Slow Cooker BBQ Pulled Chicken

A no fuss recipe for slow cooker BBQ pulled chicken. Just set and forget until it’s time to eat. Serve with coleslaw, pickles and chips or your favorite sides!

If you’re craving a simple, no fuss slow cooker BBQ pulled chicken sandwich, this one’s for you. It’s as easy as lining up the slow cooker with some chicken breasts, mixing together the sauce, pouring it over the chicken and setting it to cook for x amount of hours. Come back, shred, toss in the sauce and you’re ready for a delicious BBQ sandwich,

Serve it up with regular burger buns, slider buns, sweet Hawaiian rolls or brioche buns. I went with brioche. You’ll get about 4 big servings on a regular brioche bun or 6 servings on a smaller burger bun. There’ll be even more servings if you decide to go for sliders. Don’t forget coleslaw, your favorite pickles and some chips, or other sides like cornbread, Texas toast, blackened corn, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, baked beans or some greens.

Make sure to use boneless, skinless chicken breasts and pat them dry before lining them up in the slow cooker. You’ll want skinless chicken breasts because the fat from the skin will melt in the slow cooker and dilute the sauce BIG TIME. This is the same reason we fully defrost the chicken and pat it dry after. And while you’re patting it dry, yank off any excess fat you see on the edges. Same reason: fat in slow cooker = BAD.

As for the sauce, it’ll look super thick once you mix it all together, thicker than you’d want it. Don’t worry about this, the chicken will produce a little juice while cooking and this will thin the sauce down a little. You’ll also have a lot of sauce to go around so once you finish shredding everything, add the sauce in gradually until you’ve reached the level of sauciness you want. Feel free to keep the leftover sauce for dipping or for adding later once you reheat.

And that’s about it. Pair it with your favorite sides and get ready to dig in. I personally like balancing out the flavors and hot and cold so I throw in cold coleslaw to balance out the hot sandwich, textured fluffy cornbread, sweet corn and mac and cheese to balance out the tartness of the thick BBQ sauce and regular natural flavored potato chips to reset the palate in between bites!

Enjoy and happy cooking!