Throw everything in the crock pot and in a few hours you have a delicious, creamy crockpot chicken and rice dish that can be served over rice, noodles, or potatoes!
Yup, this Crockpot Chicken and rice is the old classic you grew up eating. We will post the originally recipe of shredded chicken with a soup and cream cheese mixture and add the adaptations that we make.
This Crock Pot Chicken recipe is such a reader favorite that we are often looking to share new chicken recipes you can make in a crockpot. Sadly we sometimes forget about the old recipes so it was time to bring back the classic.
What to Serve With Crockpot Chicken
I’m sure that you could add some broccoli pieces or maybe even carrots to this crockpot chicken and it would help a little bit on the nutrition side of things.
Maybe you could even try adding a little bit of sour cream or plain yogurt if you aren’t a big fan of the cream cheese. Anyway, we eat this with brown rice or whole wheat angel hair pasta. I am sure you could serve it over mashed potatoes too!
What to Substitute for Cream of Chicken Soup
If you’re not into using a can of cream of chicken soup, no worries! You can actually make your own using milk or cream, butter and flour along with some easy seasoning.
Our post on Cheesy Ground Beef and Rice Casserole has a quick and easy recipe for canned soup at home. This particular recipe makes a cream of mushroom soup but just omit the mushrooms and use a few dashes of poultry seasoning and you’re all set!
Adding More Flavor to Crockpot Chicken and Rice
We really like to add more flavor to this crockpot shredded chicken and rice recipe so we like to add in Montreal Chicken seasoning, lemon pepper or other favorites as it is cooking in the slow cooker. We’ve found that depending on our mood we could use anywhere from 2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon of seasoning along with a little salt and pepper.
It’s up to you, and isn’t normally part of the recipe, but it’s a great addition.
Can you Freeze Crockpot Chicken?
Normally you don’t want to freeze anything that has a lot of cream or cream cheese in it as it can curdle when reheating or separate. This crockpot chicken and rice recipe is a different story as that can of soup really helps to keep things together.
We still have much better luck when we use a food saver to suck out all of the air, but ziplocs will do fine.
This shredded chicken will last for about 1 month or so if you use a food saver or 2-3 weeks if it’s in freezer bags.
Crockpot Chicken and Rice
Crockpot Chicken and rice
Throw everything in the crock pot and in a few hours you have a delicious, creamy crockpot chicken and rice dish that can be served over rice, noodles
Ingredients:
- 4 Chicken Breasts
- 1/4 Cup of Butter
- 1 Italian Dressing Seasoning Dry Mix
- 1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup
- 1 (8 Oz) Pkg Cream Cheese
Directions:
- In a crock pot, mix together the soup, butter and italian seasoning packet.
- Add the chicken breasts.
- Cook in crockpot on low for 5-6 hours or high 3 – 3 1/2 hours.
- Shred chicken and add cream cheese to the sauce.
- Mix until smooth. If it seems too thick add a little milk.
- Serve over rice or pasta!
Nutrition Information
Yield: 6 servings, Serving Size: 1 serving
- Amount Per Serving:
- Calories: 395 Calories
- Total Fat: 28.6g
- Cholesterol: 124.9mg
- Carbohydrates: 5.8g
- Fiber: 0.2g
- Sugar: 1.2g
- Protein: 27.9g
Just place the entire bird in the slow cooker and it comes out like rotisserie!
This is the best pot roast recipe ever!
Can you use frozen chicken? Do I need to cook it longer if the chicken is frozen?
No, I wouldn’t add the chicken frozen. It will make it too watery!
Do you have to use cream cheese? Will it still be good without it? Can I substitute it with something else? Can I use cream of chicken and cream of mushroom at the same time?
You can substitute sour cream or plain yogurt for the cream cheese. I wouldn’t totally omit it though. Cream of chicken and mushroom go great together!
Hi, I only have cream of mushroom soup on hand. Can I substitute the cream of chicken soup with that and have it taste just as good or do I need to have cream of chicken soup for the recipe?
It will taste different for sure, but it will be delicious! Especially if you are a mushroom fan! Throw some sliced up mushrooms in there…yummm!
I only have dry ranch dressing do you think that would work? Also how much chicken I have 2lbs.
Ranch would be totally delicious! You want 4 chicken breasts. It depends on how big the chicken breasts are but I’d say 4 chicken breasts is probably pretty close to 2lbs…maybe a little more.
Looks yummy! I’m wondering if you could estimate how many lbs of chicken four breasts would be? I’m trying to cut the recipe in half but my chicken breasts are huge! Since they vary in size it would be helpful to know how many pounds. Thank you!
I can’t wait to try this! If I wanted to make it a little more Thai, do you think I could replace anything with a yellow curry sauce, or add it at any point?
Oh yum! Great question! We’ve never tried it, but it would be worth experimenting! I would add the yellow curry sauce or paste right from the beginning so the flavors get into the chicken. Maybe even adding a little coconut milk too! If you try it, let us now how it goes!!
I bet this would b great as sandwiches??
Yum! That’s a great idea!
Oh my goodness! My fiancé and I LOVED this! It was super easy to make and tasted absolutely DELICIOUS! We were skeptic over only one can of soup because the recipe doesn’t specify the can size and we thought it wouldn’t be enough, but it turned out great either way. Will definitely make it again! Thank you! 💕
Yay! I’m so happy you both enjoyed it! It is one of our favorite dinners!
What size crock pot would you recommend using for this recipe? I have a 4-quart and a 5.5-quart and I wasn’t sure if I should stack the chicken breasts on top of each other in the smaller crock pot or try to spread them out in the bigger crock pot.
Thank you!
We use a 6qt so I’d probably go with the 5.5 🙂
New to cooking and first time cooking chicken in crockpot-am I removing chicken to shred and then adding cream cheese to sauce while chicken it out or am I shredding chicken IN crockpot/sauce and then adding cream cheese?
Either way works fine as in the end you stir it all back together again anyway.
I have to watch my cholesterol, can I use less butter and it taste just as good!!?
Hi, you definitely can!
When would you add the broccoli and about how much?
You could add broccoli the last 30 minutes and 1/2 a head would be good
I was wondering if I could replace the Italian Dressing Seasoning Dry Mix with regular Italian seasoning? If not, what would you suggest I should replace it with?
The Italian Dressing has a bit more zip with the spices and herbs used in it. Poultry Seasoning, Italian Seasoning etc would all still be great options but you may need to increase the measurements
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Can u use margarine instead of butter
Hi Lisa,
You can but butter definitely tastes a lot better and not as oily
So nice to come home from work to dinner ready! I love to cook and this was super yummy. I was skeptical of the Italian Dressing Dry Seasoning packet (never used before) and I was worried about thickness since the instructions called for the can of soup – no mention of water. But alas to my sweet surprise this was really good. I served mine over rice with a side of green beans. The next day I had it over sour dough toast. I want to try it with carrots and celery… Thank you 🙂
I love the idea of it over sour dough toast!
Can you cook the chicken on the high setting instead?
Hi, You can, just make sure you lower the cooking time to more like 3 hours. 🙂
Adding broccoli is the good idea to make this plate more delicious 😋
Even I don’t often freeze my food but it came my surprise that the shredded chicken could be frozen within 1 month! It’s really a long time.
It really is but you have to be sure to use that food saver if you do.
Dear Carrian: I have the same question as Raye Ann; how much is 1/2 cube of butter; I can’t wait to try this. Many thanks. LHJ
Oh, let me fix that for you, it’s 1/4 cup.
How much butter is 1/2 cube? Not sure what size cube you are starting with!
Thanks!!!
1/4 cup, I’ve corrected the recipe. 🙂
When do you add the butter?
Hi Monica, you add it with everything else in the beginning. Sorry about that. Recipe is corrected.
it is good… :)our family loves it too!
I JUST GOT DONE EATING THIS WITH BRANDON! WE LOVED IT! THANK YOU! I’M TELLING EVERYONE I KNOW TO VISIT THIS BLOG!
This is one of our favorite recipies. I usually only use 1/2 of the cream cheese. Christmas bread is a recipie that my grandma Mencl learned from her mother in law. (She had brought it with her from Checkaslvackia (sp)) It is a sweet white bread with lots of eggs and butter. Then you add almond slivers, white raisins and some candied fruit. I like it without the candied fruit, but those are easy enough to pick out. We always got a loaf from my grandma Mencl at Christmas, so the smell of it toasting is a strong “christmas feel”. Let me know if you would like the recipie.