Moroccan Slow Cooker Chicken

In college, I studied abroad in Granada, Southern Spain, which had a huge Moroccan influence and I absolutely fell in love with the food. The mix of sweet and savory dances on the taste buds and after a recent hankering for it and a few google searches I came up with this slow cooker recipe as a franken-recipe of others I had seen. I have to say, I give two thumbs up for this one. The chicken was flavorful and super tender, the potatoes were salty and crispy, and the broccolini added a nice crunch. You could, of course, pair this with couscous or something more traditionally Moroccan but I like to modify based on my weekday style of eating in which I try to swap out wheat and gluten for potatoes or squashes as my preferred starch at dinner time. This will definitely become part of the regular rotation, especially now that I have all of these spices in my spice drawer!

What I Used:

• 2 chicken thighs and 2 quarter chickens (leg + thigh) or basically any chicken parts you want - I prefer thighs and legs as they are more flavorful but you could certainly do a breast (with or without skin + bone)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp all spice
• 1/4 tsp whole fennel seeds
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 lemon thinly sliced
• palmful of green olives
• small bowl full each of raisins & dried apricots (I used Trader Joe's Golden Berry Blend & Trader Joe's Dried Turkish Apricots
• 2 cups chicken stock (try Better Than Bouillon)

* Modifications: I don’t love perfect measurements or usually using this many spices so you could reduce or even add to it (turmeric could be added or crush fennel instead of whole). Any sort of raisin, prune, dried apricot would work. Red onion instead of yellow is great too!

How To:

1. Combine all of the spices in a small bowl and mix thoroughly
2. Dredge the chicken thighs in the spice mixture and brown them until golden on each side.
3. Add in the rest of the ingredients and set your slow cooker on low for 6 hours or high for 3 hours.

Looking for other slow cooker meals? Maybe ones that include just a couple of ingredients and fewer spices? Check out this post, and this one too!