Chicken stew in a slow cooker: recipes and cooking tips

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

The stew is loved, perhaps, by everyone who does not shy away from meat dishes. In addition, it is very convenient in the household: if there is no time for cooking, you open a jar, make a side dish and delight your family with dinner. But many avoid purchased stew. What kind of meat went into it - it is not known how it was stored - it is unclear. But the chicken stew cooked with your own hands in a slow cooker definitely does not cause any concern. And it's done quickly, unlike other cooking methods.

Attention to the bird

To make chicken stew in a slow cooker a success, you need to remember: only fresh or chilled carcass is suitable for it. If the meat was frozen, at best, the stew will turn out dry. Or, on the contrary, it will turn into a kind of porridge. At worst, inedible. Yes, and its shelf life will be greatly reduced.

Both store-bought broilers and homemade chicken are suitable for stew. The latter, of course, is preferable, but few people have the time and desire to go to the village for a bird. So a trip to the nearest store is enough.

Chicken stew at home can be prepared both from individual parts of the bird, and from the whole carcass. Culinary experts consider the latter option to be the most optimal, but this is a matter of taste. The only thing that definitely does not go into business is the neck. It definitely needs to be put aside, for example, on the broth.

Carcass cutting

At this point, recipes for chicken stew in a slow cooker vary. Some cooks believe that before putting meat into the bowl of a miracle helper, it should be removed from the bones. Others claim that this is not necessary: the bones can be removed later. Just in case, we outline how to proceed in the first case.

• Cut the carcass along the keel bone in half, then chop each part across.
• Cut off the wings, legs and neck (remove the last one).
• Remove the skin, wash individual pieces and dry with napkins.
• On the cutting board carefully remove all slices of meat with a sharp knife.

The bones should not be thrown away, with them the broth will be more rich. By the way, this is why many chefs skip the pre-cutting step.

Note

If you cook chicken stew in a slow cooker for use in soups, you can notbe puzzled at all. However, large tubular bones will still have to be removed: the air they contain shortens the shelf life. However, this procedure can also be done with the finished dish, before packing in jars.

Another preliminary stage

Before you start cooking, you need to stock up on sterile containers. How to disinfect banks is up to you. After washing and rinsing, they can be sterilized in the traditional way, in boiling water. You can fry the containers in the oven (put in a cold one so that they do not burst).

You can pour some water into a jar and send it to the microwave. The main thing is to turn the dishes upside down on a clean towel after sterilization so that harmful microorganisms do not penetrate into it.

With the sterilization of lids, everything is much simpler: they boil for 5-10 minutes and put them on a napkin, like jars, with the “working” surface down, the outer surface up.

Product List

To make homemade chicken stew for the winter a success, enough s alt, peppercorns and bay leaves - everything is taken at the discretion of the cook. Spicy lovers can add ground pepper or other favorite spices.

There is no consensus about water. Someone thinks that it is not needed at all - the chicken will give enough liquid. Someone still tops up the liquid. But even in this case, very little, from the strength of half a glass to a bowl filled almost to the top.

How to make chicken stew in a slow cooker

Put the chopped chicken into a multi-pan. If athe bones are not removed, we make sure not to scratch the walls of the bowl. Sprinkle meat with s alt and pepper if desired. Lay allspice and close the lid. As for water, you will have to make your own decision. But it is better to fill the bird approximately halfway.

Turn on the extinguishing mode and set the timer. If the chicken is store-bought, we set aside three hours, if homemade - four. An hour before the “alarm clock” signal, add the bay leaf and continue to simmer. Along with laurel, you can also lay peeled onions.

Packaging

When the chicken stew in the slow cooker is ready, the meat should be removed and the broth left on the heat. Break the chicken into pieces. If the bones were not taken out ahead of time, we remove them at this stage. We also remove the onion - it has a bad effect on storage. The resulting mass is laid out in banks; Top with hot broth. We roll it up with lids, wrap it with an old blanket, wait for it to cool completely and put it away for storage in a cool place.

Autoclaved chicken stew

If you want the stew to be stored for longer than 2-3 months, it should still be cooked under pressure. In this case, the bird will have to be disassembled raw, removing both the skin and the bones. You just won't get the chance later.

Add chicken pieces and season with spices. Wash jars and wipe dry. At the bottom of each container we put a bay leaf and a few peppercorns. Then we tightly pack the meat into a third of the volume of the container. The rest of the space is filled with broth. We roll up the dishes with tin lids.

Then put the chicken stewin jars into an autoclave, we bring the pressure in it to one and a half atmospheres and put the unit on gas. After 45 minutes spent by banks at 120 Celsius, we turn off the autoclave and leave the blanks to cool right in it. Then we wipe the jars from moisture and put them in a cool place for storage. The stew prepared in this way, under the right conditions, will definitely not deteriorate during the year. Although, if all technological requirements are followed, it can remain usable for up to five years.

Little secrets and valuable tips

Even if you prefer boneless stew, you don't have to pick out the smallest ones. During the extinguishing process, they will soften and be completely invisible in the total mass.

It is better to lay out the stew in small jars - half a liter, at most a liter. So that the contents of the opened container can be consumed by the family once or twice.

Cumin and coriander are ideal spices for poultry stew. But you can experiment with other spices. It is not recommended to just take ready-made kits and overuse seasonings. And if the stew is intended for soups, it’s better to do with only laurel and peppercorns.

You can extend the shelf life of chicken stew cooked in a slow cooker in the same way as a similar pork dish: with the help of fat. If the preparation is made from broilers, then their own subcutaneous fat is cut off and heated, which is poured under the lid at the last moment.

In the stew that you are going to eat in the near future, you can putiodized s alt. But if the workpiece will be stored for more than a month, it should only be prepared using ordinary kitchen s alt.

Sometimes chicken stew tastes bitter. Experts say that an old bay leaf that has lain in a kitchen cabinet or on a store shelf for more than twelve months gives this effect. Or maybe it was stored in inappropriate conditions. Lavrushka is recommended to be selected for stew, focusing on the color of the leaf: it should retain an olive tint.

In general, cooking chicken stew in a slow cooker is a simple process. Try it once and you will be convinced of it. Having mastered it, you will be able to feed your loved ones with a delicious and quick dish at any time of the year.