Easy Slow Cooker Shredded Chicken

Slow Cooker Shredded Chicken: This easy recipe, using boneless skinless chicken breasts, is the best way to cook chicken for all of your favorite chicken dishes.

We absolutely love slow cooker recipes around here, and when you can make a batch of crock pot chicken for dishes like this taco chicken casserole, chicken street tacos, taco salad, or other delicious recipes, it makes things so much easier!

 

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Easy: This easy slow cooker recipe for shredded chicken, may just become your new favorite way to cook a large batch of chicken. With only a 5-minute prep time, this chicken is ready for cooking in just a short time.

Easy Meal Prep: Imagine the possibilities of what you can do with this crockpot shredded chicken when it has cooked! With little effort, and a 4 hour cook time on “high” or 6-8 hours on “low” you’ll have a protein for busy weeknights, or to even place in freezer bags for small batches later for your favorite weeknight meals. (Or even a quicker version of these crock pot chicken enchiladas.)

Jump to:

• Why You’ll Love This Recipe
• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Equipment
• Substitutions
• Storage
• Pro Tip
• FAQs
• How to Use Shredded Chicken
• Related Recipes
• Recipe
• Comments

Ingredients

• 3.5 pounds of raw chicken breasts, deboned and skinless
• ¼ cup butter
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 3 tablespoons Italian seasoning
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• parsley to taste for garnish

Make sure to check out the full recipe card toward the bottom of this post, where you can see everything in one place!

Instructions

1. Pour chicken broth into a 4-6 quart crockpot along with butter.
2. Place chicken breasts in a single layer, into the bottom of the cooker, over the butter.

3. Evenly sprinkle Italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and pepper over the chicken breasts.

3. Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 6-8 hours. Check to make sure the internal temperature of the chicken is 165 degrees before removing it from the crock pot.
4. Once cooked, remove all except 1 inch of broth from the crock pot.
5. Using 2 forks, shred the chicken and top with chopped parsley.

6. Serve warm in chicken recipes, on sandwiches, or by itself.

Equipment

Any basic slow cooker should work just fine for this! We actually have an Instant Pot though, and we use this for a lot of our slow cooker recipes, like when we made our Instant Pot pulled pork! The cooking time may be different, as we don’t have a “high” and “low” on our Instant Pot for the slow cooker function so it’s best to check and make sure the middle of the chicken breast with a meat thermometer, to make sure the internal temp as reached 165 degrees.

Electric Mixer vs. Two Forks: Some find that using an electric mixer or stand mixer with the paddle attachment to shred the chicken, is an easier way. However, using two forks is an option that works well and is something everyone usually has on hand.

Substitutions

• Type of chicken: The chicken breasts can be substituted with boneless chicken thighs (skinless) if you prefer! Yes, buying a rotisserie chicken in the grocery store can be an easy way to add chicken in to some dishes but this is a great way to get easy shredded chicken, and save money!
• Garlic: Minced garlic or chopped garlic can be used instead of garlic powder if that’s all you have on hand or prefer a stronger garlic flavor.
• Seasoning: If you don’t have Italian seasoning or aren’t a fan of that flavor, you can use taco seasoning, seasoning salt, or something similar! You can also leave the seasoning out completely if you feel like it will mess with the flavor of the dishes you plan to make with it!

Storage

This crock pot shredded chicken should be stored in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or in a freezer for up to 6 months.

FAQs

How to Use Shredded Chicken

Now that you’ve made the shredded chicken, here are some easy recipes that it will be perfect for:

If you love chicken dishes like this one, you’ll definitely want to check out this crack chicken that’s so good!

Or if you love a “kick” to your chicken recipes, this jalapeno crock pot chicken is an easy one to make!

Related Recipes

If you love easy slow cooker recipes, such as this one, then you’ll also love this shredded slow cooker pulled pork and these slow cooker bbq meatballs! Or if you’re even thinking of taco recipes, these shredded beef tacos are made in the slow cooker.

Did you make this? I’d be so grateful if you left a “star” rating below to let me know what you thought! Then, the next time you need a quick and easy recipe, come back to Fantabulosity to browse all of my easy recipes!

Recipe