Chicken · Slow cooker

One Pot Slow Cooked Chicken Dinner Recipe

Five minutes of prep, then the slow cooker does the heavy lifting. Chicken breasts, potatoes and carrots get a lemon and garlic marinade, and four to eight hours later you've got a dinner that tastes like the chicken's been gently poached in all those herbs. No faffing about.

R By Richard · Adapted from YouTube · Published 1 June 2026
⏱Prep 5 min
🍲Slow cook 8 hr (Low) / 4 hr (High)
🍽Serves 4
One Pot Slow Cooked Chicken Dinner

Source video by YouTube on YouTube. This recipe was adapted with strict source-fidelity rules and is marked for human review.

This is a complete chicken dinner cooked entirely in the slow cooker. Boneless chicken breasts sit on a bed of quartered red potatoes and baby carrots, all coated in a simple lemon, garlic and oregano marinade. Five minutes of prep and the slow cooker does the rest. The chicken comes out tender and almost poached, and the vegetables soak up all the herby, garlicky juices.

Ingredients

Marinade
  • 60 mlolive oil
  • 80 mllemon juice, freshly squeezed
  • 1 tspdried oregano
  • 1 tsponion powder
  • 2 clovesgarlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 tspsalt
  • black pepper, freshly cracked
Main
  • 1 kgchicken breasts, boneless, skinless, excess fat trimmed
  • 600 gbaby red potatoes, quartered
  • baby carrots, trimmed and peeled

Method

  1. In a small jug, combine the olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, onion powder, crushed garlic, salt and black pepper. Stir well to make the marinade.

    ~2 min

  2. Place the chicken breasts in the centre of the slow cooker. Add the quartered potatoes and the baby carrots around the chicken.

    ~2 min

  3. Pour the marinade over everything, starting with the chicken and then over the potatoes and carrots, making sure it coats it all.

    ~1 min

  4. Put the lid on and cook on Low for 8 hours or High for 4 hours. Do not lift the lid during cooking, as the trapped steam is what cooks the vegetables and chicken through.

  5. Switch off the slow cooker, serve the chicken with the potatoes and carrots and spoon over some of the cooking juices.

    ~2 min

Frequently asked

Can I use chicken thighs instead of breasts?
Yes. Boneless skinless thighs work very well and stay even more tender. Use roughly the same weight and the cooking times stay the same.
Can I swap out the vegetables?
Absolutely. The recipe is very flexible. Try green beans, broccoli, cauliflower or a mix. Firmer root vegetables hold up best over a long cook; softer veg like broccoli are better added in the last hour.
Why should I not lift the lid while it cooks?
Slow cookers rely on trapped steam to cook the food evenly. Lifting the lid releases that heat and can add 20 to 30 minutes to the cook time.
Do I need to brown the chicken first?
No. The chicken poaches gently in the marinade and stays beautifully moist. Browning is optional if you want a deeper colour, but it is not needed for this recipe.
Can I double the recipe?
Yes, as long as everything fits in your slow cooker no more than two-thirds full. Cooking times stay broadly the same, but check the chicken reaches 75C in the centre before serving.
Extraction notes (transparency): Servings inferred from 1 kg chicken plus 600 g potatoes (reasonable for 4). Everything else stated explicitly in transcript. | Second-pass critique flagged 2 fabricated and 1 quantified issues. See critique.issues for detail.