Slow Cooker Shredded Barbecue Chicken

A very simple and delicious recipe with only 2 ingredients, cooked in a slow cooker.  Great for parties, gameday, or weeknight dinners.

Repost of original from 09/2013 minor editing, tweetable, pinnable image 770 views 0 +1s.

I was first introduced to this recipe when I was in college (what better place to have some easy recipes up your sleeve).  This recipe is perfect for a simple dinner.  It's also a crowd favorite at parties and perfect for gamedays.  This is a great recipe for beginner cooks or anyone who doesn't have a lot of time to prepare dinner.  The ingredients are added to a slow cooker and can cook while away at work.  I don't know anyone who doesn't like this chicken it pleases even picky eaters.

SlowCooker Shredded BBQ Chicken| 2ingredient simple dinner  [Tweet this]

Slow Cooker Shredded Barbecue Chicken

Servings:  6

Ingredients:

2-3 pounds boneless chicken
2 cups barbecue sauce

That's it.  Seriously, only 2 ingredients.

Place your thawed chicken in the bottom of a slow cooker.  Pour about 2 cups of your favorite barbecue sauce on top (enough to cover the chicken).

Turn the slow cooker to low and cook for about 5-8 hours until chicken is cooked.  Using 2 forks shred the chicken right in the cooker and mix well with the sauce.

Put the chicken on a bun and serve with sides of your choice.  It's great with slaw or Moroccan Raw Carrot Salad.

I like to make homemade buns (try Best Burger Buns) and barbecue sauce, but this recipe works great with store bought too (and it is that much simpler).

Make plenty, you can use much chicken as you like just make sure you use enough barbecue sauce to cover it because people will go back for seconds.

Enjoy.

Recipes mentioned in this post:

Classic Barbecue Sauce

Moroccan Raw Carrot Salad

Best Burger Buns

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Classic Barbecue Sauce

A sweet and spicy ketchup based sauce that tastes great on just about everything.

I love barbecue.  I think it is very important to know a basic, classic barbecue sauce which can be altered to suite individual tastes.  It is so easy to make home made barbecue sauce that I almost never buy it.  This way I know it tastes just how I like it, and I don't have to worry about too many weird ingredients.  All you need to make your own barbecue sauce is ketchup and some common spices.  This barbecue sauce is simple and a good starting point.  Just add or subtract ingredients to make it your own signature sauce.

Classic Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients:

2 cups ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1-2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp garlic powder
2 Tbsp dried minced onions
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp mustard
hot sauce, hot pepper, chilli flakes, or cayenne pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and heat over low heat for 10-20 minutes until heated through.

All of these ingredients can be altered to your own preferences.  I like spicy and sweet so I usually add plenty of cayenne, sometimes habanero, and a little extra sugar.

• You can use fresh minced garlic and onion, just saute them (in a little oil) before adding everything else.
• Some places use more mustard.
• In eastern North Carolina  barbecue sauce has little to no ketchup and is mostly vinegar.
• You can add some bourbon.

• Sometimes I add a dash of liquid smoke for a slight smokiness.
• For a change try using different sweeteners like maple syrup or molasses they both add their own flavor.
• Be creative and add fruit purees for new flavors, you probably don't need as much sugar depending on the sweetness of the fruit, maybe less or no ketchup.

I think the reason I love barbecue and barbecue sauce so much is that you can be as creative, or not, as you want.

I hope this inspires you to try making your own barbecue sauce.

Enjoy.

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Barbecue Pork with Cheddar Ranch Scalloped Potatoes and Slaw

A delicious smoked pork butt sliced thin and served with creamy, cheesy, scalloped  potatoes and a red cabbage slaw.  A very satisfying weekend meal.

There is nothing better, to me, than a pork roast sitting on the smoker all day.  I had this pleasure over the weekend.  My husband brought home a pork butt (which is actually the shoulder) and he spent all day with it on the smoker.  We didn't do anything too fancy with the pork, just put a dry rub on it and let it smoke for hours.  The rub consisted of brown sugar, salt, pepper, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, paprika, and onion powder.  I made the rub a while ago so I don't remember exactly what proportions I used but that is the basic contents.  The main thing to make this great is a long slow smoke with occasional 'sopping' (brushing or spraying with a beer and spice concoction).

