Cooking chicken without touching it

The easiest meal prep chicken recipe + 25 ideas of how to use it

I know that many of you reading this are a lot like me: busy as hell. It’s hard to feed yourself, let alone a family, healthy, home-cooked meals every day. This is quite literally my job—I have culinary and nutrition degrees, work from home, and send out weekly meal prep menus for work, and I still find this challenging. So, in my quest to make this easier for me, I’m sharing all of my tips to make it easier for you, too.

As a busy working mom, this meal prep chicken is my lifeline—I depend on it. I know that sounds slightly dramatic, but it’s true. In addition to my day job, I have a lot of mouths to feed. And, when it comes to putting together a quick and healthy meal, proteins are the hardest to improvise. Without an available protein option, it’s easy to end up with a grilled cheese or a bunch of random snacks that don’t fill you up. With chicken in the fridge, it’s a whole meal—a Sweetgreen-style salad in three minutes.

I’ve been making this chicken pretty much weekly for a year now. It provides a large Tupperware full of tender, juicy shredded chicken to add to soups, salads, pastas, tacos, grain bowls, and straight in my 15-month old daughter’s mouth.

Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad (coming to meal prep soon…like next week)

But, perhaps the best thing about this recipe: it doesn’t involve actually touching the chicken. Raw chicken is gross. In culinary school we would butcher raw and cooked chickens all the time, and I never really got comfortable with it. A rotisserie chicken may seems like the easy way out, but I actually think it’s more work simply because you have to butcher it. This is a two-step deal, and you don’t even need a cutting board.

To make this recipe, you are going to need some sort of slow cooker. I’ve had this VitaClay for years and it has served me well, but I am very tempted to get the Dream Cooker from OurPlace. I went to the store earlier this week and almost bought it, but I think I still have a little juice left in my VitaClay.

Okay, I said it was a two step deal, so here are the two steps:

STEP 1: Place the chicken (breast, thighs, bone-in or boneless—whatever your preference is) in the slow cooker, cover with liquid (water, chicken broth, or both—if using water I might add some powdered bone broth for flavor) and add a generous pinch of salt. Set the slow cooker on stew or cook for 2-4 hours (2-ish hours on high, 4-ish hours on low).

You could add other aromatics like peppercorns, lemon slices, or a bay leaf, but I’m lazy and don’t do this and it still tastes good.

STEP 2: Remove the chicken with tongs and place into Tupperware. It should be tender enough that is shreds with the touch of the tongs. If it’s not, let it cook a little longer. This chicken lasts 5 days in the fridge.

That’s literally it. Here’s a video if you want a visual.

See, no touching.

HOW TO USE YOUR MEAL PREP CHICKEN
There are countless applications for this tender, juicy, pulled chicken, but here are some of my favorites.

Soups & stews

1. Pumpkin chicken curry

2. Chicken & wild rice soup

3. Chicken & lentil soup

4. Thai chicken soup

5. Chicken pho

6. Greek lemony chicken soup

7. White chili

8. Chicken tortilla soup

Rice & pasta dishes

9. Fusilli with chicken, mushrooms, spinach, and sun-dried tomato pesto

10. Pesto penne with chicken and broccoli

11. Chicken fried rice

12. Chicken caesar pasta salad

13. Chicken and vegetable pad thai

Salads & grain bowls

14. Mediterranean chicken bowl with brown rice, chicken, hummus, mixed greens, cucumbers, olives and balsamic vinaigrette

15. BBQ chicken salad with little gems, avocado, corn, and cherry tomatoes

16. Chicken chopped salad

17. Waldorf chicken salad

18. Southwestern shredded chicken salad

19. Asian chicken salad with carrot ginger dressing

20. Vietnamese shredded chicken and cabbage salad

Sandwiches, tacos, & wraps

21. Chicken tacos (add a taco seasoning and this turns into the perfect shredded chicken

22. Tahini chicken salad lettuce wraps

23. Chicken salad sandwich

24. Chicken caesar salad wrap

25. Chicken enchiladas

Many of these dishes have been featured in a meal prep menu, so if you want the full recipes, you can upgrade your subscription here: