Crock pot Southwestern Chicken is a super easy meal made with chicken breasts and canned and frozen vegetables. This recipe needs just 15 minutes prep time, so you’ll be out of the kitchen pronto.
This crock pot Southwestern chicken goes to the top of the list for delicious easy chicken dinner ideas. Check out some of our other favorites like Saucy Chicken Soft Tacos, Chicken Tortilla Soup, and Maple Glazed Grilled Chicken Kabobs.
And, I don’t care how many cooking classes or culinary schools we’ve all been to, everyone needs an easy dump and go crockpot weeknight dinner.
And this one simply can’t get any easier. Crock pot Southwestern Chicken is perfect for your back to school meal plans, as it’s comforting and the whole family will love it.
Easy and basic using canned black beans, frozen corn, and with a little pizzaz using your favorite salsa and chile peppers. Chicken breasts make this a hearty meal.
And the icing on the cake? A brick of cream cheese.
Slow Cookers are awesome. A magical pot in the kitchen that transforms food from ho-hum to tender and wonderful. And offer us the convenience of an effortless meal like this slow cooker chicken.
This is one of our favorite easy dinners and gets rave reviews when it travels to pot lucks.
Let’s take a look.
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
- Salsa: Your favorite jarred brand.
- Frozen Corn
- Cream Cheese
- Chile Peppers, canned.
- Black Beans, canned, drained and rinsed.
Ingredient Subs
- Chicken: Substitute boneless skinless chicken thighs.
- Salsa: If you make homemade salsa on a regular basis like I do, feel free to use that.
- Corn: Use canned corn in place of frozen corn. Drained.
- Chile Peppers: I always have a stash of Hatch Chile Peppers in the freezer. To make this recipe even easier, use canned Hatch chile peppers from the Mexican aisle.
- Beans: Use canned pinto beans or canned chile beans in place of black beans.
Step by Step Instructions, It’s So Easy
This recipe for crockpot Southwestern chicken is so easy, there’s just two steps. This is truly and dump and go chicken dinner.
- Step 1: Place chicken breast, corn, beans and salsa in a crockpot. Cook on low 4 – 5 hours.
- Step 2: Once cooked, top with a brick of cream cheese. Turn off heat and let sit for 30 minutes. Stir and serve.
FAQ’s
Absolutely not. Unless you want to risk salmonella poisoning. Only used thawed chicken for any crockpot chicken recipe. Why? Frozen chicken will not likely reach the temperature of 165 within the “safe window” of time in a crockpot. It’s just too risky.
No. Even though this is a dump it and leave it type of meal, unlike tougher pieces of meat like a pot roast, you can over-cook chicken breasts. Even though they’re swimming in liquid, cooking chicken breasts too long will result in a dry texture. Don’t cook the chicken more than 4-5 hours.
Tips For Success
- Use Quality Ingredients. Less expensive over-sized large chicken breasts may contain injected liquid. This is called plumping. A saline solution is injected into the breasts so they’ll stay juicier. This solution will result in a watery end result with this recipe. Purchase quality chicken breasts from a reputable meat counter.
- If the chicken and vegetable mix is too thin, use a slotted spoon for serving. This will drain some of the liquid back into the pot.
Variations
- Tacos: I suggest small flour tortillas to make Southwest chicken tacos. Just use a slotted spoon to place some of the chicken vegetable mix onto a warmed flour tortilla. Top with grated cheese and chopped cilantro. A wedge of avocado would be nice here.
Feeding a Crowd?
- Once the chicken is cooked turn the crockpot to warm. Keep warm for up to a couple of hours. Just provide a large spoon to serve this southwest chicken and a big bowl of cooked rice, and let guests help themselves. I’ve done this for football game gatherings. Works great. All you need is a big green fresh salad for a side dish.
