Crockpot Chipotle Chicken

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This crockpot chipotle chicken is a super easy protein to add to all of your favorite sandwiches, tacos, salads, and more!

We love a good, easy, hands-off recipe like this crockpot shredded chipotle chicken! There’s nothing better than a big batch protein you can use for virtually any meal, especially when it basically cooks itself. Use it from sandwiches and wraps to tacos, burrito bowls, and salads to help make your weekly meal prep super easy.

What This Recipe Entails

With just a couple minutes of prep work, you can easily have a delicious protein to add to lunches and dinners all week long.

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 4 hours

Ingredients

• Chicken breast – Fresh or frozen is fine, but if you want to use frozen chicken make sure to defrost and drain it first. 
• Chipotles in adobo – We always have chipotles in adobo on hand as they’re one of our favorite ingredients. We love to puree a can and store it in the fridge for easy additions to recipes.
• Fire roasted crushed tomatoes – Regular crushed tomatoes also work, but we like the added smokiness of the fire roasted tomatoes. 
• White onion – A red or yellow onion would also work fine.
• Diced green chiles – If you don’t already use diced green chiles in everything we hope this recipe will help convince you. 
• Lime juice – Bottled lime juice is fine for this recipe, but if you want to use fresh lime, a half a lime should do.
• Garlic – We like to save time in recipes like this by using pre-minced garlic. It’s not as good as fresh garlic, but in this recipe it doesn’t make a big difference.
• Chipotle powder – We like this recipe to be both spicy and smokey, so we always add some extra chipotle powder to make sure the chipotle flavor comes through in every bite.

How To Make Crockpot Chipotle Chicken

We love slow cooker recipes because we can easily make a big batch of food with very little effort. And all you need to make this recipe is a blender, a large crock pot (5-qt or bigger), and about 10 minutes of hands-on time. 

1. Blend – Add crushed tomatoes, chipotles in adobo (including the adobo), onion, diced green chiles, lime juice, garlic, salt, and chipotle powder to the blender. Blend until smooth.
2. Add the chicken – Add a thin layer of vegetable oil to the slow cooker and lay the chicken breast flat on the bottom.
3. Add the sauce – Pour the sauce from the blender over the chicken. Cover the slow cooker and cook on HIGH for about 4 hours, or until the chicken is tender.
4. Shred the chicken – Remove the chicken from the sauce and shred with two forks. Return the shredded meat to the crockpot, stirring it back into the sauce until combined.
5. Enjoy – Keep warm until ready to serve, or let cool and store in the fridge for later.

Serving Suggestions

There are so many great ways you can serve chipotle chicken throughout the week. Here are some of our favorites:

• Make chipotle chicken sandwiches or wraps with pepper jack cheese and red onion
• Use it in our chipotle chicken melt panini recipe
• Add it to a salad for extra protein
• Serve it in a burrito bowl with rice, beans, peppers, and tomatoes
• Enjoy it over brown rice for a healthy high-protein lunch
• Make chipotle chicken tacos with refried black beans and guacamole
• Add it to these loaded sheet pan nachos for a fun game day snack
• Use it to make a restaurant style quesadilla with cheese, peppers, and onions

Storing & Reheating

This big batch recipe is perfect for Sunday meal prep. You can make a ton of shredded chipotle chicken and store it away for easy reheating throughout the week by keeping it in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Reheat single servings in the microwave for about 1 minute, stirring halfway through, or in a frying pan over medium heat for about 5 minutes. This saucy chipotle chicken also tastes great cold! Add it to a sub roll or multigrain bread with cheese and red onion for a delicious, easy chipotle chicken sandwich you can take on the go.

Try our recipe for crockpot shredded chipotle chicken and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and a comment. If you love this recipe, check out our other easy slow cooker meals here!