Chicken

Tuscan Garlic Chicken

Creamy garlic and Parmesan with sun-dried tomatoes and spinach. Looks fancy, isn't.

Prep 5 min LOW 6–7 hours HIGH 3–4 hours Serves 6

Tuscan Garlic Chicken, finished and plated — Serving suggestion

Every Italian restaurant has a version of this on the menu, usually with a name like Tuscan or Toscana, and it always costs more than the chicken parm. Cream, garlic, Parmesan, sun-dried tomatoes and spinach.

It's a genuinely elegant-looking dish and it takes five minutes of work. The sun-dried tomatoes are what make it — sweet, tangy, chewy, and they hold their character over a long cook when almost nothing else does.

Spinach at the end. It looks like far too much when you put it in, and it wilts down to almost nothing.

Why you'll love it

It looks expensive.

Red tomato, green spinach, white sauce. It's the best-looking dish in this book.

Restaurant flavor without restaurant work.

Twelve grams of garlic per packet does a lot of heavy lifting.

Sun-dried tomatoes survive the cook.

Most vegetables fall apart. These get better.

Excellent over pasta.

This is what fettuccine was invented for.

What's already in the packet

Cream cheese powderGarlicWhole milk powderParmesan cheese powderTomato powderOnionItalian herb blendBasilButter powderChicken bouillonBlack pepperThickener

Heavy on garlic and Parmesan with real tomato powder for the sun-dried note and Italian herbs behind it.

Choose your setting

Recommended

LOW · 6–7 hours

Low and slow gives collagen time to melt and flavors time to build. It is the setting this recipe was written for.

HIGH · 3–4 hours

For when you started late. It gets dinner done, but the texture is better on LOW.

Done at 165°F

Check before you add the spinach.

You'll Need

2 lbs Chicken (pick one below)
2½ cups Water or chicken broth
1 packet Cook SLO Tuscan Garlic Chicken

Pick your chicken

2 lbs

Chicken breasts

2 lbs

Chicken thighs

2 lbs

Chicken tenderloins

Cook chicken to 165°F

Add vegetables

Spinach (fresh or frozen)Sun-dried tomatoesSliced mushrooms (fresh or frozen)Diced onion (fresh or frozen)Artichoke hearts (fresh or frozen)Zucchini (fresh or frozen)Cherry tomatoesTuscan kale (fresh or frozen)

Diced onion (fresh or frozen) at the start, on the bottom; sun-dried tomatoes at the start; mushrooms at the start to melt into the sauce, or the last two hours to keep their shape; artichoke hearts (fresh or frozen) and zucchini (fresh or frozen) in the last hour; spinach (fresh or frozen), cherry tomatoes and Tuscan kale (fresh or frozen) in the last twenty minutes.

When to add what

When	Add	Why
At the start, on the bottom	Diced onion (fresh or frozen)	Root vegetables cook slower than meat. They belong closest to the heat, and they hold the meat up out of the liquid. Cut everything an inch and a half or larger — smaller pieces disintegrate.
At the start, to soften into the sauce	Sun-dried tomatoes	These break down and give their flavour to the pot. Right for a gravy or a fajita, wrong if you want them to hold their shape.
At the start, or the last two hours	Sliced mushrooms (fresh or frozen)	Mushrooms are a choice. At the start they melt into the sauce and deepen it. In the last two hours they hold their shape and keep some bite.
Last hour	Artichoke hearts (fresh or frozen)Zucchini (fresh or frozen)	Any longer and green beans go grey, squash turns to water, and pineapple falls apart.
Last 20 minutes	Spinach (fresh or frozen)Cherry tomatoesTuscan kale (fresh or frozen)	Spinach wilts in about five. A whole bag cooks down to roughly half a cup, so use more than looks reasonable. Frozen peas go grey and wrinkled if added earlier.

Two ways to do this

If you're home

Follow the timing table above and add things when they're due.

About an hour is all you need

If you're out all day

Put in at the start as normal: diced onion (fresh or frozen), sun-dried tomatoes and sliced mushrooms (fresh or frozen). These need the full cook anyway.

