4-Ingredient Easy Crockpot Ranch Chicken Breasts

Toss this super simple recipe into the crockpot before you go to work and enjoy juicy, flavorful chicken breasts when you get home! Serve with some steamed veggies or a simple salad for an easy and healthy meal.

If you are a person with busy nights and a desire to cut out the take out, you need a crockpot. These little babies are about 40 bucks new, and you can usually grab one from the thrift store for much less. Why do you need a crockpot? Easy. To make delicious recipes like this super simple crock pot ranch chicken. 

This recipe has literally 5 minutes of prep time. Then, you just go about your long day, and when you get home, you’ve got a delicious meal full of ranch flavor for the entire family in no time flat. That’s the beauty of slow cooker recipes. In this case, you can meet your goals without burdening yourself, because we all know you’ve already got enough packed into your busy days!

What’s in 4-Ingredient Ranch Chicken?

Don’t let the simple ingredients fool you; this easy dinner recipe is loaded with flavor! You only need a handful of ingredients, most of which you might already hav ein your pantry. The four inexpensive ingredients inthis recipe are: 

• Chicken Breasts: You’ll need about 1 pound of boneless, skinless chicken breasts for this recipe. Feel free to use frozen ones — you don’t even have to thaw them first! Just toss them in the slow cooker before you put the other ingredients in. They’ll cook up perfectly!
• Chicken Broth: Adding that gorgous umami flavor to this recipe, we have chicken broth. If you’re looking to be healthy, I’d recommend using the low-salt or no-salt-added versions. 
• Ranch Seasoning Packet: This is the secret ingredient that will make your chicken stand out. Hidden Valley Ranch dressing packets give the best flavor without any effort from you. Sometimes, I even use the spicy ranch packets to add a little kick!
• Cream of Chicken Soup: To keep this healthy, you can use fat-free cream of chicken soup. You can even use a homemade version, if you’re avoiding certain additives. 

Making Crockpot Ranch Chicken

Step 1 | Mix It

Start by adding all of your ingredients to the crockpot. I’d recommend that you place chicken breasts at the bottom, then dump everything else on top. You can give it a quick swirl with a wooden spoon to get everything evenly distributed. If you really care, you can mix the ranch seasoning, broth, and soup in a bowl, then pour that ranch mixture over your breasts. I’ve done it both ways, and I can verify that it really doesn’t make a difference. 

Step 2 | Cook it

Place the lid on your crockpot and set it to cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 3-4 hours. If you’re using frozen chicken breasts, you’ll use the longer period. If you’re using fresh chicken, you’ll use the shorter time period. You don’t have to do anything during this time period — your crockpot’s taking care of it for you!

Step 3 | Eat it!

Remove your chicken from the crockpot and serve. You can serve this as chicken breasts with a dollop of sauce from the crockpot on top. Your other option is to shred your chicken, return it to the crockpot and stir it around until the shredded chicken is covered with sauce. Then you can serve it over rice or on top of a salad. It tastes great with a dusting of cheddar cheese or even a little crumbled crispy bacon!

Substitutions and Variations

This recipe is pretty versatile, and you can make several substitutions to customize it to your needs. 

• For the chicken breasts: You can make this with bone-in breasts, as well as with chicken thighs. Tenderloins and cutlets also work!
• For the broth: If you can’t find a good quality broth that’s in your budget, chicken bouillion is a great substitution! Just use 1 cube of bouillion + 1 cup of water for each cup of broth. You don’t even need to dissolve the cubes beforehand, just toss the cube in, then pour the water on top. As it cooks, the cube will dissolve and create a broth with tons of flavor!
• For the cream of chicken soup: For a slightly different take, you can replace the cream of chicken soup with an 8 oz block of cream cheese. This will melt into the sace to create a creamy ranch chicken version of this easy recipe. It’s definitely much heavier as a meal, but that cheesy chicken in its creamy sauce can be a huge hit!