Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili

I’m a sucker for a good bowl of soup, no matter what time of year. But, now that the really chilly months are here, I’m even more excited to share this slow cooker white chicken chili recipe that I love to make for my family and friends often. It’s always a huge hit and perfectly combines both creamy and subtlety spicy elements. If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can also make this chili on your stop-top by combing everything and just letting it sit — so easy and delicious!

Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili Ingredients

Onion and Garlic: The building blocks of pretty much any soup recipe is onion and garlic. They add a base of beautiful flavor to soup and perfectly caramelize in the pot to prepare it for the other ingredients. A sweet yellow onion is best but feel free to substitute for a red onion for a bit of a different flavor.

Peppers & Chiles: Adding in chopped jalapeno peppers and a can of green chiles adds a bit of spice to the chili. Depending on how spicy you’d like your soup to be, you can choose to deseed the jalapeno or you can choose to keep the seeds to make it extra spicy.

Chicken: For the white chicken chili, I recommend using boneless, skinless chicken breasts. You could also use boneless, skinless chicken thighs as a replacement but I prefer the breasts in this recipe because it shreds much better than thighs. I’ve also made this with turkey breast before and it was delicious!

Chicken Broth: Chicken broth serves as the main liquid in the recipe. Depending on how you prefer the thickness of your chili, you can add less of more of the broth. As you guys probably know by now, my absolute favorite broth is Kettle & Fire.

Spices: The spices you’ll need for this recipe include salt, black pepper, oregano, cumin, red pepper flakes and smoked paprika. These are some of the spices commonly found in chili recipes, which contributes to the smoky, chili-like flavors of the soup. You can adjust the spices to your liking as well.

Corn: Adding a can of sweet corn to the chili is one of the most important additions to the recipe in my opinion. It not only adds that sweetness to contrast the spiciness of the peppers and saltiness of the other ingredients, it also adds another texture that thickens the bite.

Coconut Milk: Full-fat, canned coconut milk is the best option for the white chicken chili. It adds the creaminess to the soup that I love. You won’t taste the coconut, but if you’d like to use something different, feel free to use half and half or even whole milk as a replacement if you don’t need to keep it dairy-free.

Lime: If you’re going to miss any of the ingredients in this recipe, definitely do not miss the lime! You’ll ideally like to get a fresh lime so you can first zest the outside directly into the post, then squeeze its juice. If you don’t have a zester, just add more lime juice to make up for it.

Cilantro: Fresh cilantro is the finishing touch that is mixed into the soup. I love pairing cilantro with spicy recipes because the contrast is so tasty. Be sure to save some extra cilantro to top off each soup both with, alongside any other topping you prefer such as extra jalapeno slices or shredded cheese.

SLOW COOKER WHITE CHICKEN CHILI

Recipe by Jenn Lueke

4.8 from 22 votes

Servings

Adjust servings

+

–

6

servings

Prep time

20

minutes

Cooking time

4+

hours

I’m a sucker for a good bowl of soup, no matter what time of year. But, now that the really chilly months are here, I’m even more excited to share this slow cooker white chicken chili recipe that I love to make for my family and friends often. It’s always a huge hit and perfectly combines both creamy and subtlety spicy elements. If you don’t have a slow cooker, you can also make this chili on your stop-top by combing everything and just letting it sit — so easy and delicious!

Cook Mode

Keep the screen of your device on

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken breast

• 1 large yellow onion, small dice

• 2 jalapeno peppers, deseeded and small-diced

• 4 ounces green chiles

• 3 garlic cloves, minced

• 2 tablespoons avocado or olive oil

• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth

• 13.5 ounces full-fat coconut milk

• 1 1/2 cups sweet corn

• juice of 1 lime (about 3 tablespoons)

• zest of 1 lime (about 1 tablespoon)

• 1/3 cup chopped cilantro

• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)

Directions

• Add the chicken, onion, jalapeno peppers, green chilies, garlic, and avocado oil to the slow cooker. Add the broth and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours.
• Remove the cooked chicken from the slow cooker and shred with two forks or an electric mixer. Add the shredded chicken back to the slow cooker along with the coconut milk, corn, lime juice, zest, cilantro, cumin, paprika, salt, black pepper, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Cook on low for one hour.
• To serve, evenly divide among 4 bowls.

Notes

• Store it: Refrigerate in a sealed container for up to 4 days. Freeze for up to 3 months.
• Reheat it: Microwave until warm, about 3 minutes, or return to a small pot over medium-low heat and heat until warm, about 10 minutes. From frozen, thaw in the refrigerator for 8 hours or overnight then heat as instructed.
• Stovetop instructions: Preheat the oven to 400ºF and line a large sheet pan with parchment paper. Season the chicken breasts with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Transfer the chicken to the sheet pan and bake until they reach an internal temperature of 165ºF. Once cooked, shred with two forks or an electric mixer. Meanwhile, in a large pot or dutch oven, cook the onion and garlic in the avocado oil until soft. Add the jalapenos, green chiles, salt, black pepper, oregano, cumin, red pepper flakes and paprika. Cook until aromatic, about 3 minutes. Add the chicken broth, increase the heat to high and bring to a boil. Once boiling, lower the heat to medium, add the shredded chicken, corn, coconut milk, lime and cilantro and simmer for about 10 minutes. Divide evenly among 4 bowls to serve.

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