Add artichoke hearts (fresh or frozen), zucchini (fresh or frozen), spinach (fresh or frozen), cherry tomatoes and Tuscan kale (fresh or frozen) when you walk in the door. Forty-five minutes to an hour on LOW is enough for all of it, and it will taste better than if it had cooked all day.

If you would rather not touch it at all, put everything in at the start and use frozen where you can. It will be softer than the timing above intends and the greens will lose their colour, but it will taste good and dinner is ready when you walk in.

Frozen is the better choice for a long day. Already cut, holds its shape better than fresh over eight or nine hours, and goes in straight from the bag with no thawing. Frozen diced onion and pepper strips remove the only real prep this recipe has.

Pasta and noodles

**Cooked separately.** This is what fettuccine was invented for. Penne and rigatoni also work. **Do not add dry pasta to the pot for this recipe.** The sauce is cream and cheese based. Pasta cooked in it releases starch that turns the sauce gluey and grainy. Boil it separately and combine at the end.

Before anything goes in the pot

1
Whisk the packet into the water before it goes in
Do not sprinkle dry powder onto liquid in the pot. Put the 2½ cups in a jug, add the packet, whisk until there are no lumps, then pour it over. Cheese and cream powders dissolve properly this way and the sauce comes out smooth instead of grainy.

These happen outside the crock pot, before it's switched on.

Tonight's Plan

1
Put the chicken in the crock pot.
Whole breasts slice nicely at the end.
2
Pour in the 2½ cups of whisked liquid and stir once.
You dissolved the packet in the water already, so there is no powder to work in and no risk of lumps. One stir to settle everything.
3
Put the lid on.
Spinach goes in during the last 20 minutes.

When about 30 minutes are left

Creamy upgrade

Stir in a big handful of fresh spinach and let it wilt, about 5 minutes.

It will look like far too much. It won't be.

Slice or shred the chicken and serve over pasta.

Sliced looks better. Shredded holds more sauce.

Stirring

Stir once at the halfway point

Cheese and cream powders settle against the hot crock wall and scorch into a brown ring. That ring then breaks up into the sauce and makes it grainy. One stir at the halfway point prevents it, and one is all you need — every lift of the lid costs about twenty minutes.

Swaps and add-ins

Add sun-dried tomatoes, properly.

Half a cup of oil-packed, drained and sliced. This is the single change that makes the dish.

Toss the pasta in.

Stir cooked fettuccine straight into the pot at the end.

Add artichoke hearts.

A drained can in the last 30 minutes. Very Tuscan.

Finish with fresh basil.

Torn, not chopped, right at the end.

Tips for success

Spinach shrinks to nothing. Use more than feels reasonable. Five ounces of fresh spinach becomes about half a cup cooked.
Oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes beat dry ones. Softer, sweeter, and they don't need rehydrating.
Slice the chicken for looks, shred it for flavor. Both are correct. Choose based on whether anyone is watching.
Drop in a liner before anything else. Smooth it against the sides and fold the edges over the rim. When you're done, lift it out and throw it away — the crock never needs scrubbing.

Finish it right

Fresh torn basil.

Not dried, not chopped — torn, at the end. It's the difference between Italian-ish and Italian.

Extra grated Parmesan at the table.

Fresh Parmesan on a hot plate smells like a restaurant dining room.

A squeeze of lemon.

Cream and Parmesan are heavy. Lemon lifts the whole plate.

Serve it over

Fettuccine or penneCreamy polentaCrusty breadRiceZucchini noodles

Tomorrow night

Tuscan chicken pasta bake.

Mix with penne, top with mozzarella, bake 20 minutes.

Chicken and spinach calzones.

Fold into pizza dough with mozzarella and bake.

Tuscan chicken soup.

Thin with broth, add white beans and kale.

Panini.

On ciabatta with provolone, pressed until crisp.

Keeping it

Fridge

Airtight, up to 4 days

Freezer

3 months. Spinach softens further but the sauce holds.

Reheating

Low with a splash of broth or cream. Parmesan sauces tighten hard when cold.

Questions people ask

Recipe card