Slow cooker chili chicken delicious weeknight meal
One of the greatest secret weapon ingredients I know is chipotles in adobo sauce. These are smoked jalapeno peppers that have been stewed in a sauce of tomatoes, garlic, vinegar, salt and various spices, such as cumin, oregano and paprika. Imagine doing all that yourself ! No thanks! Luckily, the whole thing — peppers and sauce — is sold in tiny cans at just about every grocer.
The easiest way to use these peppers and sauce is to puree the whole thing. I just dump the contents of the can right into the food processor or blender. Then I store the puree in a sealed container in the fridge. Whenever a soup, stew or a chili (or anything that calls for a little touch of smoky heat) needs a little something extra, in goes a tbsp or two of the puree.
Speaking of secret weapons, one of the best appliances to earn that description is the slow cooker. For many of us, this handy kitchen cooker takes up permanent residence on the counter during the colder months. The unparalleled pleasure of walking into your home at the end of a long day to be greeted by the scent of a cooked meal is hard to overstate.
In this chili, these two secrete weapons join together to turn juicy and moist boneless, skinless chicken thighs into a somewhat spicy and couldn't-be-easier chili. I often make chili with ground chicken or turkey, which we all love, but it was nice to change it up with real cubes of chicken. This one is a definite weeknight keeper.