When You're Short on Time and Still Need a Slow Cooker

One of the many benefits of using a slow cooker is the extended cooking time that bridges your availability in the kitchen to time to eat. Usually, it seems like the benefit is a long time between the two where the cooker is cranking away, and you get to dive in at the appropriate meal time.

This past week I stumbled up on a short time slow cooker recipe. It wasn't intentional, but worked remarkably well for our circumstances. This Crockpot Chile Chicken Rice Casserole uses already cooked chicken and rice to shorten the actual cooking time in the crock. With those two starter ingredients, you just stir a little of this and a little of that in, and it's ready to bake for the next two hours.

This casserole was good, but completely predictable. I liked having the slow cooker do the work leading up to dinner, and the quick prep was a breeze. I don't think I made any changes to the recipe, so it was pretty simple and easy all on it's own. If you are into the chile flavors, this will definitely be another recipe you'll enjoy.