Crock Pot Chicken and Noodles

Winter time is comfort food time. All I want is a bunch of carbs and cheese and cream sauces and almost anything I can eat out of a bowl with a spoon. When I started this project it wasn't going to have noodles, although I had though I might serve it over some brown rice. But after it cooked for a few hours I realized it was going to be way too much liquid, so I decided noodles would maybe not be so bad. And really, the nutrition information is pretty good, at least if you ignore the sodium.

As it turns out, these are not the only ingredients I used, but the rest came in later after I changed my mind. I started with chicken, cut into chunks and laid in my crock pot. Then I sprinkled a packet each of onion and vegetable soup mixes, some Italian seasoning, and I thought better of the garlic-pepper-salt blend and just used some garlic powder and pepper. I also added a large can of cream of mushroom soup, some ranch dressing, some sour cream, and about half a bag of frozen peas and carrots.

Later on I decided to add a block of 1/3-less-fat cream cheese (Neufchatel cheese), and about half a pound of broad noodles (which I would call egg noodles if they contained eggs).

This shows everything except the cream cheese and noodles, mixed together with the chicken still raw and the vegetables still frozen. I then put the lid on, turned it to high, and walked away for about five hours.

See how it darkened? That's the soup mixes. It was also verging on entirely too salty, and it was definitely too liquid. So I added a block of cream cheese, turned the heat down to low, and put the lid back on for another 30 minutes or so.

I also decided some noodles would be in order, and since I had about half a bag of broad noodles in the cupboard I boiled them until they were slightly underdone. (Ignore the pan of cornbread I forgot to move off the stove before cooking, it doesn't belong in this recipe.)

The half hour or so it took me to boil water and then boil the noodles was plenty long enough for the cream cheese to melt and be stirred in. Then I dumped in the slightly chewy noodles. And this is when this went from being a meal that would serve 6 to a meal that would serve 12. I stirred in the noodles, put the lid back on, and let it cook on low for another 30 or so minutes.

At this point, it was ready to serve, and conveniently enough it was also our normal dinnertime. My mother, however, thought we should leave it for a while so we could run to the drug store. In retrospect, I should have turned off the heat, but it didn't occur to me. It's not that it was bad when we got home, just that the pasta absorbed more of the liquid than I would prefer.

After cooking for another probably 40 minutes or so, it was darker and thicker. But my goodness was it tasty! I've got some in the freezer to see how that works since there's no way the two of us are going to eat it all before it goes bad, so I'll report back at some nebulous time in the future on how it comes out.

Crock Pot Chicken and Noodles

Serves 12

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast

1 (1.25 ounce) packet dry onion soup mix

1 (1.5 ounce) packet dry vegetable soup mix

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 (26 ounce) can cream of mushroom soup

1/3 cup ranch dressing

1/3 cup light sour cream

1/2 pound frozen peas and carrots

1 (8 ounce) package neufchatel cheese (1/3-less-fat cream cheese)

8 ounces broad noodles

Directions

Cut chicken into chunks and place in crock pot. Sprinkle soup mixes and seasonings over chicken, then add soup, dressing, and sour cream and stir to mix well. Break apart frozen vegetables and stir into mixture. Turn crock pot to high heat, cover and cook for 5 hours.

Add cream cheese to crock pot, reduce heat to low, and continue cooking another 30 or so minutes. Meanwhile, bring some lightly salted water to a boil, add the noodles, return to a boil, and cook 6 minutes, until not quite done.

While noodles are draining, stir cream cheese into crock pot until completely incorporated. Then add noodles and stir to combine. Cover and cook on low heat another 30 or so minutes before serving.

Serving Size: 195 g

Calories: 279

Calories from Fat: 92

Total Fat: 10.2 g

Saturated Fat: 4.1 g

Trans Fat: 0.0 g

Cholesterol: 66 mg

Sodium: 854 mg

Total Carbohyrates: 22.8 g

Dietary Fiber: 1.8 g

Sugars: 3.6 g

Protein: 24.7 g