Slow Cooker Full Chicken Dinner
166 Comments May 24, 2017
Updated Jun 09, 2025
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This Slow Cooker Full Chicken Dinner has tender chicken thighs, Yukon gold potatoes and green beans in a savory herb sauce.
If you love making one pot meals in your slow cooker, also try creamy ranch chicken and potatoes or slow cooker ham dinner.
I love it when I find a complete meal for the slow cooker — no worrying about making side dishes for this meal since everything is prepared at once.
For this meal, I use bone-in chicken thighs. I think if boneless skinless chicken is used in the recipe, the recipe will be dry.
The juices from the bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs help make a flavorful sauce along with the tomato sauce and seasonings. If you chose to use chicken breasts, add a cup of chicken broth.
How to make:
You will need these ingredients:
- Chicken thighs
- Cooking oil
- Yukon gold potatoes
- Fresh green beans
- Garlic
- Canned tomato sauce (not paste)
- Salt and pepper
- Dried thyme
- Dried Rosemary
- Add the oil to a pan on the stove-top set to medium-high heat. Brown the chicken thighs on both sides.
- Add the potatoes and green beans to the slow cooker. Place the chicken on top.
- Add remaining ingredients on top of the chicken and smear around evenly over the chicken.
- Place the lid on and cook for 4.5 hours on high.
This full chicken dinner is a great Sunday meal, set this up after lunch and no worries about dinner at all, scoop and serve when the timer goes off.
Slow Cooker Full Chicken Dinner
How to Video
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 lbs bone-in chicken thighs
- 2 Tbsp. cooking oil
- 1 1/2 lbs. Yukon gold potatoes, diced
- 1 lb. green beans, ends snipped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 8 oz. can tomato sauce , (not paste)
- 1 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. pepper
- 1/2 tsp. dried thyme
- 1/2 tsp. dried rosemary
Instructions
- Set a pan on the stove top and set to medium-high heat. Add the cooking oil and swirl coat the bottom of the pan. When the oil is hot, brown the chicken on both sides, you don't need to cook the meat through.
- Add the diced potatoes and green beans to the bottom of the slow cooker, toss them together to combine them.
- Add the chicken thighs on top of the potatoes and green beans. Add the garlic. Drizzle over the tomato sauce, then sprinkle over the salt, pepper, thyme, and rosemary. Take a spatula and smear around the sauce trying to combine the seasoning into the sauce.
- Cover and cook on HIGH for 4.5 hours. Do no open the lid during the cooking time or the potatoes will not get tender.
- Serve and enjoy!
Sarah’s Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition info is auto-generated. This information is an estimate; if you are on a special diet, please use your own calculations.
More chicken slow cooker meals:
Crockpot Tuscan Chicken and Slow Cooker Chicken and Gravy are both rich and creamy dinner options that never disappoint.
For a full meal, try Chicken, Potatoes and Green Beans or hearty Chicken Tater Tot Casserole.
Slow Cooker Chicken Tenders, Fiesta Chicken with Rice, Slow Cooker Chicken Adobo, and Chicken Enchilada Casserole are easy favorites packed with bold flavor.
Would I be able to sear the chicken the night before and assemble in the morning?
Also could I substitute pasta sauce for tomato sauce? Thanks!
Yes you can sear it the night before (I do it often!) Yes pasta sauce would be great on this, you could even add a little more than what I add.
Can I cook it on low? If so how long do you think?
I think 7 hours on low.
Delicious, very handy as it’s pretty easy. My kinda cooking. I make this often. My friend doesn’t like the bones but I can’t understand why because the meat falls right off. This is also tasty, I was nervous about the tomato sauce but that is what adds the flavor.
can i use a whole chicken
Yes, you may have different results though. I would cook for a few hours more. Whole chicken always take longer than expected.
Total hit in our household! I cooked this in my IP. I used the sauté mode and browned the chicken for a few minutes on each side, added the rest of the ingredients with a tiny bit of water and ran it on the poultry setting. I let it NR for 10 minutes before venting the rest of the pressure. Chicken came out like falling off the bone and potatoes were perfect. Thank you!
How long to set it to cook in your instapot initially?
I’m prepping for our feast tomorrow… Can I brown the chicken today, stick everything in the crockpot, and then cook it tomorrow morning? Thanks for sharing this!! We can’t wait to try it!
Can I use canned green beans?
yes!
I made this tonight and my kids gave it a 10/10. Thank you it was delicious
This is very delicious and easy to make. Thank you. This recipe really comes in handy.
Can you use frozen chicken breasts?