Slow Cooker Chicken "Lo Mein"

I haven't cooked for a couple of weekends, so I decided this weekend will be full of home cooking. I didn't start thinking about dinner until pretty late, so I needed something that didn't take all day, but I am still obsessed with my new slow cooker. I went through my cookbooks looking for a quick cooking slow cooker recipe, and found a Cashew Chicken Lo Mein recipe in Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two cookbook. I didn't think the cashews would go over well with Boyfriend, and I also wanted to try to use stuff I had around the house instead of buying a bunch of new ingredients. So I modified the recipe quite a bit.

The Ingredients:
-1 – 1 ½ boneless, skinless chicken breast halves per person (I bought a package with 3 chicken breast halves, and used them all)
-1 tbsp canola oil
-½ medium onion, thinly sliced
-1 inch peeled ginger, grated*
-1 garlic clove, grated
-zest of ½ lime
-1 tbsp hoisin sauce
-3 tbsp soy sauce
-2 tsp chili garlic sauce
-1 splash of sesame oil
-2 cups frozen stir-fry vegetable blend, thawed (I found one with broccoli, carrots, and water chestnuts)
-6-8 ounces ramen noodles (or udon noodles, or whole wheat spaghetti)
-juice of 1 lime
-2 tbsp sliced green onions


*I buy a big piece of fresh ginger, peel the whole thing, and cut it into 1-2 inch pieces. I then freeze it, and grate it with a microplane when a recipe calls for ginger. The ginger lasts for months, and is much easier to grate when frozen. Here's a photo of my ginger all peeled and cut up, before I froze it.




The Directions:
1. Heat 1 tbsp canola oil (or other light colored oil) in sauté pan. Cut chicken breasts into bite sized pieces. Sauté over medium heat until browned. They do not need to be cooked through.
2. Put chicken in bottom of 2 or 3 quart slow cooker. Cover with sliced onions, grated garlic, grated ginger, lime zest.
3. Combine hoisin, soy sauce, chili garlic sauce, and sesame oil. Add to slow cooker, stir to coat chicken. Cook on LOW for 2 hours, or until chicken is cooked through.
4. When chicken is cooked through, add veggies to slow cooker, stir to combine, and cook on HIGH for 30 minutes.
5. Once veggies are added to slow cooker, prepare noodles according to package directions.
6. When veggies are cooked, add noodles and lime juice to slow cooker, and stir gently to combine. Garnish with green onions and serve.

This was really tasty! I thought it was a bit too spicy, that maybe I should have used a bit less ginger and a bit less chili garlic sauce. But it wasn't overwhelmingly too spicy. Boyfriend really liked it, and didn't think it was to spicy at all. So maybe next time I'll find a way to tone it down, but just a little. It was really easy, and the chicken was nice and tender, since they were slow cooked. When I told my mom what I was making, she asked why I didn't cook the same thing on the stovetop - it would probably only take 30 minutes or so. She's right that the stovetop would take way less time, but I like to think that using the slow cooker lets the flavors combine more and makes the chicken more tender.