Slow Cooker Coke Chicken ~#1 On My List Of “Things I like to toss in the crock pot.”
I’m getting ready for Apple Week this weekend, preparing some last minute apple recipe tutorials and getting posts written up and queued for this and my other blog for al.com, so we’re having a bit of a slow weekend. I wanted to post my mother’s tutorial on Buttermilk Cornbread, but she isn’t home right now and I’m missing a few photographs I need.
So, in honor of our Slow Cooker Giveaway (Congrats again, Beverly!), I am going to post this recipe. I hesitate to call this a recipe as it really is so very easy that there doesn’t seem to be any real cooking involved. The outcome though, is wonderful.
This works with pork chops, boneless breasts, ribs, and even roast. I ask that you first try it with a fryer if at all possible, though. There is a magic that takes place when you cook a fryer like this that just doesn’t happen with other cuts of meat, even boneless skinless breasts. The fryer, after slow cooking all day in this amazing blend of flavors, becomes completely permeated with the flavor and literally falls off of the bone. Every shred of chicken, even the inside meat, is tinted the color of your sauce, proving that it has completely saturated the bird.
The flavor is so amazing! I like to serve this with stewed potatoes in butter sauce and a simple dinner roll. The chicken steals the show.
*Yes, you can make this with another carbonated beverage, it just needs to be carbonated and have sugar in it.
Ingredients
- 1 Fryer
- 1 Lemon
- 1 Onion
- 1 Bottle BBQ Sauce
- 1 Can Coca Cola
Instructions
- Peel onion and cut into quarters. Cut lemon into Quarters. Place fryer in crock pot. Toss in onion quarters and lemon quarters. Pour in entire bottle of BBQ Sauce and entire can of Coke. Cover and cook on low all day or high 3 to four hours.
Related posts:
Posted by Christy Jordan
on Aug 30 2008. Filed under Misc, Quick&Easy.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
Okay, Christy ~ got my chicken in the slow cooker right now! I’ll let y’all know how it works out … I used spicy BBQ sauce (’cause we’re spicy like that) and Ginger Beer (the only soda in the house). Can’t WAIT to try this! Thanks for offering the recipe to all of us.
Ok you inspired me to go out and buy the ingredients to make this. We have VBS all week and I cannot do take out any more. Thanks for inspiring me.
Can’t wait for the cornbread tutorial… love the cornbread!!
Christy, I made the cornbread that is in your cookcook..(Terri’s?) too lazy to go downstairs and get it…it is absolutely the VERY BEST cornbread I have ever eaten! I have lived down South all my life and made lots and lots of cornbread, but this is wonderful! I went right by the recipe and was totally convinced there was too much milk but went ahead and used what it said..turned out great, and even today I had a piece of it and it was STILL good! Cooked it in a 10″ cast iron skillet and in 25 minutes, it was ready! Thanks so much! I have used so many of your recipes and they just keep getting betterr and better….
This post makes me miss my grandmother. She won a cooking contest back in the 1970′s for her Coke Chicken recipe. She made if for us all the time. Thanks for precious memories.
Oh WOW!!! What a great memory!!! I hope you get to try this recipe soon!!!
I had a bag of chicken breasts so I substituted them for the fryer…think this is ok?
Is your fryer frozen or thawed? Sometime I cook frozen breasts in the crock pot and they are much juicer after cooking all day if they are frozen to start with. So I didn’t know if the fryer should be thawed or not.
I tried this on Wednesday and my chicken was kinda bland, don’t know why. I followed the directions, used a can of Coke….my chicken was a little over 5 lbs. and the coke an barbecue sauce didn’t completely cover the chicken, maybe that’s why? I was really surprised it didn’t have more taste, because the BBQ sauce I used tasted really strong on its own. It was a new BBQ sauce that I hadn’t tried before, Garland Jack’s brand….I did put my chicken in the crockpot breast-side down, in your picture, yours is breast-side up, does placement of the chicken make a difference?
Yes, it matter’s. Just like baking a chicken in the over you always cook breastside up. Which anatomically is the chicken upside down. Putting the ckicken breat side down puts the breast closest to the heat ad dries it out. Since it’s cooked faster it doesn’t absorb all the flavors. Also, choose a BBQ sauce you know and like.
Tried the coke chicken recipe yesterday and it is fantastic – my hubby can’t get enough. I had a pack of chicken breasts I wanted to use and it turned out great. Thanks for sharing this keeper.
I am so glad to hear it was a hit Cris!!!
I am planning to cook this one day this week. Suggestions for sides to serve with this chicken would be appreciated.
