Slow Cooker Honey Roasted Chicken with Rosemary and Dijon

Ingredients
1 whole chicken, about 5 pounds
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
¹⁄₄ cup honey
1 lemon, zested, halved and juiced
4 cloves garlic, peeled
¹⁄₂ yellow onion, quartered

Instructions
1. Remove giblets and rinse the chicken under cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Season inside and out with salt and pepper.

2. Place the chicken in a slow cooker.  Mine is a 5 quart round pot and I’ve been able to fit birds up to 7-8 pounds into it.  It’s a tight squeeze, but it can be done.  For this recipe I used a chicken that was 5.8 pounds and it fit easily.  

3. Roughly chop two sprigs of the rosemary.  In a small bowl, mix together Dijon mustard, honey, chopped rosemary, lemon juice, and lemon zest.  

4. Turn chicken on its end and place the remaining sprig of rosemary, the onion quarters, garlic and both lemon halves if you can fit them in the cavity of the bird.  One lemon half is enough if you can’t fit both.  Using a pastry brush, coat the outside of the bird with the lemon honey glaze.  Place chicken breast side up.  Pour any remaining glaze over the top.  

5. Cook chicken on LOW for 6-8 hours or until you can grab a leg and wiggle it freely.  

6. If you’re around during the cooking time, pour the juices that collect in the bottom of the pot out into a container once or twice during the cooking time.    Save the liquid in a container in the fridge or just collect it all at the end of the cooking time.  Place the liquid into a pot on the stove, bring to a rolling boil for 5 minutes, strain, and then save for later use in the freezer or fridge.  If you don’t care to save the delicious broth, skip this step.  I find it makes a delicious soup base.  

7. Remove chicken carefully, it will be very tender and falling off the bone.  Pull the meat off the bones and serve.  

Comments
I first tried cooking a whole bird in the slow cooker in February 2009 as a dinner for my parents.  It worked so well that I cooked my own that very weekend.  While the chicken won’t have the same crispy skin it would from being roasted in the oven, this method is pretty much a no-brainer which makes it suit me just perfectly!  I reserve the liquid for freezing and use it in soups or risottos, and leftover meat goes into tetrazzini.  

This is based on a recipe from FoodFit that my mom sent me one day with a note of “Do you think this would work in a crock pot?”  I read over the recipe and it seemed like it would work well enough, so I told her I’d try it out and report back to her.  The verdict is that, yes, it does work in a crock pot.  Quite well in fact!  The only real difficulty I run into when doing a whole chicken in the slow cooker is that it’s extremely hard to remove from the pot due to the meat falling completely off the bones.  

If you’ve never tried chicken in a slow cooker, I can’t recommend it enough.

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