Slow Cooker Chicken Chile Verde
Updated March 26, 2019
Chile Verde – my husband’s crock pot Chile Verde with chicken is delicious and easy to make – the slow cooker does all of the work! Serve with tortilla, rice, and beans for a tasty meal!
Slow Cooker Chile Verde
One of Josh’s favorite meals is chile verde, but he usually only makes it a couple of times a year because it takes awhile. He was in the mood for chile verde, but didn’t want to do the work, so he dusted off our slow cooker to make Slow Cooker Chicken Chile Verde.
Josh prepared everything in the morning so he could eat chile verde for dinner. He kept talking about his chicken chile verde recipe all day long. He was so excited for dinner time.
Chile Verde Sauce
Josh usually makes chile verde with pork, but used chicken this time because he was in the mood for chicken and we had it in the fridge.
Josh roasted tomatillos and Anaheim peppers in the oven to bring out their flavor. He combined the roasted tomatillos and peppers in the blender with onion, garlic, cilantro, jalapeño, lime juice, and some spices to make the chile verde sauce. I tasted the sauce and it was soooo good! I wanted to eat the sauce with a bag of tortilla chips, but Josh was guarding the chile verde sauce with his life. He said it was for HIS recipe.
He poured the killer sauce into the slow cooker with chicken broth and the chicken. He turned on the slow cooker and let the chicken chile verde cook away.
Easy Chile Verde Works
We ate dinner early that night because Josh couldn’t contain himself. He served his Slow Cooker Chile Verde with cilantro lime rice, beans, and tortillas. He LOVED his slow cooker meal. He couldn’t believe how good it was. He is sold on this Slow Cooker Chicken Chile Verde recipe, and it was pretty easy.
Josh didn’t take our slow cooker back to the basement because she said he is going to be making this recipe again and very soon. This Slow Cooker Chicken Chile Verde recipe makes a great weeknight meal. It is also great for serving a crowd. Josh is already talking about making it for Super Bowl Sunday! Give it a try!
Slow Cooker Chicken Chile Verde
Ingredients
- 2 lbs tomatillos husked washed and dried, and cut in half
- 10 medium Anaheim peppers cut in half, seeds removed
- 1 jalapeño pepper
- 1 cup diced onion
- 4 garlic cloves
- 2 cups roughly chopped cilantro
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- Zest of 1 lime
- Juice of 1 lime
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast
- Tortilla beans, and rice for serving, optional
Instructions
- 1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Place tomatillos and Anaheim peppers on two large greased baking sheets. Roast until tomatillos are golden brown about 5-7 minutes, and until peppers are charred.
- 2. Place peppers in a brown paper bag to sweat for about ten minutes. Remove the peppers from the bag and peel.
- 3. In a blender or food processor, combine 6 peppers (12 pepper halves), tomatillos, jalapeños, onion, garlic, cilantro, cumin, paprika, lime zest and juice, sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. Blend until smooth.
- 4. Dice the remaining Anaheim peppers. Pour salsa verde, chicken broth, diced Anaheim peppers, and chicken into the slow cooker. Add salt and pepper.
- 5. Cook on high for 3-4 hours or on low for 6-8 hours or untill chicken is at least 165 degrees in center of meat.
- 6. Once chicken is cooked using a slotted spoon remove chunks of chicken to a cutting board and shred and return to crock pot with chile verde sauce. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Serve warm with tortillas, beans, and rice.
Have you tried this recipe?
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What a great dish! You could throw this on top of a salad or in a tortilla and make a quesadilla (or tacos)- just perfect. I recently started back on the mostly veg path, but I think some kind of verde beans would be good!
Looks so good, Maria! And absolutely perfect for so many dishes!
I can see why it’s one of his favorite meals! It looks incredible!!!!
This sounds incredible! Love that you can make it in the crock pot to cut down on some of the work of making it!
The recipe looks fantastic but I was wondering your thoughts on substituting canned tomatillos? Unfortunately, fresh tomatillos are hard to come by in the mountains of North Carolina this time of year!
We haven’t tried the recipe with canned tomatillos. If you try it, let us know.
Yum I’ve never had this before it looks wonderful
Perfect, I can almost taste it!! So delicious..
Oh! this looks so good Maria- very comforting on a cold night!
This recipe is right up my husband’s alley. If I can’t find Anaheim peppers, what other pepper could you suggest?
You could try a poblano or other mild pepper, but we have only tried this recipe with Anaheim peppers.
Canned green chiles might work??? Again, we haven’t tried it.
Great combination – a delicious recipe and a convenient preparation method. My slow cooker is in constant use in our hectic household. Thanks for sharing. I would think that any variety of mild chili pepper could substitute for the Anaheim pepper.
Oh man… It’s so cold out now. Could totally use something like this to warm the soul.
My husband is going to love this!! He is a huge chili verde fan, but I never made it for him. Love that this is done in the slow cooker too. Perfect for super Bowl Sunday!
I love a good chile verde. And a great excuse to try your cilantro lime rice.
Yay for Josh, always love his recipes too.
We love making cilantro lime rice:)
Love the chicken sub, and slow cooker-EVEN better!
Such a GREAT family meal Maria!!
I’m loving all your chickeny stuff lately!
I love this! Anything with verde sauce has my name written all over it!
i love how easy this is to put together. set and forget is always the best 🙂
I like that this is nice and easy even with making your own roasted salsa verde!
Go Josh. And I am hoping it’s ok for me to feature this on my slow cooker site?
Of course it is ok. Thanks Kalyn!
This looks great. Did you put the chicken breasts in whole or did you cube them?
Yes, put them in whole. Josh used smaller breasts. When they are cooked, you shred the chicken.
Maria, this looks absolutely delicious! Perfect for the snowy weather up here!
that looks delicious.
Yum! And even better being in the crockpot 🙂
LOVE using the crock pot, looks great Maria!
This looks amazing! Definitely will try. If I were going to try it with pork, have any suggestions on the amount and cut that would work best along with a cooking time?
I have verde sauce we canned with summer garden goodies, definitely will be putting it in the slow cooker this week. Thanks for the inspiration.
This is just my kind of winter meal. 🙂
How do you guys do your pinto beans when you serve this meal?
If it goes in a slow cooker, it’s for me! I would love this on some tortillas with a little sour cream. 🙂
Crock pot rocks! This is right up my alley, Josh.
Oh yum! The fact that it is a crock pot meal makes it about a billion times better. Cannot wait to try it.
This recipe looked so amazing, as soon as I read it this morning, I went out to the farmers market to get all the ingredients! It was dinner tonight and will be lunch tomorrow too 🙂 Thank you both!
Delicious!n
It looks fantastic, Josh! I can see why you were excited for dinner.
This sounds so good! I love all of your recipes on here. I’ve tried a lot of them and loved them all!
This looks so good! I love that Josh was so proud of it haha. Although I would be proud too!
this looks amazing! i love chile verde, and chicken is a good way to make it nice and lean! It makes so much that we could probably freeze the leftovers for next week when i don’t feel like cooking (bonus!)
We make a slow cooker chicken verde as well except we “cheat” and use store bought salsa. I am sure this is better!
I love a good, spicy slow cooked meal in the winter, and this looks perfect! Mmmm!
I’m definitely gonna give this Slow Cooker Chicken Chile Verde recipe a try. It looks so delicious.
This is totally my kind of dish! And doesn’t love a good slow cooker recipe!
This sounds amazing! I love when you can re-invent a favorite!
Hello!! I made this dish today and it was fantastic! Im from Mexico, and I can tell you it taste like a grandmother recipe! Love it! I ate it with corn tortillas as a taco. Thank you guys!
Glad you liked the recipe!
Made this today, so very much in love with it! We topped it that white crumbly Mexican cheese (cojito?) and scarfed down two servings each. Can’t wait to use it as a base for huevos rancheros, too. Thanks!
Glad you enjoyed the recipe!
made this over the weekend and family LOVED it. Thanks for posting.
OMG I know what I’m taking for Super Bowl Sunday – this sounds amazing!
How do you think it would work out with pork? Would you suggest just subbing in an uncooked pork roast and shredding it later?
Thanks for the great recipe idea!
I made this with a small variation last night. I had some tomatillo salsa that I made last summer, so I used that, then roasted the anaheim peppers (with a serrano pepper thrown in for good measure) and added the lime zest, juice, paprika and sugar. It smelled heavenly and after it slow cooked on high for 6 hours, that chicken shredded super easily in the cooker with just 2 forks. I really enjoyed using your method. Thanks for the idea!