Do you think that you could throw in some little potatoes and baby carrots?
How do you serve this?? On the bone or shredded or what?? Sounds good.
P.S. Can you plse email response as I will never find this page again I’m afraid.
I made this “Chicken Coke” recipe this afternoon. It is still cooking in the slow cooker. I think my husband is jealous because he is the cook in the house, and it’s smelling so darn good. Thanks for such a great recipe. It’s burning up hot in Houston, Texas. This gave me something to do instead of sit around and be bored. Again, thanks so very much for sharing.
what sides do you setve with this meal..thank you…love all your recipes…..
How about a pinterest button?
The “Pin it” button is at the very top, above the recipe.
Just wondering what size crock you have… This looks great!
oh my goodness, I just made the crock pot coke chicken. Ok I used root beer instead. It is so tender and juicey and mouth watering. I put it in before work, am home now ready to enjoy with a pasta salad. Thanks for the delish and easy recipe.
Left this cooking at home, can’t wait to eat this tonight with our secret recipe potatoes and onions out of the microwave! Hopefully my fiancee will leave it alone until I can make it home!
Going to make this recipe tomorrow, but am wondering, do I need to thaw the fryer chicken before I put in crockpot, or can I put in frozen?? I have a tendency to screw up recipes, so would love to hear what I should do. Thank you!
This is delicious. My whole family loved it. Soooooo good!
Yay!! I am so glad it was a hit Courtney!!
Can lemon juice be substituted for the lemons? Have everything to make this but the fresh lemon.
It sure can Leana!!!
Trying this today. Can’t wait!!!
Tried this and wanted to love it, but I didn’t think it was good. It had no flavor at all. Maybe if you added more bbq sauce to at the end it would have been OK. It was very bland…
Can you use split chicken breast instead of whole chicken. We don’t care for dark meat. Also, do you leave the skin on?
I made the crock-pot chicken tonight. I left the breast up and it dried out terribly. The underside did cook very well and we pulled what we could off the bone. It smelled great as it was cooking but turned out bland. We added more BBQ sauce on the plate. I think the bird was too large and should have been rotated to get the juices throughout. Unfortunately I had to throw most of the good part away. I would recommend adding more sauce the last hour in the crockpot also.
I made this a few weeks ago and my kids LOVED it as did some friends that came over. I feed 11 people at a time so I made 2 crocks of chicken. In one I used a can of Dr Pepper and in the other a can of Rootbeer bc that’s all I had. OMG it was sooo good! I’m making it again today…I’m wondering what would happen if I used the bottle of flat soda I have stored in the office???
Hmmm, I am not sure JoLynn. I have never used a flat soda. If you try it let me know how it turns out. I am so glad to hear that everyone loved it!!
Trying this today…. did everything your recipe said to do. Cant wait to try it tonight
gonna make instant potatoes and pea & carrots and rolls for sides. 
I hope you enjoyed it Tanja!
Trying this for the first time. Hubby had to work so I put it on at his job before church. Waiting for it to finish. It smells amazing! Thanks for the recipe!
I hope you enjoyed it Keya!!
Can you use a frozen chicken? If so, is it the standard 8 hours?
I tried this tonight, and unfortunately it was very bland and my chicken was dry. Maybe it was the BBQ sauce I used?? Bummer:(
Planning on trying this recipe this week. My only problem is the recipe doesn’t say what size bottle of BBQ sauce.
Just the regular size Mischa, the great thing about this recipe is it doesn’t have to be exact, just in the ballpark.
Can lemon lime soda be used? I don’t usually keep soda in my house, however I do have some lemon lime. I really want to try but can’t get to store as I have a few sick kids at home.
Does it matter if I use a boneless whole chicken? Or even just several boneless-skinless breasts? This sounds yummy, and very easy… but the one thing we don’t “do” in this house is chicken bones.
This looks wonderfu but, with my husband being diabetic, we are unable to have regular pop. We have a 0 carb barbecue sauce. Any idea if that plus a Diet Coke would work?
Hi Pamela, I think it would work just fine. The taste is going to be a little bit different but with your husband being diabetic you sometimes have to do what you have to do. I would try using whatever his favorite diet cola is so that the taste is similar to what he is used to.
Try using seltzer instead; it’s the carbonation that makes the meat tender. I’d rather use a nice lemon seltzer to complement the lemon flavor than add that fake sugar flavor to the meat. I have used it before in other slow cooker recipes that call for soda.
Can you use a frozen fryer if you are cooking it all day? Shopping on Friday for the week but not making it until Thursday (scout night) so I will have to freeze it so it won’t spoil.
