slow cooker tip

Today, I have more of a tip for you than a recipe. It all came about because of a mispurchase that I made at Costco some time ago.

Mispurchase ~ spell-check does not like that, but I think it is a perfectly reasonable word.

Anyhow, I accidentally bought a huge package of chicken legs instead of chicken thighs, and the legs have been sitting in my freezer for much too long.

Connor is still home this week, so I decided that he would absolutely love to have chicken legs for dinner and for a few lunches before he goes back to school on Monday.

I also had way too many bottles of various sauces taking up room in my refrigerator. I used a mix of these two.

So what does all this have to do with a new tip for a crock-pot/slow cooker?

Being as lazy as can be, I didn’t want to brown the legs before sticking them in the slow cooker and I didn’t want to have to pull the skin off of all 15 of them. But I also didn’t want all that fat from the skin to be floating around in there.  So… I came up with for brilliant idea of wadding up some foil and placing it in the bottom. Worked like a charm!

The fat all went down below the foil and the legs turned out crispy and cooked through and through.

If the chicken is frozen, as mine was, let it defrost at least enough so that you can separate the pieces, season them with salt and pepper.

Pile the legs on top of the foil and cook on low for 7 hours.

Use tongs to remove the legs to a large bowl.  Use the tongs to very carefully remove the foil to a trash container. Then carefully pour off the fat collected in the slow cooker.

Pour 1  1/2 cups of sauce of your choice to the legs, this can be barbecue sauce or whatever you like or have on hand. Toss well to coat the legs and then return the legs and all sauce in the bowl to the slow cooker for another hour or two.

Enjoy!