Light Crock Pot Fiesta Chicken & Rice Bowls loaded with chicken, brown rice and pico de gallo for a healthy dish you can throw in your slow cooker for an easy and delicious meal!
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Light Crock Pot Fiesta Chicken & Rice Bowls are loaded with chicken, brown rice and pico de gallo for a healthy dish you can throw in your slow cooker for an easy and delicious meal that will be ready to serve when you get home from work!
Hey guys, this is Julie’s friend Danielle here, from The Creative Bite. Right now Julie is probably sitting in her beloved rocker, eating one of her yummy baked goods all while snuggled up with her girls, enjoying her maternity leave. So, while she is busy being a slacker, we are going to talk all about this light and easy Mexican dish! 😉
Mexican food is one of my favorites. Not only is it packed with flavor, but it is so easy to make healthy with all of the veggies typically incorporated into any Mexican dish. It’s that time of year again, where we are all starting to think about getting our act together, heading back to the gym and watching what we eat. We all know it isn’t easy though. Frankly, when I get home from the gym after work, I just want to kick up my feet and relax. Slaving over the stove does not always sound appealing. That is why this is the best time of year to dust off your Crock Pot and put that bad boy to good use!
Simply toss the chicken, rice, onions, green chilies and enchilada sauce into the Crock Pot before you leave for work, and when you get home, top it with some pico de gallo, avocado and queso fresco for a healthy but hearty meal that will satisfy your whole family!
Recipe Originally Posted – 1/4/15
Light Crock Pot Fiesta Chicken & Rice Bowls
Ingredients
- 1 lb. uncooked chicken, cubed
- 1 c. uncooked brown rice
- 1 can (10 oz.) enchilada sauce
- 1 can (4 oz.) chopped green chilies
- 1/2 c. chicken broth
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 tsp. cumin
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1 avocado
- 1 c. pico de gallo
- 1/2 c. queso fresco, crumbled
- OPTIONAL - 1 c. non-fat plain Greek yogurt or light sour cream
Instructions
Spray your Crock Pot with non-stick spray and add the chicken, rice, enchilada sauce, green chilies, chicken broth, onion, cumin and salt. Stir to combine and cook on low for 5-6 hours or high for 3-4 hours. Serve topped with pico de gallo, queso fresco and Greek yogurt.
| Nutrition Facts | |
|---|---|
| Serving Size | |
| Amount Per Serving | As Served |
| Calories 668kcal Calories from fat 272 | |
| % Daily Value | |
| Total Fat 30g | 46% |
| Saturated Fat 8g | 40% |
| Transfat 0g | |
| Cholesterol 100mg | 33% |
| Sodium 1211mg | 50% |
| Carbohydrate 62g | 21% |
| Dietary Fiber 7g | 28% |
| Sugars 15g | |
| Protein 39g | |
Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs:
| Calories | 2000 | |
|---|---|---|
| Total Fat | Less than | 65g |
| Sat Fat | Less than | 25g |
| Cholesterol | Less than | 300mg |
| Sodium | Less than | 2,400mg |
| Total Carbohydrate | 300g | |
| Dietary Fiber | 25g | |
Things You Might Need!
[amd-zlrecipe-recipe:410]
Comments
Renee@Two+in+the+Kitchen
I love Mexican dishes and this looks so light and flavorful! I have got to add this to my meal plan!! 🙂
Teresa
Oh, I love these. I love Tex-Mex stuff.
Sazzy
This looks amazing, thank you!
The picture is great – makes me feel like I can almost touch it, let alone taste it! Yummy!
Found some cute and funny cookbooks here online that I wanted to share:
http://thisisnews.co/2015/01/04/amusing-new-cookbooks/
Sarah@WholeandHeavenlyOven
Oh, my! Mexican night is a favorite around here and I have a feeling it’s about to get even more popular when I bang out these gorgeous rice bowls!
heather+@french+press
this looks perfect for taco tuesday
patty
just wanted to know if you have a cookbook
Julie Evink
No I’m sorry I don’t!
Valerie
This sounds perfect! Question though – don’t you find that cooking cubed chicken that long makes it dry? What is your suggestion to avoid that?
Danielle | Krafted Koch
Hey Valerie, you are right. Sometimes the chicken can get a little drier than you would like with the long cook times, especially when they sit on the warm function for an hour or so before we get home from work. if you know they will be cooking a bit longer, you could always leave the chicken breasts whole and then shred them up with a couple of forks before serving. If you stick to 3 hours on high or 6 hours on low, that should be just enough to cook the chicken and not have it dry out though. Keep in mind every slow cooker is different, so over time you will learn how fast yours cooks.