Since my husband manned the smoker I made the sides.  The scalloped potatoes are a pretty basic recipe that I use all the time, but I spiked it with about 1/2 cup of ranch dressing.  Here is the recipe.

Cheddar Ranch Scalloped Potatoes:

2 large russet potatoes, peeled and sliced thin
1 small onion, chopped small
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cup milk, I used skim but any will be fine
1/2 cup ranch dressing
1 1/2 cup cheddar cheese, I used mild
salt and pepper to taste
pinch habanero flakes (optional)

First I made a white sauce.  I sweat the onion until soft, in a small amount of oil or butter.  Then I added the 1/4 cup of butter until it melted and added the flour.  I stirred for about a minute or too until cooked then added the milk and ranch and habanero flakes, if using.  I kept stirring over medium low temperature until the sauce thickened and began to simmer.  Then I turned off the heat and stirred in the cheese until melted and smooth.  Finally I added salt and pepper.

Once the sauce was made, I layered an 8 by 8 inch baking pan with a layer of potatoes, then sauce, then potatoes again, finishing with a layer of sauce.  This was covered with aluminum foil and baked for 45-60 minutes at 350 degrees F until potatoes were soft.  Serves 4.

The slaw was nothing fancy, but it tasted very good and the colors were pretty.

I shredded 1/2 of a small head of red cabbage, 1 carrot, and thinly sliced 4 stalks of celery.  To this I added the juice of 1 lemon, 2 Tbsp brown sugar and about 1/4 cup olive oil.  I also added some salt, pepper, and hot sauce.  Mixed it all up and let it sit for at least 1 hour.

All together this made a great evening meal.  The pork was so tender and juicy.  The potatoes were creamy and the slaw was colorful and fresh.  We will be happily eating this for another night or two.  Enjoy.

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Smoked Top Round Roast

A delicious hickory smoked top round roast seasoned with common household spices. 

Today my husband brought home a top round roast (labeled as London Broil) that was on sale (for $6) and I had the pleasure of him making dinner. We have an electric smoker on our lanai. What better way to cook an inexpensive cut of meat than slow and low? Seasoned with a dry rub of steak seasoning mix and a few other spices, this roast was smoked for 6 hours while we watched football. Here is what he did.

Rub Ingredients:

Favorite spicy steak seasoning blend
Garlic powder
Dried minced onions
Fresh cracked pepper
Sea salt

There was no measuring, he just mixed the spices in a small bowl in decreasing amounts (steak seasoning was the biggest addition and salt the smallest) until the mixture smelled good. This is easy to modify to your own tastes.  Maybe try a 3:1:1:1:1/2 ratio to start or just use a prepared dry rub.

Rub the roast all over with spice mixture and place on the smoker and close lid.  Evey 30 minutes to 1 hour he 'sopped' it.  I'm not sure if this is even a real barbeque term, but that is what we call it.

Sop Ingredients:

Beer
Cider vinegar
Garlic powder

This is also not a precise recipe, anywhere from a 1:1 or 2:1 beer:vinegar ratio, and you can add any spices, or none at all.  We used Coors light  because that is what we had, but any domestic beer would be fine.  The beer doesn't add flavor so much as helps keep the meat moist, so you probably could just use water, or maybe a diluted beef broth.  This 'sop' was brushed on as often as my husband thought about it (about every hour).  If you have a spray bottle, you could also spray it on.

Once done, take off smoker and let meat rest, slice thin and serve with barbecue sauce for dipping and whatever sides you prefer.  This is about a 3 pound roast and we will probably make 3 dinners out of it (for 2 people).

Wow! This was delicious.  It was tender, with out being stringy, smokey, but not over powering, just super tasty.  Now I'm a North Carolina girl originally, so my favorite barbecue is pork and nothing else satisfies, but this hit the spot, definitely my favorite we have made so far.  I had to write about it so hopefully we will be able to reproduce this recipe again.  Enjoy.

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