Slow-Cooker Pulled Chicken
Four hours on low, ten minutes of work, and the meat falls apart under the fork all by itself.
- Preparation
- 10 min
- Cook/bake time
- 4 hr
- Total
- 4 hr 10 min
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Calories
Four hours on low, ten minutes of work, and the meat falls apart under the fork all by itself. Pulled chicken is significantly faster than pulled pork and more forgiving. The slow cooker maintains exactly the temperature at which collagen turns into gelatin without boiling the meat dry.
Why this works
Collagen, the connective tissue in meat, begins to turn into gelatin from about 70 degrees, and this transformation takes time. At 80 degrees it takes hours, at 95 degrees significantly less, but then the muscle protein alongside it dries out. A slow cooker on a low setting maintains around 85 to 90 degrees, which is exactly the range where both come together. The collagen transforms, and the resulting gelatin binds the water that the muscle fibers release at the same time. That is why thigh meat becomes juicier instead of drier after four hours, whereas breast meat would be stringy after two hours. The amount of liquid is deliberately scarce. A slow cooker evaporates almost nothing, and the meat itself releases juices, so too much liquid only dilutes the sauce in the end.
Step-by-step instructions
- 1
Season the meat
Rub the thigh fillets with salt and the dry spices. Thigh meat is mandatory here. Breast fillet has too little connective tissue and becomes stringy instead of tender in four hours.
- 2
Mix the sauce and add everything
Mix the onion, tomatoes, vinegar, syrup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and broth in the pot of the slow cooker and place the meat inside. The liquid should only cover half of the meat. A slow cooker evaporates practically nothing, and the meat itself releases juices.
- 3
Four hours on low setting
Put the lid on and cook for four hours on the low setting. Do not open it in between. Every time you remove the lid, it costs about twenty minutes because the pot recovers the lost heat very slowly.
- 4
Shred and reduce
Take the meat out and pull it apart with two forks. It should offer hardly any resistance. Boil the liquid down to about half in the open pot or in a pan and mix it into the meat. Only season to taste now.