Lea+Andersen
Nice collaboration! This is what I loved about this blog, seeing co-bloggers helping each other to came out with a good out come, just to give the readers the best food recipes. Anyways, I appreciate things like this cause like you I am a food blogger too. But I am a newbie here, I just started checking out food blogs that can give me ideas, you can check my blog here: http://afoodiefantasy.tumblr.com/.
Katie
I made this for dinner tonight and it was delicious! The rice never got completely cooked through so it was a little crunchy but it was still enjoyable. Also, the liquid was used up very quickly so I had to add a bit more. I would definitely make this again!
brit
How many servings does this make?
Julie Evink
Four servings!
Cristie Osborne
Do you use minute rice or regular rice?
Julie Evink
Regular!
Deadra
Should put regular rice in the recipe…I didn’t read the comments and used instant rice…great tasting dish but mushy due to rice.
Ashley
Love that brown rice is a healthier option but I don’t like it. Will this recipe work with white rice the same?
Julie Evink
Yes it should be just fine just use long grain rice instead of Minute Rice.
Mitzi
Is this gluten free
Julie Evink
Yes it is.
Jennifer
Can you use quinoa instead of rice? And would you still add it at the beginning or would you add it later on into the cooking?
Julie Evink
I would think you could but we have never tested it like that so I can’t guarantee the results. Please let us know if you try it!
Bethany Taylor
How many calories per serving
Julie Evink
I’m sorry Bethany I do not calculate calories on my recipes!
ANGEL
I loaded the recipe into my fitness app and it calculates this as 523 calories per serving.
Haley
What size Crock Pot did you use for this? My 5 quart broke last week and I haven’t replaced it yet. I wonder if this would fit in a 2 or 3 quart?
Julie Evink
It would probably fit in a 3 quart!
Carly
If doubling the recipe, will I need to increase cook time?
Julie Evink
Maybe a hour or so!
mary
we tried this today and cooked it for 3 hours, rice was not cooked all the way through so wasn’t very good. We were so disappointed. What kind of brown rice are you using ?
Julie Evink
Just regular brown rice! I’m sorry!
Laken
This recipe was a major fail for me! My rice didn’t even cook! I don’t know what went wrong. Super Disapointed 🙁
Delaney
Seems I wasn’t the only one who ended up with uncooked rice when all was said and done. Any tips on how to prevent that? I followed the recipe to a T. It was a bit disappointing, as the parts I ate without rice were quite tasty!
Julie Evink
I’ve learned that all slow cookers cook at different rates because they heat different. I would just cook it for a longer period of time next time you make it!
city gal
I used boneless skinless chicken. It was cut into large chunks. I added 2 cups of broth instead of 1/2 cup as instructed. Also, I added a can of black beans. I cooked this along with the other ingredients listed in low for two hours. Then I added 1 1/2 cups of instant long grain rice. I cooked for another 30 minutes. I removed the chucks of chicken, letting this cook another 15 minutes. Put the chicken back in and turned it off. Removed the lid to let it cool and thicken. The rice was a little soft.
carrie
how many servings is the fiesta chicken and rice bowl? I have a family of 5 would that be enough or do I need to double it?
Brooke K
I think for those whose rice didn’t cook, you should try adding more liquid. Someone else said they used more chicken broth. I know my slow cooker cooks at high heat, no matter if its set to high or low. I’m going to try putting everything in except the rice, using extra broth, and adding the rice while I have the chicken out to shred (I always use boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cut or shred them after they’re done cooking). Hopefully that will solve the rice issue. 🙂 This recipe looks amazing. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!
Kelly Mercado
Can I put the chicken in frozen?
Julie Evink
Yes just watch the cooking time!
Liesl Garner | Love.Sparks.Art
Oh – we had this tonight. I love this recipe. It is so easy. I got to relax and be mellow all day knowing this was going to be ready when we were ready to eat – with no fuss. So delicious. We were all scraping our bowls for the last morsels of flavor. Wow! Definitely a keeper!
Julie Evink
So glad you enjoyed it Liesl! Thanks for letting me know!
Kristine
Love this recipe! As a college student, I love being able to just throw this in on Sunday and not having to cook the rest of the week! WORD OF ADVICE: don’t dice the chicken before hand, and cook on low instead of high (if time allows) so much more flavorful than the alternative. Y!
Julie Evink
This makes me so happy Kristine! So glad you enjoyed it!
Karen
I’d like to know if you actually ever tried making this abortion of a recipe? I do note you use “should” and other qualifying statements in your remplies to people, so I think NOT. There was NO FLAVOR, DRY CRUNCHY INEDIBLE rice, and dry, dry, dry chicken, even though I prepared this recipe according to your directions and measured everything. I am so glad my husband is such a gracious man who will eat anything, and he appreciated my effort, and just quietly threw away the contents of the crock pot. We couldn’t even feed this crap to our dogs because of the onions. Thanks for nothing
dean
I agree! complete waste…
jodi
at Karen… talk about RUDE! You obviously need to do some readjusting to this recipe. Common sense predicts that not all crock pots are created equal. Mine cooks fast and hot, some are just the opposite. There’s no need to be so rude to the blogger here because you don’t know your own crock pot. Sure some people have problems with it, with the rice or whatever, but they know how to adjust and fix the problem, and they don’t come on here being RUDE! Your comment was just simply mean!
