I've never used a slow cooker (so I could be out to lunch with this comment) but your description of tough and rubbery suggests that the chicken was overcooked.

I agree with Snidely. You over cooked the chicken breasts.

I use chicken breasts in a couple of slow-cooker recipes. I think 4 hours on high is too long, I was thinking that 4 hours on low would have done.

I do have a recipe that I make that calls for frozen breasts with orange juice concentrate and hoisin. It calls for 6 hours on low, but that's starting with frozen breasts.

removed duplicate post

This post was edited by jasdip on Mon, Feb 2, 15 at 18:07

Pammy, I have a couple of things I do with chicken in the slow cooker but I do use the boneless thighs, for flavor and moist meat.

If I'm roasting a chicken, I prefer the breast. You would never see me reaching for thigh meat if I've roasted a turkey either. But it's easy to end up with dry breast, doesn't do well overcooked IMO and I'll buy thighs for my slow cooker meals.

Thighs can be overcooked too. When overcooked, thighs get stringy. Overcooked is overcooked.

Once I inadvertantly purchased "injected" chicken breasts & boiled them for a recipe. They became tough & shriveled up...that's when I checked the package & realized my error. Could yours have also been injected?

It depends on the chicken that you buy. Boneless skinless breast is our choice and is used in every way imaginable. I usually stick with one brand and have never had a problem. I bought another on a whim as it was on sale, and the difference in the price was about $10 for a 3 kg box. It was so tough you could not chew it, and did not taste like chicken. I tried it breaded, in the crock pot, in a homemade chicken soup, and bbq'd. I asked others and they said the same thing. The grocery store said no one ever complained about it. Never again. I must remind myself when buying to look for the " bang head here " sticker on the box and then put it back.

I never have had much luck with chicken in a slow cooker. I prefer to roast it, grill it or fry it. The times I have tried chicken in the slow cooker, it looks white and pasty, or is rubbery, like yours was. I did do a whole chicken in the slow cooker once, the flavor was there but I missed the dark caramel colour on the skin. Sorry, no tips for better crock pot chicken from me.

I would think dark meat would do better in a slow cooker than white meat. JMO

I wonder, now, if this recipe blog writer had the wrong cooking times, or maybe she was starting from frozen chicken breasts (I never do, I always defrost first). But, with the peppers and onions, this dish ultimately made me queasy...