Slow Cooker Whole Chicken

I posted about the whole chicken sale that Walmart (Canada) was running.  They had whole chickens regardless of the size packaged into two on sale for $10.  That has been the best price I've seen for whole chickens in a few years!  We took advantage of the sale buying two the first trip then four the second trip.  As a bit of an aside, Walmart has been running these packaged lot sales since the new year.  Two weeks ago it was the whole chickens.  Last week it was 3 strip loin steaks and this week it is chicken legs with backs attached.  Again the price is based on number not weight so is a rather good deal.

As mentioned we bought four the second trip.  They were quite nice looking chickens.  As per my normal with respect to sales of this type, half were put-up for later use.  In this case I froze two of the chickens.  I really should have canned them and used the bones to make stock.  However I had just canned up 42 - 500 ml jars of beef, chicken and turkey stocks so decided to freeze the chickens whole in the hopes of making beer can chicken or cooking them on the outdoor grill rotisserie.  That left me with two whole chickens for fresh cooking.  Given the events of the week I decided to test out my slow cooker rather than cut the chickens into pieces. 

If you recall I have a new slow cooker that I am learning to use.  Despite all the cooking that I do and the fact I have three slow cookers, the slow cookers remain my least used small kitchen appliance.  I find I can get better results with my countertop roaster and pressure cookers.  So I'm off on an adventure. 

I did a quick search for a recipe to cook a whole chicken in the slow cooker and settled on Kathy's Delicious Whole Slow Cooker Recipe from Allrecipes.com.  I served the chicken with buttered egg noodles.

The chicken cooked nicely and looked gorgeous in the slow cooker.  The chicken was nicely browned, tender and juicy so I was please with that result.  The problem was the flavour.  It was sadly lacking!  I was a bit disappointed to say the least but this goes to show that not every recipe is a keeper.  This will be a recipe I will work on tweaking but as it stands there just isn't enough flavour as the recipe is written.  I am rather please with the results I can get cooking a whole chicken in the slow cooker though!