Italian Chicken and Tomatoes

This is another very healthy, easy slow cooker meal.  It is one of my favorites right now.  I served it over rice but you could also serve it over noodles or by itself with some veggies.  I split this recipe into two and put them in the freezer for future use.  This is another easy meal that is easy to dump in the slow cooker before work.

Ingredients:
8 chicken breasts
8 small/medium diced/crushed tomatoes
oregano
garlic
onion
basil
salt and pepper

NOTE:  We have also used an Italian herb mix instead of the separate herbs.


Directions:
Once you get used to the amounts, you will be able to just dump everything together in the slow cooker.  Or if you have the sauce already made, even better.  I like to make the crushed tomatoes, oregano, garlic, onion, basil, salt and pepper into an sauce.  You could can it, make it the night before, or make it on the weekend and freeze it ahead for one a week/month cooking.  I also will be blogging the instructions for making the sauce in another blog post just for the sauce.  It is a versatile mix.  There are Italian diced tomatoes you can buy canned in the store as well if you still use canned products.  It has citric acid in it so we cannot use it.
To make the sauce, dice the tomatoes.  I usually score and blanch the tomatoes to peel them.  Then I cut them into large chunks and put them under my hand chopper.  It makes quick work of dicing them up.  Toss them into a sauce pan or skillet.  Then add in oregano, garlic, onion, basil, salt and pepper to taste.  Plenty of onion, garlic and salt go into mine.  Watch the oregano because it is strong.  Start with a pinch and go from there.  I have gotten pretty used to using this and making this so I can usually just toss it all in.  You can use fresh garlic and onion, dried or powdered.  I've used it all and it all tastes great.
Mix everything together in the slow cooker or in bags for the freezer.  In the slow cooker, cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 4 hours.

I serve this over rice and with a vegetable of some kind.  We like green beans a lot.  But broccoli, asparagus, peas are all good.  This is great reheated for lunches.  Even the picky husband eats it reheated.

Here are a couple of pictures.  The first is a picture with a salad.  The other is a picture with rice, packed up to take to work for lunch the next day.

NOTE:  The cooking times are what was used when cooking from a frozen state.