Real BBQ people will be rolling their eyes at this name won’t they? It’s not REAL BBQ since 1) I don’t own a smoker (and you really need that for it to be real BBQ right?) and 2) I cooked it in my slow cooker and 3) I used jarred (GASP!!) BBQ sauce.
I will assume though that I will be quickly forgiven for this naming faux pas once those eye-rollers taste this chicken. I didn’t name it what I did because it’s only mediocre. It’s delicious. It’s also so easy to make it nearly makes itself.
I used a BBQ sauce from my local Fairway Market-it’s their own bbq sauce and was in the middle of the line-not sweet, not hot, just smokey with a fair balance of sweet and spice-but nowhere near hot. In fact, it’s called ‘Schmokey’ which I think is cute. So get yourself a great tasting sauce for this and tuck in for a few hours. Look at that beauty!!
Best Tasty Shredded Chicken BBQ
Ingredients:
- 1 large yellow onion, cut in half then sliced to 1/4 inch pieces
- 1/2 lemon, sliced, seeds removed
- 2.5 lbs boneless, skinless, chicken breasts (about 8 breast halves)
- 1 18oz jar BBQ sauce
- 1/2 cup cola (not diet)
- 3 (+/-) tbsp arrowroot
- fresh bread that can hold up to the chicken (I used fresh French bread cut thickly), thinly sliced extra sharp cheddar cheese etc.. to assemble sandwiches.
Instructions:
- Place onion and lemon in the bottom of the slow cooker pot. Place the chicken on top of that and pour the BBQ sauce and cola over it.
- Cover and cook on high for 1 hour and then cook for 4 hours on low or until chicken is cooked through.
- Using a slotted spoon or a spider remove the chicken pieces and put them on a platter to cool slightly. Remove the lemon pieces and discard. Leave the onions and the sauce in the pot and add the arrow-root 1 tbsp at a time, stirring to combine, allowing it to rest for a few minutes and thicken. It might take another tbsp or 2 but be patient-it will thicken eventually.
- While you’re dealing with the sauce resting/thickening shred the chicken. Forget the 2 forks. If it’s cool enough just use your hands and pull it apart.
- When sauce has become thick add the chicken back into it, stir, and let it cook for another few minutes to make sure every little piece has a nice coating of sauce.
As far as serving I made an outstanding, but very simple, sandwich. I also think that this would be great on nachos, baked potatoes or hell just tasty with a fork.
This made 5 sandwiches like you see in the photo and I froze about 4 cups as well.
This was an interesting adaptation. I started off originally with the Chicken Barbecue recipe from the Cooking Light Slow Cooker book. Everything is the same until the chicken is finished cooking. The original recipe instructions were to mix flour and water and then add that to the sauce. Disaster. It rolled up into these disgusting globs as soon as it hit the sauce. I had to pick every one of them out of the sauce. Yuck. I’m glad I was able to salvage the recipe at all-even happier that it came out so amazingly delicious. The original recipe also didn’t shred the chicken or make a sandwich-just served the breast with sauce on it. So I guess this is highly adapted from that recipe.
Sparks from the Kitchen 