Healthy Bread: Recipe for Slow Cooker Russian Chicken

Do you remember growing up that there were several recipes that your Mom, Grandma, Aunt, or friend's Mom used to make all the time? The perennial favorites, they showed up in Junior League Cookbooks, at potlucks, or church suppers. I think we know more about nutrition now but back in the day, many of these weren't exactly "clean eating" or "whole food". This is one of those for me, a sweet chicken recipe that I've tried to make a little healthier.

I saw a recipe for Sticky Chicken on one of the blogs I read and realized it was what I used to know as Russian Chicken (I don't think it comes from Russian roots, but it has Russian salad dressing in it). As I recall, and as that recipe called for, it was a "low and slow" oven dish. I thought I'd try it in the slow cooker. The original recipe calls for a packet of onion soup mix, a whole bottle of Russian dressing, and a jar of apricot preserves. The sodium in the soup mix is off the chart so I sifted most of the powder out and just used the flakes. I cut down on the amount of dressing (not sure if it would make a difference cooked in the oven) and I used "all fruit" and less of it for the apricot preserves.

Because my slow cooker is a massive one and I wasn't feeding a large crowd, I used the crock inside the crock method (see pictures). I also shredded the meat, unlike the oven version which keeps the chicken pieces whole. This is nice, like a sweet barbecue chicken. We had it with steamed broccoli and brown rice and ate left overs on whole wheat buns. Enjoy!

Time: 5 minutes plus 6 hours in slow cooker

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 ½ pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 package onion soup mix, onion flakes only (sift through a strainer or fine mesh colander)
5 oz. apricot “all fruit” (½ a jar)
4 oz. Russian salad dressing

Method: