This 5 ingredient slow cooker salsa chicken and quinoa has the perfect amount of zip to it to, making it truly stand out as a healthy and delicious dinner!
Happy Friday everyone-we’ve made it to Friday, and you know what that means – time for Five Ingredient Fridays. I’m super excited about this weeks’ recipe, it only has 5 ingredients but it has such awesome flavors, I think you’re really going to like it.
[Tag me on Instagram with “Only 5 ingredients in this amazingly delicious (and healthy) #slowcooker salsa chicken and quinoa from @philiakelnhofer!”]
Before we talk about the dish and how to make it (hint-it’s incredibly easy) let’s talk about your week. How was it? Are you looking forward to the weekend? I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for a while, because after work today my hubby and I are headed up to Kohler, Wisconsin (you may remember hearing about that from my last trip I took there which you can read about the 13 Things I Learned From Attending the Kohler Food and Wine Experience) for a relaxing weekend getaway. One of my sister’s got my husband and I tickets to see a band play in Kohler, so we planned a little weekend around it. I’m going to be posting more travel stories here on the blog this year based on awesome feedback from my previous travel stories, I have so many things I want to share, now I just need to find some extra hours in the day, please? Mmmk, thanks!
Now with this 5 ingredient slow cooker salsa chicken and quinoa you should know I’m totally using the word ‘zippy,’ because it describes the amazing flavors perfectly. While quinoa can sometimes be bland, that is not the case here. Salsa is used to cook the quinoa and the chicken and gives the dish that extra zip that is sometimes missing. The ingredients I’m using in this recipe are Bob’s Red Mill tricolored quinoa (I’m totally in love with this quinoa, you can purchase it at your local grocery store or on Amazon here) and Frontera brand salsa in jalapeno and cilantro (this salsa is my fave, it’s soooo good! You can purchase it at most grocery stores or here on Amazon.)
To make this you put all the ingredients in your slow cooker (this is the slow cooker I use that I’m totally in love with, and it’s on sale at 46% off on Amazon, so if you don’t have a slow cooker I would totally recommend buying this one) and you set it and forget it – that’s it, told you it was easy!
Other slow cooker recipes you might enjoy:
- 5 Ingredient Healthy Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken and Quinoa
- Healthy Slow Cooker Breakfast Casserole Recipe
- 5 Ingredient Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage
5 Ingredient Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken and Quinoa
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups water
- 1 cup tri colored quinoa
- 4 oz cream cheese reduced fat
- 2 red bell peppers roughly chopped
- 1 lb. chicken breasts 2-3 chicken breasts, halved if they're big
- 1 jar 16 oz salsa, heat level of choice (I use Frontera salsa in jalapeno and cilantro flavor which is medium)
Instructions
- Pour water into a slow cooker. Pour in quinoa.
- Dollop the cream cheese around the crock pot (I usually do about 4-5 dollops of it).
- Add chopped bell peppers and chicken breasts to the crock pot, then pour jar of salsa over the chicken and set the slow cooker to low and let cook on low for 8 hours (you could stir it once or twice while it's cooking, but that's not necessary. Also, I've found that when you turn off the heat, if you remove the lid for 15-20 minutes the quinoa firms up.)
- To serve simply divide chicken onto 4 plates and spoon quinoa/pepper mixture on the side, the chicken will fall apart so there's no need for a knife, serve and enjoy!
Notes
- Any brand of quinoa will work in this recipe
- You can freeze this recipe up to 2 months
Here is a picture of the this chicken and quinoa for healthy meal planning, and my turkey meatloaf recipe! And if you want other healthy meal planning recipes, check out my recipe for slow cooker beef and sweet potato stew-that one is great for lunches!
Disclaimer: some of the above links are affiliate links, if you purchase amazon products through my store at no cost to you, I will earn a few pennies. As always, all opinions are my own and thank you for supporting the brands and products I love that make the Sweetphi blog possible.
