Crockpot Chicken with Black Beans and Cream Cheese

I spent an hour or so this morning looking over recipes for chicken online. Within minutes of trying to deal with the food network website, I gave up on them. What is going on with their site? I decided to try Recipezaar and I loved it!! Why haven't I checked out this website before? They have a ton of recipes and the website is a dream. You can search by ingredient (ex. chicken), ratings, course, cuisine, diet, occasion. You can search by crockpot, casserole, I think you're getting the idea. My favorite is to search by ingredient and then search by ratings. I like to find the top rated recipes and pick from one of those.

Today, the second most popular chicken dish was this Crockpot Chicken with Black Beans and Cream Cheese. In fact 767 people have rated it a 4.5 out of 5. The best part was that the recipe uses frozen chicken breast! Yes, frozen ! No waiting to thaw. The only other ingredients that were needed was a 15oz jar of salsa, 15oz can of corn, 1 can of black beans and 8 oz. cream cheese. I was so happy that I had everything on hand. I was even happier that I didn't have to wait for my chicken to thaw.

To make the dish, you drain the corn and black beans. Then you add the frozen chicken breast, the corn, black beans, and jar of salsa. This cooks on high for 4-5 hours until the chicken is cooked through. Do not worry that the chicken will overcook. I was worried the chicken would get tough, but it doesn't. Once the chicken is cooked through (for me this was 4.5 hours), add the 8 oz. of cream cheese. I kinda cubed it up with my fingers and stirred it in. Once the cream cheese is added it cooks for another 30-40 minutes. The chicken breast will shred like a dream. It was tender and moist and absolutely delicious. Serve on top or on the side of your favorite carb.

I was completely happy with this dish. I thought it was perfect comfort food and think that everyone would enjoy this dish. This is a great pantry dish that can be thrown together in about 5 hours.

Variations and changes on this dish are endless. You could do many combinations. I was even thinking of using a can or cans of tomatoes with cilantro and chiles instead of jarred salsa. You could add peppers, onions, etc. The dish was a little on the bland side and could use some extra seasoning. I read online that one lady used some taco seasoning to spice up her dish. I'm sure you could add any seasoning you saw fit. I had a fresh jalopeno on hand that I added as a final touch, but now wish that I would've sliced it up and added it to the pot. This recipe is wide open to changes and variations!! Get creative with it! Great also for feeding a lot of people.

Here is the link to the recipe: http://www.recipezaar.com/Crock-Pot-Chicken-W-Black-Beans-and-Cream-Cheeseyum-89204