Thanks.
I haven’t try this recipe yet, but it sounds good. I mix diet coke in my bbq sauce when I cook on the grill outside and it tastes great. Also, I noticed that many people asked if you can use a frozen fryer, but you never replied. Do you know if you can? It seems like it would water down the sauce too much. Going to try it this week, can’t wait. Thanks for the idea!
I am trying this tonight! Sounds like everyone loves it! cant wait!! =)
I made this today and it took almost seven hours on high for me (I did open it once between five and six hours to temp it and remove some liquid because it was about to overflow). It fell apart when I took it out and was tasty except, because it was in for so long, the lemons (rind and pith) imparted a bitter taste to it. So next time I will just squeeze the juice of the lemon over the chicken and discard the rest. As I mentioned, I had to take several cups of liquid out with a turkey baster because it was about overflowing my 6 quart crock pot between the soda, the BBQ sauce and the juices it made. Definitely will get a smaller bird next time!
What size chicken do you recommend?
you ar the best cook i have ever heard about
I made this today and It was delish! A word of warning though….I must have had a pretty big chicken in a normal size crockpot.. I went and did some errands and when I got back, the pot was sputtering like crazy. There was so much juice! I had just cleaned my kitchen from Ceiling to Floor and as I was moving the pot to a nearby location, the juice leaked out and made a puddle on my clean floor. The worst thing was that it dripped on my brand new Tom’s that I was wearing! I yanked that shoe off so fast and got the carpet stain remover to work it’s magic. Now I am wearing one shoe and the other is drying. Why don’t I just take the other one off? That would be too easy….
I read all the comments before making this. Some said it was terrific, some said the chicken breasts came out dry and lacked flavor. I hoped it would taste terrific because it’s so easy to put together. The bad news is mine came out dry but I think it is because my bird was small and I let it cook on low for too long. I will try it again and next time cook it on low for 5-6 hrs. Seven and 8 hrs is too long. For those who want it saucy, sauce is easy to make. Flour and some of the liquid in a saucepan can turn it into a nice gravy. If yours was dry, was it a small bird (like 2 lbs) and cooked it for a long time?
Great question! Hoping we’ll get some answers on it.
Another thing I wonder is the age of slow cookers as the ones more than ten years old (experts have said five even) aren’t as regulated in cooking temps as the new ones.
I’m so glad you posted this!
This is such a great recipe, but I dont have a crock pot big enough for a chicken to feed to whole family so I cook it in the oven at 325 in my roaster until it is done. And i never seem to have lemons but always have oranges so i end up using oranges and it adds a tangy to the BBQ sauce!
Was so looking forward to this for tonight’s dinner. Not going to lie. It had no flavor whatsoever. So bummed.
I’m so sorry, if be bummed too! I can’t imagine it being flavorless with a whole lemon, onion, and bottle of Bbq sauce. I’m gonna blame this one on aliens.
For juicier breast meat, try putting a bit of butter or margarine under the skin before putting the chicken in the pot. As for blandness, I rub mine with kosher salt, black pepper, and garlic powder before I pour on the sauce. Yummy recipe!
You have been asked multiple times if the chicken is supposed to be frozen or thawed but I never see a response. Please respond. Thank you.
Going to try this for dinner tonight- all I have is ginger ale, but I think it might add nice zip.
Maybe this will help with the frozen chicken question.:
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5477300_can-put-frozen-chicken-crockpot.html
i am making this recipe now for the 4th time to feed a group of guys & it is great! the 1st time i made it we ate it as is & it was bland for me & hubby, but my kiddos liked it. the next time around i had some hawaiian sweet rolls so i made bbq chicken sliders!! this is the way to do it! i separated the meat & shredded it (no work at all) and added one more bottle of sauce to it… SO GOOD! i didn’t have a lemon the 1st couple of times, used lime juice in the bottle, & it was fine, but when i did use it with the actual lemon i could really tell the difference. i did cut up the cooked onions smaller to blend with the rest of the meat. i served this at a ladies meeting & it was a hit… really goes a long way. thanks for the recipe!
Sounded so good. Cooked it in low for 8 hours. Whole thing fell apart so the meat was extremely tender. However, it was a pain in the neck trying to get all the bones out because it was a big chicken mess. My husband said that the taste of the come and BBQ sauce got diminished. We wound up using more BBQ sauce to dip the chicken in it. Smelled good though. Wd not make it again…sorry
I tried the recipe and my children love it! Based on the feedback on this site, I made sure the chicken was well seasoned prior.