Crockpot Rootbeer BBQ Chicken

Working 8-5 Monday-Friday, Moving into my own place with my boyfriend, it seems the first thing everyone says is "you need to get a crock pot!" Sounds great, what do I do with it?! My mom NEVER used a crock-pot, One day her cousin and her talked about how they got them for their weddings, and gave them away, years later; unused. So I was bestowed a crock-pot from a friend, so I started asking other friends if they used them. Most told me "once or twice... That's about it." Honestly my apprehension comes from the setting it to cook, and leaving for 8 hours. I really fear burning the house down!!

So to try and start getting over that fear, I thought, I'll make something in the crock-pot on the weekend, when I'm home and doing stuff around the house, that way I can totally babysit the whole process and get more comfortable with the idea of leaving it on the counter and going to work.

Heck - I read the original recipe for this and went, well this seems easy, I must be missing something. I did a few Tweaks to make it my own, so here goes. The original recipe called for Sweet Baby Rays BBQ; which is Gluten Free, and A&W rootbeer; also gluten free. I'm a huge fan of Two Fat Guys BBQ Sauce, and my grocery store didn't have a small bottle of A&W Rootbeer, so I had to settle for Barq. 

Ingredients - 
1 crock-pot
1/4 cup of water
4-5 chicken breasts thawed
1 18oz bottle your favorite BBQ Sauce
6oz your favorite Rootbeer
A Dash of Salt
A Dash of Pepper
1 Tablespoon of Honey (Optional)

For a first try at using a crock-pot this was an easy one. Put the chicken and 1/2 cup of water in the crock-pot and set on High for 3 hours, or medium for 6 hours. Drain the chicken juices  at the end of the time. 

Mix the remaining ingredients in a bowl right before you drain the chicken. Pour the mixture into the crock-pot and then place the chicken back into the pot, making sure the chicken is covered with the mixture. Set the timer to cook on high for another 45 minutes. 

Once the time is up the chicken will be ready to pull out, and will be super tender. Spoon some extra sauce on the side to pour over the chicken. My sauce came out a bit thin but was sweet with a bit of a bite on the back end. We did a pasta dish on the side, but could have easily shredded the chicken and served over bread or rice as a pulled chicken dish. 

I love this as a good entertaining dish as well, when some friends are coming over for dinner, it's low maintenance enough that you can set it up before they come and just plan to serve it once dinner is ready. Now let's see what our 2nd crockpot meal is!