White Chicken Chili

A friend of mine asked me the other day about some ideas for easy, healthy recipes. After we talked a bit, I suggested that she get friendly with her crockpot - so many crockpot recipes involve little more than dumping things in, then ignoring them a while, but they're so delicious, and it's easy to make them healthy. And I promised to go through my pinterest board for crockpots and pick out some likely recipes to start with. Here's the first one I've come up with:


White Chicken Chili
based on Crock Pot Chicken Chili by Budget Savy Diva

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can sweet corn, with juice
1 can fire roasted tomatoes (or other diced/crushed tomatoes) with juice
1 package ranch dressing mix
1 tsp cumin
1 Tbs chili powder
1 tsp onion powder
8oz cream cheese (full fat tastes best - and fat is not the enemy)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 onion, diced
1-2 Tbs diced garlic (be generous, it's yummy)
1-2 Tbs olive oil

In a skillet, heat oil over med-low heat. Add diced onion, then garlic, and cook slowly until the onion is a little transparent, around 8-10 minutes. Set your crockpot to low, add everything, putting the cream cheese on top. Cook for 6-8 hours. Shred chicken with two forks.


You can easily convert this to a quick one-pot dinner by using canned chicken, and if you don't have one of the spices, it's probably going to be fine without it; I made it the other day and forgot to add a bunch: ranch dressing, cumin, chili powder, onion powder... all the powdered spices. I got distracted. It was still yummy. And when I make it with the "right" spices, it'll almost seem like a whole different dish.