July Recipe Redux: Beat the Heat with the Slow Cooker/Instant Pot/Pressure Cooker

Whether you go slow or fast, just don’t turn on the oven. Show us how to keep the kitchen cool by using one of these appliances: Slow cooker, instant pot, pressure cooker. (If you have none of these, use the microwave, rice cooker or another keep-cool appliance.)

The recipe redux is back! I took a long hiatus from blogging which included my favorite monthly posts the Recipe Redux. I love being part of a such a talented group of bloggers and see how they are inspired by each month’s theme. Since I’m still slightly in a bit of kitchen transition due to my move I’m not quite at 100% with recipe development and food photography. Hoping to find my groove and a new set up too. I do have a front window that has amazing natural light so that’s been awesome, but there are definitely some other barriers to the creation process. Luckily this month’s redux was a very minimal equipment and ingredients focus.

I borrowed a friends crockpot (mine is in storage) and busted out a simple but versatile recipe. I was inspired by the classic salsa chicken we all make in the crockpot- jar of salsa + chicken breast. I decided to take a more summery spin on it by using salsa verde, onion, and adding in pineapple. I used frozen pineapple but I’m sure this would work just as well with canned (although I would recommend draining at least of the juice so the chicken isn’t too sweet). I topped the chicken with cilantro for that Mexican flair. This turned out very tasty but the salsa I used was either balanced out really well with the pineapple or was not spicy at all. This is fine by me since I am spicy intolerant but my friend that I shared the meal with felt that it needed more heat. I think dicing up one jalapeno would be a great option to kick it up a notch so I’ll have to experiment with that next time but the original version of the slow cooker summer chicken was delicious.

Simple meals are usually my go to but especially this hectic time of year so this slow cooker summer chicken is the answer. I think that slow cookers are generally underused in the summer as we typically think of hearty stews and etc. when slow cooking. I’d like to make it a summer goal to make a crockpot recipe once a week since it’s such a time saver. I love coming home to having dinner ready. I also love not needing to turn on the oven when it’s 90 degrees out- it’s basically blasphemous to make your kitchen any hotter (central air or otherwise). I’m hoping to find more summer slow cooker recipes from the rest of this month’s reduxers. And for those that are fancy enough to have an instapot make sure you check out the link up as well!