Joanne Simons says
Delicious! Only had a partial jar of salsa so added a can of diced tomatoes. Also only had about half the cream cheese. Still lightly creamy and very tasty. Thanks, Phi!!
Sweetphi says
I’m so happy to hear this – it’s such a good versatile dish, and I love hearing that it worked with those modifications, thanks for sharing!
Clara says
Can I do 2 cups of quinoa instead of one? And double the water?
Clara says
Btw I’m so excited for this recipe!
Sweetphi says
Hope you love this as much as we do 🙂
Sweetphi says
Yes, you can do 2 cups of quinoa and double the water 🙂
Joanne says
Just found this and ordered ingredients from Amazon. Will make as soon as they arrive. My question how is this with boneless skinless chicken thighs? Do you use skinless? Do you recommend chicken broth or water?
Sweetphi says
Hi Joanne, thank you for your comment. This would definitely work with boneless skinless chicken thighs (and yes I’d recommend skinless) and either water or chicken broth would work in this recipe, whatever you have on hand 🙂 Hope you love this recipe!
Tara says
This was a family favorite tonight! I used broth & cooked on high for 3h… perfection. We then served it over a bed spinach for some added nutrition! Yum!
Sweetphi says
That’s so nice to hear Tara, so glad you liked it!!
Jamie says
Are you able to cook this dish on high for 4 hrs instead?
Sweetphi says
Yes you definitely could 🙂
Aleisha says
Can you use chicken broth instead of water ??
Sweetphi says
Yes, you definitely could use chicken broth instead of water
mimi says
is there a substitute for cream cheese? we don’t do dairy. thank you
Sweetphi says
Hi Mimi, the cream cheese just gives it a nice creamy texture, you can either omit it, or use a dairy-free product instead (for example you could use 1/2 cup of almond or soy milk)
Jami says
Hello! Could I use Greek yogurt instead of cream cheese?
Sweetphi says
Oh good question! I think you could definitely make that substitution, I would add a little bit more Greek yogurt than I would cream cheese because cream cheese is more concentrated. I’d love to know how it turns out for you!
Andrea rentea says
I love this recipe, will go today to get the quinoa. Thank you for such an easy delicious recipe.
Sweetphi says
You’re so welcome! This recipe is such a great quick dinner that cooks all day but has minimal ‘hands on’ time. You could also use brown rice in place of quinoa 🙂
Marcia says
Do you use bone in chicken breast or boneless?
Sweetphi says
Oh good question Marcia – I usually use boneless chicken breasts, but bone in would be just as delicious!
Little Cooking Tips says
Quinoa is a very new ingredient, and we honestly don’t know many ways to put it into use. Your recipe is definitely a great way to do that!:) Delicious idea dear Phi!
As for the weekend, we had some snow here in the north of Athens, mostly in the mountains around the city, it was really cold! We watched the “snowzilla” through webcams and it seemed like a severe blizzard at times (we watched the blizzard from NY and DC livecams, oh the wonders of the Internet!). We can only imagine how much worse it must’ve been in Wisconsin! We hope you coped ok with this. Did you manage to go to Kohler? We now entered the “Alkyonides”, a 10-day sunny and warm period in the middle of the winter and then we expect the next cold weather.
Again, thank you for the amazing recipe!
xoxoxo
Sweetphi says
Quinoa is a great ingredient, it can be used in place of rice in recipes. It doesn’t really have a lot of flavor on its own, so it’s best if one uses other flavorings (like salsa, or chicken stock) when cooking it.
We didn’t get too much snow here in Wisconsin, surprisingly! Normally we usually get a ton of snow, but this time around we didn’t. And yes, how cool is it (wonders of the internet) that you can view snowstorms via web cams?!
Happy Alkyonides!
Phi
Cheri says
Love this dish Phi, have a great weekend.
Sweetphi says
Thank you so much Cheri!