Crock Pot Brown Sugar Chicken Recipe!

I decided to try Brown Sugar Chicken in my crock pot again for dinner last night--I hadn't made it since the first time a few months ago when Dan and I really enjoyed it, but it turned into a screamfest with Jake (and Alex didn't eat it, either).  I made a few tweaks to the recipe based on some of my feelings about the meal first time I made it, and was really hoping to get the kids' approval this time.  Here's my recipe, since I modified it a bit from the original!

Good Housewife Crock Pot Brown Sugar Chicken

Prepared in a manual 3-quart round Crock-Pot. 
Prep Time:  10 minutes
Cook Time:  3 hours
Makes 4 servings.

Ingredients:

• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into halves
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white distilled vinegar
• 1 clove chopped garlic (I used 1/4 tsp minced garlic seasoning to save time!)
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1/4 cup lemon-lime soda
• black pepper to taste (I put in 4 small shakes from my pepper shaker)
• 1.5 Tbsp cornstarch
• Veggies (your preference--I used baby carrots, 1 bell pepper, and some green beans)
• Rice, prepared per directions (I use white Minute Rice)

Directions:

• Place chicken halves into the bottom of the crock pot.
• Cover chicken with brown sugar, vinegar, garlic, and soy sauce.
• Pour in the lemon-lime soda, and shake pepper in to taste.
• Cover and cook the chicken on low for 2 hours.
• After two hours, open the crock pot, turn your chicken pieces if they weren't fully submerged in the broth, and add cornstarch to the broth--make sure you stir it up really well!  If you prefer a thicker, less watery broth, add more cornstarch (in small increments!)--it will thicken more as it is heated.
• Add veggies to your pot--I put the carrots in first, down into the broth around the chicken (because carrots take longer to soften, and because the brown sugar flavor really complements the carrots), and then added the peppers and green beans on top.
• Cover and cook on low for 1 more hour, or until chicken is done.
• Serve chicken and veggies over rice, with as much broth as preferred.

Nutritional Information:  Between 260-300 calories without rice and veggies, depending on how much chicken you eat.  I ate half of a chicken breast (267 calories for chicken and broth) with 1/2 cup of white rice (200 calories) and some carrots, green beans, and peppers (70 calories).  I also had 1/4 of a dinner roll for an extra 25 calories.  My whole meal came to 562 calories.

Good Housewife Crock Pot Brown Sugar Chicken

I love the changes I made to the recipe--cutting down on the pepper was a fantastic call for my family.  Adding a little more brown sugar this time around also improved the taste--it felt a lot more balanced.  And I may have finally figured my kids out...which is a pretty bold (yet sure to be short-lived) statement, considering that what I have figured out for today almost certainly won't hold true for tomorrow.  When Abby asked what I was making for dinner (in front of both boys), I just said, "Chicken and rice," as nonchalantly as I could.  I pulled Abby aside later and told her I was actually making Brown Sugar Chicken, but that I didn't want the boys to freak out.  Everyone asked to see the chicken in the pot, but I conveniently covered it with veggies before lifting them up to see...sneaky mom!  Then when I plated it, I cut the kids' chicken into small pieces--Jake freaked out that the outer part of the chicken was brown last time, so I attempted to make it look not so brown on his plate.  The only meat Alex has ever eaten (other than bacon!) is turkey, so I set his plate in front of him and said, "Eat your turkey, Alex!"  Dan totally wasn't following along with my tricks--he kept asking me what the meal was called, and kept calling it chicken...grrr.  Jake started to fuss about the chicken (without trying it, of course), but I just told him that it was delicious, that I wanted a quiet meal after cooking it for him, and that he wasn't getting anything else.  I tried to be firm yet pleasant...and wouldn't you know?  It worked!  He ate all his chicken, and he did not cry--he even said it was good!  He also ate rice and carrots--success!  Abby ate all her meal and thought it was great, so then I just had to work on Alex.  He ate all his carrots first, and then dug into the rice...but of course, left the turkey/chicken untouched.  I kept calling it turkey for him, but he finally corrected me:  "Mommy, it's not turkey--it's chicken!"  I conceded and asked him to try it--I told him that it tasted like candy.  :)  He tried it, and LOVED it!  He ate all the chicken on his plate--I couldn't believe it!  We may get a carnivore out of that kid yet.  It was such a nice meal--it tasted delicious, and at one point, I looked around the table at everyone quietly and happily eating and thought, "So this is what a good family home-cooked dinner should look like."  Hooray for a few recipe modifications, and for being persistent in trying new meals with the kids!

Crock Pot Brown Sugar Chicken

**UPDATE**  To see my recipe for Crock Pot Brown Sugar Chicken, click here!

I went crazy on my commissary shop this weekend, and I bought a ton of different items needed for at least 6 different crock pot recipes!  I was eager to try one out, and had a hard time narrowing them down for last night's dinner...but I finally went with Brown Sugar Chicken, mostly because it's also called "Candy Chicken," and I thought for sure my picky kids couldn't turn down something with the word candy in it!  Ha ha.  The recipe, which I found on the blog of a woman who used her crock pot every day for a year (seriously???), was for a much bigger family, and a much bigger crock pot, so I had to pare it down a bit to suit our family.  Since this was only my 2nd crock pot attempt, I was a little nervous about overcooking the chicken--my last attempt was overdone and a bit dry, and I wanted to avoid that this time around as much as possible...but again, I'm new to this, so I don't really know what I'm doing!  The recipe called for 6-9 hours of cooking on low, but that was for a much bigger pot and a lot more chicken, so I thought maybe 4-5 hours would be better for my meal last night.

While the boys were eating lunch, I set to getting the items together for the recipe--I put the chicken in the pot, cut up some garlic cloves (I felt like a pro since I knew what I was doing after the Lemon-Thyme chicken last month!), measured vinegar, soy sauce, pepper, and 7-Up...really, 7-Up like the soda!  Then I decided to only use 1/2 a cup of brown sugar, instead of a full cup, since I was cooking far less chicken...and I lowered the vinegar as well...but I totally forgot to adjust the pepper.  That concerned me a little bit, but I just pressed on, and poured all that stuff over the chicken in the pot, set it to low, and got back to my business of getting the boys down for naps.  I was kicking myself for being so efficient--we weren't going to eat dinner until I got back from my step class at 6:30pm, but I had the pot going at 12:45pm...too long to cook the chicken without drying it out.  I figured I could have Dan set it down to warm if he got home at 5pm and found the chicken was done...but I was nervous about leaving him with that task, since he really hasn't even looked at the crock pot!

I got the boys down for naps and sat down at the computer for a minute--I wanted to compute the calories on the dinner so that I would know the damage...I figured all that brown sugar couldn't bode well for the health of the meal.  (Surprisingly, without the rice, all the ingredients divided by 4 only came to 185 calories!  With the rice, the whole meal was only 452--I can totally get behind that!)  While I was entering all the ingredients and thinking about my crock pot meal cooking away, I had a quite obvious realization:  Crock pots are great, but they only work if you plug them in.  Um, I hadn't plugged the crock pot in before I set it to low and walked away.  The first time I used it, I hovered and was totally paranoid about whether it was working or not--and it worked just fine...so this time, I opted to trust it.  Obviously, I wasn't counting on operator error!  Not my brightest moment, but thank goodness I discovered this minor problem at 1:30pm and not at 5:30pm!  Oh my gosh, I would have been upset to discover uncooked dinner after my class tonight...I'm so glad I didn't have to explain that one to Dan!

the chicken cooking...once I finally plugged the crock pot in!

Abby had dance class yesterday afternoon, so that was my first time leaving the crock pot to do it's thing when I was no longer in the house to monitor...not that my monitoring is so swell anyway!  I threw some carrots and green beans into the pot before I headed out the door with the kids before 4pm, and left Dan a note to check the chicken when he got back with the kids at 5pm and to make some rice so that the meal would be ready to serve when I got home at 6:30pm.  He followed his instructions perfectly--I came home to a warming crock pot and rice ready (good job, honey!).  I couldn't wait to see how it all turned out, and the kids were really excited...totally out of character for them when we ask them to try something new, but I wasn't complaining!

Brown Sugar Chicken

Abby took one bite and declared it the best thing she had ever eaten.  Dan said this was the best chicken I have fixed (and that says kind of a lot, since it seems like I only ever cook chicken!).  I liked it, but wished the brown sugar sweetness was a little stronger--and I definitely need to cut back the pepper next time!  It was overwhelming for me, and I know it bothered the kids as well.  Jake predictably freaked out because the chicken was brownish, but when he ate a piece, he did like it.  It was like pulling teeth to get him to eat more.  Alex ate the chicken!!!!  I was so thrilled, and I tried to get a picture--this was the best I got (and Abby photo-bombed it!):

yes, Alex's mouth is full of chicken!!

After that resounding approval, things went downhill.  Alex didn't eat any more chicken after that first bite (even though he clearly liked it), Abby picked and picked at her food (saying it was too hot...darn pepper!), and Jake cried and whined about everything on his plate.  Ugh.  It turned into a fight, which was not at all what I wanted.  Dan and I cleaned our plates, though, and Dan has already told his parents about the meal, so I guess it was a success in that respect.  Not even the promise of candy and sugar can get all my kids on board--but we're going to keep trying new things, and I will definitely make this recipe again with some adjustments now that I know a little better how to make it for my family (and with that handy reminder to plug the crock pot in before cooking!).  The chicken was also a bit dry (although maybe this is how chicken cooks in a crock pot?  I'm going to have to look that up...), so I need to shorten the cooking time.  It was really easy to prep, and the kids will get used to it...story of my life when cooking for them!

sweet Jake, before all the crying!