Chicken in Mushroom Sauce (Slow Cooker)

I am still on my quest in learning to use my slow cookers more effectively.  One of the complaints I've had about cooking is a slow cooker is lack of browning.  Browning adds a lot of flavour.  There are two ways to achieve browning in a slow cooker.  The first is to pan sear the neat then transfer the meat to the slow cooker to finish cooking as desired.  The second method is to use liquid browning.  Quite often I used condensed mushroom soup as a sauce usually with pork or chicken that has been pan seared.  The soup is added directly to the pan the meat was seared in thinned just slightly with milk and allowed to cook on low heat on the stovetop until the sauce turns a wonderful golden colour full of lovely flavour.  The meat is always melt in your mouth tender.  This method is not always practical as the dish cannot be left unattended while cooking and it adds heat to the kitchen during the summer months.  I decided this would be a dish to try using the slow cooker.

I placed four unseared boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the slow cooker and poured about ¼ cup of home canned chicken stock over them.  I set the slow cooker on low allowing the chicken to cook for an hour.  Then I stirred in 2 tins of condensed mushroom soup and home canned mushrooms and continued cooking on low.  I served the chicken topped with mushroom sauce, buttered orzo with parsley and sweet baby peas. 

In comparison to the stovetop method, the results were different but still The meat was tender and juicy.  Searing would have added more flavour as would have using sautéed mushrooms.  The sauce was not as thick as it is when cooked on the stovetop and it didn't take on the golden hue but it was still quite tasty.  With a bit of tweaking cooking this dish in the slow cooker will be a good substitution when stovetop cooking is not convenient.