Ronnie
Did your mother not teach you that “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”? If you did not like it then chalk it up to so sad but MOVE ON.
Julie Evink
🙂
Andrea
I made this for dinner last night and had leftovers for lunch today and it was fantastic both times. It will be added to my regular rotation.
Lots of flavor from the cumin, onions, green chilis, and enchilada sauce, the rice was perfect (I did start off adding extra water by rinsing by enchilada sauce can – I always add extra water in the crockpot after an incidence where I came home to charred dinner), and the chicken was moist (I didn’t cube mine ahead of time).
If anyone is looking for ways to adjust the recipe or add more flavor, even though I thought it was very good as is, I plan to consider doing the following in the future: spicier enchilada sauce, more enchilada sauce, a 7 oz can of green chilis instead of a 4 oz can, substituting some broth with lime juice and/or salsa, adding taco seasoning, adding a can of corn.
Oh, and I found the 4 servings to be very large servings. In the future I’ll plan on this being 5 servings, 6 if I also have a side dish.
Angel
I tried this Mexican meal today. Loved it… I added corn to mine also. As far as the rice, my rice was cooked. I added a little more chicken broth plus left little bit of the water in the corn. Added cheese and sour cream for my toppings. It was delicious… Thank you!!!!
Ashley
I’ve had this pinned to Pintrest for a while now waiting for the cooler weather to break out my Crock Pot so I made this tonight and it was so good! My picky husband who doesn’t like foods too spicy even loved it. Addressing the rice: I used a 1/2 cup chicken broth and a 1/2 cup water. Worked beautifully.
Julie Evink
So glad you enjoyed it Ashley! Thanks for the feedback on the rice/broth issues 🙂
Virginia
Can you please tell me what a serving size is of this? I made it today & it smells amazing! Thanks!
Shannon
If I use minute rice, when should I put it in?
Julie Evink
My guess would be to put it in about a half hour before the end of cooking time.
dean
This recipe required MUCH more liquid then what is listed. I cooked this for 10+ hours and the rice STILL isn’t even cooked. This is even after adding 6+ cups of water. Totally wasted a package of chicken….
Julie Evink
I’m sorry you experienced problems with this recipe Dean. I’ve personally tested it multiple times and have never had an issue with this recipe.
Cathy Trochelman
I could eat this for dinner ever week and never get sick of it! So delicious!
Becca
Hi
Do the green chilies make this spicy? I want to make this but have littles that will be eating as well.
Julie Evink
They add a little spice but I don’t think they are that spicy and I’m a wuss 🙂
Abbie
Do you use long grain brown rice?
Julie Evink
Yes!
Abbie
This recipe was so AMAZING!! Loaded with flavor and soooo good!! Def recommend adding an extra 1/2 cup of water, and leaving chicken whole then shredding at end! Cooked on low for 6.5 hours and was perfection!! yummmmy!!!
Julie Evink
So glad you enjoyed it Abbie! Great tips!
Jennifer
I hate to say, but this was not a hit for us. Very little flavor, dry chicken, and mushy rice. I know others got uncooked rice, but mine was mush. I was very disappointed.
Kimberly
I am looking for the calorie info on the crockpot fiesta chicken and rice bowl
Emily Shore
Very upset as I just wasted a bunch of chicken and rice on this recipe and I dont have the budget for that, we are a very low income family and get by on paycheck to paycheck. I followed the instructions to a tee and I think your ratio of liquid to rice is completely off because it’s been over four hours, and my rice is uncooked but my chicken is just fine. The dish is a complete waste!
Carol
I’m so surprised that so many had trouble with uncooked rice. When it was all done, mine was mushy rice. I liked the flavor so I think I would rather make this as a sauce and serve it over rice. Like you said, it depends on the temperature of your crock pot.
Karen
When I saw brown rice, I was worried. After I read the comments, I tweaked it a little bit:
1. I used 1lb boneless, skinless chicken thighs. Because I like dark meat. I did not chop it.
2. I used 1/2 cup brown rice.
3. I used 1 cup chicken broth.
4. Cooked on low for 5 hours.
It turned out wonderful and the rice was cooked. Family loved it. Thanks for sharing.
Julie Evink
Great ways to adapt the recipe Karen!
Sylvia
The brown rice didnt cook all the way for me even leaving it at low for 6 hrs. The chicken was done. Any tips?