Mama Kat Thursday: Share A Recipe Try

The Mama Kat prompt I chose today is, "Share a new recipe I recently tried."

This is the Pinterest recipe I tried this week:
"4 Ingredient Slower Cooker Chicken in Stuffing."

The recipe is fairly good--the chicken breasts come out is fall-apart moist and tender, but the stuffing----after all the soup and broth mixed in with it, it doesn't have enough flavor. 

The recipe calls for one box Stove Top stuffing combined with 1 cup broth, 1 can
cream of mushroom soup and 1/2 cup water, then poured over the chicken breasts already in the bottom of the slow cooker.
It looks like this.
 (photo is mine)

Cook on Low 7 hours.

The stuffing drys out over the top of the chicken, forming a nice stuffing crust, so it still looks like this picture---but cooked.

The tricky thing is getting the chicken OUT of the slow cooker and onto a plate without losing the nice stuffing topping, which slides off pretty easily.

Arranging the chicken breasts in the slow cooker in a precise order  you can remember from the beginning is key to serving it intact.

But underneath the chicken---it's juicy with juices from the chicken as well as soup and broth plus some stuffing falls in there and it's sloppy.

I think the recipe has too much liquid and doesn't account for the juice that comes out of the chicken during cooking.

I'd cut the broth to 1/2 cup, mix it with soup and stuffing and skip any extra water all together.

Finally, you taste it and the chicken is fabulous---but the stuffing isn't as flavorful as you'd expect. It hasn't got enough seasoning in it by itself to compensate for all that soup.

This recipe needs an added teaspoon of Dried Rosemary or Poultry Seasoning or Ground Thyme or Dried Sage---or maybe a little of all of them!

The stuffing would also benefit from the addition of some chopped onion and celery stirred in.
I tested this recipe again with Turkey Dressing and less liquid. and decided it need at least a soup can of water added.
Probably a down side of both the regular cream of mushroom soup and regular Stove Top Dressing is it makes this meal super high sodium! Good reason to skip adding broth and just use water.
To that end, I suggest using lower sodium soup and Stove Top Stuffing alternatives in this recipe. 

I did use minced celery & onion & added poultry seasoning this second try and the stuffing taste was greatly improved.

Slow Cooker Chicken & Stuffing:

Ingredients:

4 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts

1 box Stove Top Lower Sodium Chicken Stuffing 

1 can lower sodium Cream of Mushroom Soup 
Add 1 empty soup can full of water 

Pepper

1/2 to 1 teaspoon additional seasoning of any one or any combination of the following: dried rosemary, poultry seasoning, dried sage, thyme.

Optional: chopped onions and celery to taste

Directions:

Oil spray inside of slow cooker, then lay the 4 chicken breasts along bottom in an order you can remember. Pepper chicken if desired.

In a medium bowl: mix together stuffing, soup, 1 soup can of water, seasoning and, if you're using them, onions & celery.

Spoon stuffing-soup mix over chicken, cover and set on Low for 6 - 7 hours. 

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