Creamy Taco Ranch Slow Cooker Chicken

This chicken is so simple, uses just a handful of ingredients thanks to a little help from the grocery store, and it's so versatile. Plus, it makes a lot, so it can feed a crowd!

We start by giving our slow cooker bowl a spritz of cooking spray. Then, we add 2 pounds of chicken breasts to the bowl. Now, sometimes I feel like slow cooker chicken meals don't do a great job of flavoring the chicken on the inside and out. So, I like to poke the chicken all over with a sharp knife so that the seasonings can seep into the center of the chicken while it cooks.

To the chicken, we're going to add a couple store bought ingredients. 1 pack of taco seasoning, 1 pack of ranch dip mix, and 1 can of diced tomatoes with chilies all get poured over the chicken. Turn the slow cooker to low, and walk away for 5-6 hours.

Once the chicken is finished cooking, we're going to use two forks to shred the chicken right in the bowl of the slow cooker. Now, the liquid in the bowl is going to look really thin. And, that's exactly how it should look. We could stop the recipe right here if we really wanted to. The chicken has all of the flavor that it needs. But, why would we?

To make this chicken nice and creamy, we're going to add a block of softened cream cheese right into the chicken. Put the lid back on, and continue to cook on low for just 30 minutes more. We don't want to add the cream cheese until the very end, because we don't want it to separate and get weird. Creamy stuff doesn't do great for long periods of time in the slow cooker. After the cream cheese becomes nice and melty, we're going to stir, stir, stir until the cream cheese is completely mixed into the chicken and it's liquid. The end result is a perfectly creamy, saucy chicken.

When it's time to serve, we have soooooo many options for how to eat this chicken. If you have some self control and don't just hover over the slow cooker to eat the chicken straight from the pot; you could do sooo much with this chicken. It's great in tacos. It's delicious in a rice bowl. It's amazing over a baked potato with a little melty cheese on top. And, of course, you can't go wrong using this chicken as your protein for nachos.

This chicken is bursting with flavor. The taco and ranch mixes come together to mellow out the heat from the chilies in the taco powder and the tomatoes. And, the creamy component makes this chicken so warm and comforting while still being pretty healthy. It's not spicy at all, so it's you don't have to worry about this being too much for the kiddos.

And, bonus! This chicken freezes really well. Let it cool, put it in a freezer safe container, and pull it out the night before to thaw when you're ready to have it again. Talk about an economic meal! 8 servings for less than $15 total. I. AM. IN!

I can't wait to hear what other ways you guys come up with to use this chicken. Inspire me!

Enjoy, and let's eat!