I hope you give this Crockpot Cream Cheese Chicken recipe a try. It’s really a tasty and super easy recipe. It makes a large batch, which is good because they’ll be asking for 2nd’s
More Easy Chicken Recipes
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Crock Pot Southwestern Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves about 2 or 2 1/2 pounds
- 3 cups frozen corn
- 2 15 1/2-ounce cans black beans drained and rinsed
- 1 cup salsa jarred, your favorite brand.
- 1 cup green chile peppers roasted, peeled, chopped. Or two 4 ounce cans.
- 8 ouncec cream cheese
Instructions
- Place chicken breast, corn, beans, salsa and chile peppers in a crockpot. Cook on low 4 – 5 hours.
- Top with the brick of cream cheese. Turn off crock pot and let sit for 1/2 hour.
- Remove chicken and slice and return to crockpot. Stir ingredients in crock pot and serve over cooked rice.
Notes
Nutrition
Southwestern Crockpot Cream Cheese Chicken …It’s What’s for Dinner.
I made this tonight and it was FANATASTIC!!! I happened to stumble onto your page and I am so glad I did. I have found tons of new recipes to try. Thanks!
You’re so welcome Chris. Glad you liked the recipe.
That cream cheese has to make it as creamy as can be!
Creamy and pure comfort food. 🙂
Sometimes I get so annoyed I gave my crock pot to my DIL. Oh well, no kids here anymore so she’ll use it lots more than I would.
But I’d sure love to make this. Comfort food!
This would work just fine in an oven Barbara. I’d just use thawed chicken breasts. And yes, incredible comfort food.
Wow I love how easy this is! I would have never thought to add cream cheese to the mix but it seems like it works!
It did seem to work … and yes, easy peasy.
What a beautiful looking meal! Yum!
Thanks for stopping by and the comment.
This looks so easy and delicious, Lea Ann. I need to use my crock pot more than I do. I stick it in the cupboard and then forget about it. I guess I need to leave it in plain sight.
I’ve got alot of things like that Cathy .. if they’re not in plain sight I don’t think about them.
This is the perfect pot luck recipe. Definitely a people pleaser!
Thanks Kristi. It sure pleased our crowd of two at our house. 🙂
This sounds simple and delicious. Time to get out the slow cooker!
Especially this week here in Colorado. Suppose to get our first Arctic blast this week.
I love the idea of cream cheese melting over all that slow cooked chicken – brilliant! As always, your photo is very nice . . . love that fun spoon.
Thanks Vickie. I wish I had a whole arsenal of those decorated utensils. I have coveted that spoon since I unearthed it at my mother-in-law’s house years ago. And I agree, you just can’t beat cream cheese for making a dish oozy and rich.
Very clever Lea Ann! I’m in the stage of the year where anything easy, delicious is appreciated not seeming to have enough minutes in the day. This would be one my whole family would like! Thank you.
Thanks Toni. It’s one of those good ol’ comfort food dishes.
YUM!
Stephanie I thought about you when I was making this … thought it was right up your alley. 🙂 Good to hear from you.
O.K., Made this dish tonight and it was DELICIOUS!
I made a few alterations. I added one more glass of salsa (chipotle), used creme fraiche instead of cream cheese and added some taco seasoning from the “Savory Spice Shop”. Keeper recipe! Thanks Lea Ann.
Kirsten
Love the alterations. When I was making this, I kept thinking of different flavor versions. Love the creme fraiche idea. Glad you liked the recipe Kirsten.
Sounds fabulous Lea Ann and so easy too. Your plate is beautiful with the exotic wooden spoon.
Sam
I got that wooden spoon when we cleaned out my mother-in-law’s house when we moved her to assisted living. I’d love to know where it came from.
Simple and delicious = perfect meal
Thanks Larry
Looks like time to take down the crockpot from the very top shelf in my pantry. (Already the second crockpot dish I found worth trying this week.) Could it get any easier? You don’t even have to thaw the chicken. Great!
This is one of those comfort food goodies. And yes, so so easy.