Went out and bought everything I needed to make this and plan on preparing it Tuesday. The recipe is so easy to follow (love that you just throw everything into the crock pot) and I plan to serve it with the rice. Yummy!
I made this over the weekend, along with your cilantro lime rice, and it ROCKS! Thanks for the great recipe. 🙂
I just got home from a week in Mexico and made this dish for my husband. It was delicious and reminded me of some of the homemade food I ate Mexico. I served it with plain rice, homemade refried beans, and homemade corn tortillas to add to the authentic flavor. Soooo good! Thanks. This recipe will be in the keeper binder.
Yay! Glad you liked it! Josh actually made this recipe for dinner tonight:)
Making this tonight for big house of family! Question – Do you recommend adding a salsa or other ‘cold’ salad or other side?
We usually serve cilantro lime rice, beans, and a salad on the side. Sometimes chips and salsa and guacamole as a starter:)
Going to be making this for dinner tomorrow! I actually am living in Mexico right now, so these veggies are on every corner for me. I am kind of obsessed with tomatillos right now.
Made this last night, and it was wonderful! Our store was out of Anaheim peppers, so I substituted poblanos, and they worked just fine. Even my two toddlers kept asking for more of the “soup.” Thanks for sharing!
Made the sauce Sunday and threw everything in the crockpot on Monday morning for dinner last night. Was delicious, except the juice of 1 whole lime was too much for us. I also left out the jalapeno so the whole family could enjoy. And the chopped Anaheim peppers added raw didn’t quite cook through after 10 hours on low. Next time I’ll just roast them along with the rest and chop them to add to the pot.
Served with cheese quesadillas and plain, steamed rice (since the dish was so limey!). Everyone ate their entire dinner, except the youngest, pickiest member. So 5 out 6 happy tummies is pretty good! Thanks for sharing the recipe.
This smelled absolutely delicious while I was roasting the peppers and peeling them, etc, but then I added the cilantro, and I have to say I think the recipe calls for a bit too much. I like the taste of some cilantro, but my whole house smells of it, and I can’t taste anything in the chili but the cilantro, which makes me really sad considering how amazing the pepppers smelled! I’d say 1/2 cup to 1 cup MAXIMUM for the cilantro.
This was amazing! We did alter it a bit – we did not roast anything, and we left the tomatillos whole and only coarsely chopped the onion and halved the pepper. Also, we didn’t use all those peppers – I am sensitive to spice, so I only used one poblano and then spiced it after cooking with a bit of cayenne and hot sauce.
We pulled out the tomatillos, poblano pepper, coarsely chopped onion and the chicken, drained all the liquid broth, and then food processed the veggies. Put it back in the pot to meld the flavors for a bit before shredding the chicken. This worked really nicely, and our chicken wasn’t too liquidy!
We served in a layered “bowl” style with chips – cilantro lime rice with brown basmati rice (yum!), then black beans, then chicken, then fresh guac and crema agria – grab a bag of your favorite tortilla chips and stuff your face!
You; I take it have a high powered commercial range for home use such as a “Wolf” or “Viking” as 5-7 minutes in an average range does not produce golden brown tomatillos or char peppers. Perhaps you may want to make that known to those who follow your blog. thanks.
Thank you for such an amazing recipe!! I made the sauce yesterday and will crock pot it (if there is any left…) with chicken on Monday. This sauce is the BEST thing I’ve tasted in a LONG time! I did roast the onions and the jalapenos with the tomatillos because I love roasting veg – DELISH! All those peppers are SOO good! Like I mentioned, if there is any sauce left, we’ll make the chicken on Monday. Also wanted to share…I host my husbands extended family at Christmas (30 people), and this will definitely be a featured item on the menu! Thinking of cooking it with chunks of pork roast and doing tacos…can’t wait! Thanks so much! 🙂
This is in my crock pot right now and I can’t wait to dig in tonight! The sauce, even before cooking, is amazing! I could have just eaten it all plain on a spoon. I plan to can the sauce and give it as Christmas gifts along with your recipe (giving credit where it’s due, of course!). Thanks so much for posting!
