SLOW COOKER WHITE CHICKEN CHILI
This Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili is made with dried whole beans not canned! I also used raw chicken breasts - no more hunting for rotisserie chicken! All you have to do is layer everything in a crockpot or slow cooker, then leave overnight for the best white chicken chili the next day. I like to top mine with nonfat plain Greek yogurt, organic tortilla chips, fresh jalapeños and cilantro, plus maybe a little extra lime. So good!
Did you know? The calcium chloride found in most canned beans is the same calcium chloride used for snow and ice removal! Calcium chloride creates heat when it comes in contact with water which can dry out and irritate your skin. This is why consuming canned beans with calcium chloride can irritate your gut. You can avoid all this by using plain dry beans!
Preparing the beans
For this White Chicken Chili, I used dried great northern beans, but you can also use cannellini beans or white pinto beans.
You can have heard that soaking the beans overnight before cooking is necessary to reduce toxic coonhounds called lectins. However, according to Harvard Health, simply boiling or stewing is enough to inactivate most lectins (basically using the slow cooker on HIGH). The main reason I like to soak the beans overnight is to improve the texture and reduce cooking time. If you forget or don't have time to soak your beans - don't worry - you'll just have to cook them a little longer!
Choosing the best chicken
I used free range, antibiotic free, raw chicken breasts for this recipe.
Like I've said many times before, it's important to choose chicken that's "free of antibiotics" and "free range" or simply "organic." Organic chicken is always free-range (meaning the chickens had access to the outdoors for at least part of the day) and free of antibiotics. From a health standpoint, choosing antibiotic free means the birds were not given routine antibiotics (necessary in diseased, unsanitary conditions). And, having access to the outdoors is just humane!
Layering the ingredients
You are going to want to add your onion and garlic to the slow cooker first, followed by your soaked and rinsed beans, then the raw chicken breasts, then your chicken bone broth, canned green chilies, fresh lime and spices. You could also add several cups of canned or frozen corn but I didn't.
Stir the spices in a little, then cover and cook for 8-10 hours on LOW or 4-5 hours on HIGH. If you're going to use the LOW setting which does not boil the beans, it would be best to soak overnight to reduce the lectin content.
Once the chicken shreds easily with a fork and the beans are tender, it's done!
Toppings
For toppings, I like organic tortilla chips, nonfat plain Greek yogurt (very low in lactose), fresh cilantro or green onion, and more fresh lime juice.
You really shouldn't skip the toppings because that's what makes it sooo good.
For creamer white chili
For creamier white chili, you have a few options:
Option 1: Take a couple cups of beans and broth out and blend them, then add back to the pot.
Option 2: Add a slurry of one-quarter cup of gluten-free flour and one cup of milk (can use dairy free) to the pot towards the end of cooking time.
Option 3: Use half milk, half chicken broth (two cups of each) instead of all chicken broth.
Option 4: Add one cup of reduced fat cream cheese (can use dairy-free) to the pot.
Of all of these, I like the blender option because it doesn't require any more ingredients and doesn't add to the macros.
Here's the printable recipe for this Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili! I hope you love it as much as we did :)
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