Super Easy Chicken Breasts (solar oven style)

by BC
(St. Louis, MO)

The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous, and so I’ve been dreaming up meals for the solar cooker by looking through a new slow cooker cookbook I purchased. The most recent meal was one called “2 Packet Chicken” from author Stephanie O’Dea. It was super easy: I just put 4 thawed chicken breasts in the black pot, sprinkled a packet of ranch dressing mix over it, followed by a packet of taco seasoning mix, and then a can of diced tomatoes over all. I stuck the lid on it and put it in the solar cooker for about 3 hours. At the end, I shredded the chicken, so we could stuff it into taco shells (but which also had the added benefit of soaking up all that yummy “sauce” in the bottom of the pot!). This was a good meal, but it is not a do over for my family simply because the 2 mixes together made the dish SO salty—this is not a meal for someone with high blood pressure! Plus, the taco mix was too spicy for the kids. The flavor was good, however, so maybe in the future, I will make my own reduced-sodium ranch and taco mixes from scratch. I may also try putting in rock-solid frozen breasts earlier in the day to see if I can save that bit of thawing time on my end. A bonus of this recipe is that it made enough for two meals: We will have the leftovers tonight…along with extra-tall glasses of water to slake our thirst from all that salt!