Crock Pot Marry Me Chicken with Diced Tomatoes

This Crock Pot Marry Me Chicken recipe is my take on the traditional recipe but made in the slow cooker. I know that I rely on my Crock Pot to make everything easier to cook, and if you’re the same then you’ll love this twist on the popular chicken dinner recipe.

Crock Pot Marry Me Chicken with Diced Tomatoes

If you didn’t know, here’s the story behind marry me chicken. Supposedly, the dish is so delish that when you make it for someone, they’ll want to put a ring on it. Having made it both the traditional way as well as in the slow cooker, I can tell you that it is, in fact, a really good dish. Would it make my husband marry me all over again? I don’t know. What I do know is that, in my life, what actually happened was my husband made pasta puttanesca for me on our first date and I did marry him. That first date was more than 35 years ago.

Speaking of pasta, when you make this recipe, you can serve it just with the chicken or you can add pasta. I made it both ways and it is the chef’s choice how you want to serve it once it is cooked.

One final thing before I get to the recipe: most versions of Marry Me Chicken use sun-dried tomatoes. They give the dish its tangy flavor. I’m not a huge sun-dried tomato fan. So when I adapted this recipe for the Crock Pot, I used diced tomatoes instead. The flavor profile was more of what I liked and I’m thrilled with how the slow cooker version turned out.

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts boneless and skinless
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon oregano dried
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese grated
• salt to taste
• black pepper to taste
• 8 ounces pasta, cooked

Step-by-Step Directions

Add the olive oil to the slow cooker crock.

Season chicken breasts on both sides, with salt, pepper, garlic powder and Italian seasoning. Place the chicken in the bottom of the crock. Ideally, there is no overlap.

Pour in chicken broth, then the diced tomatoes. Cook on high for four hours.

When the slow cooking time is up, add the heavy cream and parmesan cheese. Mix well and then keep on warm, assuming your slow cooker has that setting.

Meanwhile, cook your pasta on the stovetop. Set aside.

Just before you’re ready to serve, add the cooked pasta with the chicken and sauce and stir to mix. The chicken should be falling apart as you stir. Serve and enjoy.

Notes

Since this recipe does not allow for sauteing as the traditional Marry Me Chicken recipe does, I’ve adjusted some of the ingredients that normally would have broken down in a skillet — namely the garlic. That’s why I used garlic powder versus minced garlic.

One of the challenges with cooking in a slow cooker is that liquid doesn’t really have the opportunity to cook off. It’s why it is so important to drain the diced tomatoes. So your sauce will be thin when it is first done. However, after I added the pasta and more parmesan cheese and then let it sit on warm for a few hours, it definitely thickened. The next time I make this, I may cut down on the broth by half to see if that results in thicker sauce off the bat.

If you want to avoid soggy pasta, cook your noodles hours ahead of time. After draining, mix them with a little bit of olive oil and then refrigerate. This will keep them in al dente and firm when you add them to the Crock Pot.

It’s important to add the heavy cream at the very end of the cooking time. If you add it at the beginning of the cooking time, it will curdle and ruin your dish. Won’t have the chance to add heavy cream at the end because you want this to be a set-it-and-forget-it recipe? Then use evaporated milk when you add the other liquid ingredients.