My friend Jana helps me behind the scenes with this blog. She formats a lot of the printable recipes and grocery lists that readers loves so much. I often send her last-minute pleas for help and she always delivers. I appreciate her so much.
Jana knows my recipe style very well so I was super excited when she sent me an idea for Cool Ranch Chicken Tacos. My recent blog post with homemade ranch and taco seasoning packets immediately came to mind and I got to work. The final result was DELICIOUS and my husband loved it so much that he ate all of the leftovers for lunch. The combination of dill from the ranch seasoning and heat from the chili powder and red pepper flakes in the taco seasoning can’t be beat.
Such a fun twist on chicken tacos, Friends. Enjoy!
Cool Ranch Shredded Chicken Tacos (Crockpot Recipe)
Yield: 6 servings 1x
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
Cook fresh or freeze and cook later. Serve on soft tortillas, rice, or lettuce with your favorite taco toppings.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1 taco seasoning packet (or this homemade version: 1T chili powder, 1tsp pepper, and 1/2tsp of each of the following – salt, ground cumin, red pepper flakes, paprika, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder)
- 1 dry ranch seasoning packet (or this homemade version: 1T dried parsley, 1tsp garlic powder, 1tsp onion powder, 1tsp dried onion flakes, 3/4tsp dill, 1/2tsp pepper, and 1/2 tsp salt. Traditional ranch seasoning packets also include 1T dried buttermilk but I omitted it because I don’t keep it on-hand.)
Directions
- Combine all ingredient in crockpot and cook on “low” setting for 6-8 hours.
- Shred chicken and mix with sauces and spices left in crockpot.
To Freeze and Cook Later
- Combine all ingredients in a gallon-sized plastic freezer bag and freeze for up to to three months.
- When ready to cook, thaw overnight in refrigerator or in morning in water.
- Follow cooking directions above.
Thought or questions? Please leave a comment below and I’ll respond as soon as I can. I’d love to hear from you.
Love, love this recipe!!! By chance do you have nutritional information?
No, I’m sorry but I don’t. At this time I’m only able to calculate the nutritional info for the recipes in my cookbooks because it takes me FOREVER to do. Sorry about that, Joy.
If you enter the link in my fitness-all it will almost instantly calculate the nutritional values. Very easy.
According to my fitness pal it’s 99 calories per serving. For the 1/6th of the recipe. Remember that’s the chicken by itself. ….. If you use or have the app (my fitness pal) . And you go to add food, go to recipes and scroll down to the bottom and it gives you a choice to “add from website”. Just copy the url of the specific recipe (within the pin) paste it. it will import it and calculate everything. You can even edit the ingredients to the EXACT brands you used and it lets you edit and add if you… Read more »
I don’t have a slow cooker; I converted to an electric pressure cooker. I live in a tiny apartment and I commute an hour each way to work. I am leery of having that amount of heat in such a small space. The PC does not get so hot and is not at a high temperature for very long…35 minutes max, and that is when cooking dry beans. for a recipe like this I think I would dump everything in, frozen, and cook for 20 minutes (set it and leave it go). The 20 minutes is after it comes to… Read more »
Have you tried this recipe in the instapot? Just wondering if 20 minutes was long enough. (I will probably double recipe, so thinking maybe 25 minutes?)
I’m curious about the liquid requirements of an electric electric pressure cooker. Did you add any liquid? Mine says to use about a cup of liquid.
No liquid needed in the crockpot.
Do you add liquid if your putting it in an instant pot?
Was there ever an answer to whether additional liquid was needed when using an Indtant Pot?
You should always use a liquid in a pressure cooker or Instant Pot. I would do about 1/2 a cup of water per pound of chicken. If you are only using it to cook the chicken to shred later and not add in other ingredients, use the trivet that’s included and put down 1/2-1 cup of water per lb of chicken and cook 9 min on high pressure with natural release of 10 min to make chicken shreddable.
Usually when cooking chicken breast in the Instant Pot, no extra liquid is required because they release plenty of liquid when they cook. With any other cut of chicken (ie thighs) you need to add 1cup of water or broth for a 6 qt machine and 1.5 cups for an 8 quart machine.
I thought all electric pressure cookers have a slow cooker function. I have 2 of them and they both have them.
sorry if this sounds like a silly question but I’m still new to using a crockpot. After it’s all cooked and frozen wouldn’t cooking it again in crockpot for 6-8 hrs overcook everything?
You can either cook fresh OR freeze raw and cook in a crockpot later.
We use fresh vegs and meats, not frozen. I love stew meat with carrots and potatoes. We put beef broth and cream of mushroom in it. Also fresh onions chopped fine for flavor.
Do you include the liquid ingredients (olive oil and red wine vinegar) to the freezer bag or do you just add those ingredients directly to the crock pot after thawing the freezer bag? Thanks!
Either will work, but I add to the bag and freeze.
[…] Crockpot Cool Ranch Tacos […]
I paid for the cookbook and haven’t received an email to download. I keep getting an email to subscribe.
Hi Toni! I’m so sorry about that. I looked up your order and it looks like it was emailed to your “live.com” email address. I just sent new copies there and to the nova.com email address that you submitted with this comment as well. If you don’t receive anything, please email me at [email protected] and I’ll make sure they’re sent a different way. Thank you for your purchase, and I apologize for the inconvenience!