I hope things are finally going to slow down a bit for me after today. It has felt hectic and I have been working on the weekends and doing the soap. Phew. It’s hard to do meal planning because the last thing I want to do when I sit down is to think about next week’s meals! I do like reading cookbooks and stuff, but it is time consuming. John and I have been talking over some pre-planned meals when eating our Sunday bagel (there are 2 Bagel Days weekly, in case you didn’t know). This is before grocery shopping, so it works well. We are just planning a few meals for the week.
I don’t know how you all do it that plan for an entire week. I admire you!
There was a lot going on today, so I did this slow cooker recipe I found on Pinterest and did a few changes to lighten it up a little. You could easily do this on the stove if you wanted, but you all know how I have been loving the crockpot lately. This is a very easy recipe, too.
Ingredients:
- 1 pound of boneless chicken breasts, frozen **
- 1 can (15 ounce) of diced tomatoes – do not drain.
- 1 can (15 ounces) of beans, your choice (I used small white beans) – drained and rinsed
- 1 can (2 ounces) of diced green chiles.
- 1 cup of frozen corn kernels
- 1/2 cup of water
- 1/2 packet of dry ranch dressing mix.
- 1 teaspoon of chili powder
- 4 ounces of neufchatel cream cheese
Not only was I trying to reduce the calories in this dish, but the sodium. The original recipe called for canned corn and a whole packet of ranch mix. I used no sodium added tomatoes as well.
Put the chicken breasts in the bottom of the crockpot. Then add all of the other ingredients except the cream cheese.
Sort of stir that around to mix and then place the cream cheese on top.
Cover and cook on low for 6 hours. If the chicken breasts are really thick, it may take longer. Mine were 4 ounce size, so they were done at 6 hours. If you think about it, stir the mixture after a couple hours to start to incorporate the cheese.
When it is done, remove the chicken and shred it. Then place back in the slow cooker and stir to mix in.
Voila!
This was really, really good, I have to say. I was a bit skeptical of the ranch, but it was very tasty. Now to find a ranch mix that doesn’t have MSG. I can’t imagine using a whole packet, either. Would have been way too salty.
Definitely a keeper!
I divided this into 6 portions. What I do for food like this is to weigh all the ingredients. So, I weighed my empty crock pot liner. Then after all the ingredients were in there, I weighed it again and subtracted the difference to find the total weight of the batch. (You don’t lose much moisture in crockpot cooking, so I was fine weighing this before cooking.) Divide the weight by 6 for the amount of servings I wanted. Each serving is 8 to 9 ounces with my mixture – A very generous cup.
Calories per serving based on 6 servings:
Calories 218, Fat 7 grams, Carbs 21 grams, Fiber 5 grams, Protein 23.5 grams.
As always, calories are based on the specific ingredients I used and your mileage may vary. I think the beans probably will be the biggest calorie variant. The beans I used had 80 calories per serving (3.5 servings per can). So if you use a bean that is 110 calories a serving, you will add maybe 20 calories to each serving.
This is definitely a keeper!
Notes:
** If you use fresh chicken, just cut the cooking time down to about 2 hours or so.
– To do this on the stove top, just cook the chicken breasts until mostly done, then shred and add all the ingredients to a saucepan and simmer until the cheese is melted.
– The original recipe called for a can of Rotel tomatoes, but we already had several cans of diced tomatoes, so I just got a can of the green chiles to use to make it Rotel on my own. FYI, you could leave out the green chiles and use the Rotel.
– I don’t know if I would even try a fat free cream cheese and I doubt it would melt. And it’s icky anyway, so neufchatel is a nice option.
I LOVE THAT THERE IS A STICK OF CREAM CHEESE IN THIS. 😀
Actually it is just half a stick , but who’s counting, right? 😀
Recipe fairy: Got here as quickly as I could! 🙂 I bookmarked this recipe for ranch mix around Christmas: http://www.bakeyourday.net/homemade-ranch-dressing-mix/ It calls for a pinch of salt which I’m sure you could adjust to a pinchlet or less. (I was so proud for finding it, and then I realized what I wanted was French Onion dip mix. LOL Oh well, there’s always next Christmas. )
For calories on dishes like this, I tally up the calories for all the ingredients, then I portion it out into my little freezer containers and divide the total calories by the number of containers I used. It’s not precise on a per day basis, but I figure it averages out overall. Yep, that’s my story. 🙂
I hope things slow down for you soon! #verysoon {ducks}
Sweet Cammy! You are the queen of the mixes.
You could probably use laughing cow light if you had more of that on hand than the other (speaking as someone who occasionally gets carried away and buys LCL at Costco…) I just ran across a recipe you had reviewed a while ago for chicken and corn chili. I had actually tried it and said I liked it, so I might try that one again (no beans…)
The thought of unwrapping all those little triangles would drive me nuts! I can handle one at a time, though. #nounwrapping4me
You know I am not a bean fan, so I deliberately put in little white beans instead of the black beans the recipe called for. They are hardly noticeable.
Now I am annoyed at my own comment because I was being funny and all I read is noun wrapping…
LOL. I did wonder for a split second about the noun wrapping. I thought it was #ANOTHER insider internet funny that I did not understand.
And I thought about the unwrapping problem. I am one who finds the unwrapping endlessly fascinating #unwrappingfreaksanonymous.
Yum! I love using my slow cooker and we are fond of a recipe very similar to yours. I reviewed it here http://nutmegnotebook.com/2012/11/santa-fe-chicken-slow-cooker-2/
This looks delicious! It reminds me of Max & Erma’s Tortilla Soup, which my husband adores. I’ll have to give it a whirl with Cammy’s ranch mix recipe.
That looks good – I never would have thought you could do cream cheese in the crock pot, but good to know…or IS it? 😉
This looks great, Lori! I also love my crockpot!
MUST MAKE!
Love the recipe Lori! I need a slow cooker so I don’t have to do this on the stove! 😉 Hope things calm down!
Simply Organic has a ranch dressing mix that I use now.
Ingredients: Organic nonfat milk, sea salt, organic cane sugar, organic garlic, organic onion, organic carrot powder, organic celery seed, xanthan gum, organic parsley, organic black pepper, organic natural flavors (contains corn and dairy derivatives) and lactic acid
I can find it in my small, local grocery store so I bet it’s available around your area too. I love the idea of making mixes for this but sometimes you want something quick and this fits the bill!
I checked our ‘natural’ section of the grocery store and they had that brand of Italian (I think?), but no ranch. Annoying. I bet another store will have it, though.
I never would have thought to add cream cheese to that! Genius! It’s going on my menu next week – I think my SIL will love it!
That was an instant hit. Yummy! When I saw the recipe I decided to try it at once. I’m still licking my lips. 🙂
Did you really make already? It is very good – and the leftovers were also really tasty 😀
I’m all over any crockpot recipe….did you serve anything with this?
Pinning this to make sometime! Thanks!