Great recipe. Few adaptations. Used what ever peppers where in my garden, and it was still good. I just threw all the ingredients in the crock pot and put in bone and skin on chicken in, for added flavor. When I took the chicken out to cool and shred, I just put the immersion blender in the crock pot to blend. Worked great and saved a step! Then I added a can of hominy. It was delicious and my family raved!
If making with pork is it pork shoulder or butt? Will try with chicken as well!
Oh my gosh sounds awesome! Do you deliver???? I’m hungry
Made this today…absolutely perfect, and very easy! Delicious!
Looks pretty good and will try an variation of it today. Have to admit that after a while I was hearing a monotone robotic voice when reading the “Slow Cooker Chicken Chile Verde” keywords for the 5th-6th times.
We really enjoyed this! Cut down on the anaheims bc of the kids (2 and 5) but other than that I followed the recipe. Served with black beans, cilantro lime rice (not from this site), radishes, red cabbage, guac, sour cream and cheese. Will definitely make this again. And it was so good this morning with a fried egg on top.
I loved this recipe!! I made it during Christmas with boneless skinless chicken breast and thighs and it was amazing! Now I’m making it again for my cousin’s birthday. So good.
How Spicy would you say this is…. ?? My BF does not like anything even remotely spicy… sucks because I think the spicier the better. =)
How many lbs. of Anaheim peppers would that be? The only store where I found them had huge ones, and I have no idea what the average “medium” Anaheim pepper looks like.
I just made this recipe and can tell you first hand that it is superb! It will quickly become a standard at our house! I can’t wait to share with our grown kids!
Thank you! This is delicious!
If I’ve used the anaheims from our garden and the fresh ones are too expensive, canned anaheims work well. No roasting required for those, as they’re already roasted and peeled.
I like to use smoked paprika instead of regular.
I’ve made it three times now, and we always enjoy it! 🙂
have you ever tried to swap out the tomatillos with green tomatoes? I have a bunch and was wondering if you thought they would work. Sounds like such a yummy recipe can’t wait to try it I love chili verde!
In your opinion is this dish ok for kids or too spicy?
Hi- Josh and I made this last week and I wanted to say thanks for the recipe. It was delicious. We had a lot of sauce left over and decided to slow cook a pork shoulder with the left over sauce. 2 amazing meals from 1 easy sauce… Thanks again 🙂
You are welcome!
i made this followed everything to the T except had to use poblanos cause I couldn’t find Anaheim peppers. It turned out very very bitter!! What would of caused this?!
My version of chile verde is bubbling away merrily in my crockpot now. I roasted tomatiloes, jalapenos, garlic and onion in olive oil, let it cool, then blended it just a little bit. It was still chunky. If you cannot find fresh tomatillos, I would suggest using a jar or two of jarred green salsa. Check and make sure it has tomatillos. I’ve used these in a band and it tastes great too. (Never as good as from scratch all the way though.)
If I half this recipe, will it still cook as long?
So excited to make this!! I’m trying to prep meals for when baby comes & this looks so delicious!!
Thanks for the recipe. I used the first three steps as a base for a salsa competition at work. I got second place. I substituted plenty of chili powder for paprika, no onion, less cilantro, roasted the garlic, added extra jalepenos, extra comino, and serranos and blended well. Ate as salsa with chips. The next day, I dumped the remainder on top of 1.8 lbs of chicken thighs and a few potatoes and 8 oz of chicken broth (too much maybe), cooked as stew on stove. Very spicy so added spinach to try to cool it down. Delish.
Best inspirational recipe ever! Thanks!
I am trying this tonight with Poblanos, my family likes the bolder flavor. I also had to use a little extra cilantro because I am obsessed! Excited to see how it turns out. I will serve it with my Nana’s recipe Spanish rice and some flour tortillas. Lefties may end up atop a plate of nachos : – ) Thanks for the recipe!
Meant to ask – is there a reason you don’t roast the onion and garlic as well? Thanks
Delicious! Only I made it for a birthday ccelebration so I boiled my chicken first and shredded it , put it in the slow cooker and just poured the sauce over the chicken, waited till it was warm and dug in!
Am I missing where the broth gets added?
Followed this as a guide using what I had on hand, making it with left over (9 oz. ) roasted pork tenderloin that I chopped into small cubes. So adding precooked meat was fine. I didn’t have the pepper types except jalapeno so used those, and also added one can of hominy rinsed and drained, like a posole. A favorite . Was great.
Thanks for sharing!