq sauce until the end. In haste, I dumped the sauce in the pot and started cooking.
This is supposed to shred easily when done. I lack in chicken/crock pot skills, so my chicken didn’t shred, but it wasn’t dry or stringy. I ended up slicing it instead.
Then I strained some of the liquid from the crock, and reduced it over low heat. I wanted a thicker sauce, so I added a big spoon each of peach and apricot preserves and a little corn starch. Once dissolved, I cooked a bit longer until it started to thicken, then set aside to cool. It would have been thick if I had followed the directions correctly and wouldn’t have needed to doctor the sauce.
My plan was to shred the chicken and make bbq nachos with it. But since my chicken didn’t shred the way I like, I made chicken sandwiches on torta rolls with a salad on the side. My salad had organic mixed greens, tomato, green peppers, green onion, sliced almonds, feta crumbles and a poppy seed dressing. (The kids add feta crumbles to every salad.)
I topped my sandwich with a bit of gorgonzola crumbles, which was a nice compliment to the sweetness of the sauce and savory chicken. The whole family RAVED about the chicken all evening. It was fantastic! They’ve already asked when I’ll be making this again!
Thanks Crock Pot Guys for helping me out!
Thanks Crock Pot Guys for helping me out!
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