A Do What You Want With It Sante Fe Style Chicken from the Slow Cooker (with 5 ideas)

Updated: Jul 21, 2023 by Veronica Noone · This post may contain affiliate links · 37 Comments

I made this TWO weeks ago and totally forgot to post it. Ok, that's a lie. I had to psych myself up to actually sit down and get it all out of my head. I knew it was going to be a long one!

This was a total winner of a dish. We ate it 2 nights in a row and I had it for lunch twice. Now that's getting your money's worth out of a crock pot meal!

Both Husband and child were fans too. I purposely made it mild so it would be a family pleaser. I even ended up pureeing some for Little Bean. Just a few nibbles. Enough to give him a taste.

The idea hit me when I simply did not want to bother with dinner, but I knew if I didn't get something going we'd end up eating out AGAIN. Lately, we've been trying to avoid that for more than one reason, but mostly financially.

Instead, around 2:30PM I pulled out the crock pot and threw a bunch of stuff in it. Who knew I'd end up inventing a family favorite. Well, sort of, I'll explain when I get to how I actually used the chicken. First let me tell you how I made it.

Ingredients

1 10oz can of Healthy Request Cream of Chicken Soup (+¼ can of water)
1 15oz can of Black Beans, drained and rinsed
1 15oz can of diced tomatoes (with green chilies would up the flavors/spice aspect)
½ cup frozen corn
Optional (I didn't have any on hand) 1 green bell pepper diced
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon dried cumin
1 tablespoon onion powder
pinch of kosher salt
2 large boneless frozen chicken breasts (total mine was over 2 lbs)

Instructions

Mix all ingredients in the crock pot.

Stir and add the frozen chicken. I keep solo breasts in separate freezer bags so I can grab just what I need when I'm cooking.

Cook on high for 3-4 hours. Low about 6 would probably work too, but I haven't tried it. After 3 hours it will look like this…

Remove the chicken and shred. I used 2 forks and pulled it apart.

Add the chicken back into the crock pot.

You can continue to cook for a little while to let the flavors merge with the shredded chicken or eat right away.

Use 1. Chicken Enchiladas

I am SO glad I took a chance and made these. I really didn't think the husband would go for them, but he loved it! Here's what I did.

2 cups of the Sante Fe Style Chicken from the Slow Cooker above
5 of your favorite low carb/cal tortillas
2 oz of fancy shredded mexican cheese blend
dried cilantro

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Lay out a tortilla and fill with a scoop of the chicken/bean mixture leaving as much of the liquid as you can. Roll and place in a casserole dish sprayed with a bit of non-stick spray.

Repeat for all tortillas.

Pour the remaining liquid from the 2 cups of Sante Fe Style Chicken on top of the rolled tortillas. Top with cheese and a bit of dried cilantro.

Bake about 20 minutes.

As I said, big hit with the Husband and of course, I LOVED IT. I wasn't ready to chance them on Little Guy so I did make him something else. I'm not normally a fan of this approach, but he still ate the base of the meal just in a kid friendly form. May I present…

Use 2. Sante Fe Chicken Quesadillas

Using 2 tortillas I put some of the Sante Fe Chicken minus most of the liquid, some cheese and even some chopped baby spinach and made him a quesadillas using this technique.

He ate the WHOLE thing.

Use 3. Sante Fe Chicken over Rice

This is how I would have served it for dinner initially if I married anyone who remotely liked food, but honestly, if I would make it like this NO one in my house would eat it except me. Which sucks because it's my favorite type of meal.

Use 4. Sante Fe Chicken Stuffed Peppers

I decided to give this a try with the leftovers to see how the family would react. I mixed about 2 cups of the Sante Fe Chicken with 2 cups of brown rice then stuffed 5 bell peppers and topped with cheese.

I baked for about 30 minutes until the peppers were just softening.

The husband ate 2 but said he preferred the enchiladas. After some convincing that what was IN the peppers was the same stuff IN the quesadilla, Little Guy ate one too!

Use 5. Sante Fe Chicken over a bed of Baby Spinach

After all that I had about 1 cup left and no rice. So for lunch I decided to take a bunch of baby spinach, top it with the chicken, and pop it in the microwave. It was delish! Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture!

Overall this idea was a pleasant surprise. It was the first time in a long time I was able to make a one pot meal the whole family actually enjoyed. I could eat stuff like this every day!

I ended up with 6 cups of the Sante Fe Chicken so I'll provide nutritional information for that. Hope my slow cooker exerpiement gives you some ideas!

📖 Recipe