Save This Recipe
We'll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
The Slow Cooker That Saved My Sanity (and a Recipe I’ve Been Making for Years)
This Slow Cooker garlic butter chicken noodles is the kind of weeknight dinner that does all the heavy lifting for you. Five simple ingredients, minimal prep, and by suppertime the whole house smells incredible.
Why You’ll Love It
Only 5 ingredients — chicken, butter, garlic, broth, and egg noodles. That’s it.
The Slow Cooker does all the work — set it and walk away for hours
Incredibly tender chicken — it practically shreds itself by the time it’s done
Rich, buttery broth — soaks right into the noodles so every bite is flavorful
Endlessly forgiving — too much garlic, a little extra noodles, it all works out
A Note on the Ingredients
The butter is the non-negotiable. Two sticks sounds like a lot and it is, I suppose, but this isn’t a health food. This is a comfort food. Use unsalted so you can control the salt yourself, because the broth has salt in it already and you don’t want it coming out too sharp.
For the garlic, I use the fresh stuff. I know the pre-minced jars are convenient and I’ve used them in a pinch — no shame — but fresh garlic has a different smell when it hits the hot butter and it matters here. Two tablespoons is a loose guideline. I usually just smash and chop whatever feels right, which is probably closer to eight or nine cloves. My daughter thinks that’s too much. She’s wrong.
The egg noodles should be wide. Not extra-wide, not the thin ones. Medium-wide, whatever your store carries in that middle range. They hold up in the Slow Cooker without going completely mushy, at least for the last twenty minutes or so. Don’t cook them the full hour — you’ll regret it.
Low-sodium chicken broth is what I use because I add my own salt. You could use homemade stock if you have it, and it’ll taste even better, but I’m not going to pretend I have homemade stock sitting around on a Tuesday evening.
Ingredients
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced into 1-inch chunks (or thereabouts — I don’t measure each piece)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons minced garlic — I usually do more, honestly
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
12 ounces wide egg noodles, uncooked
Instructions
Dice the chicken first. I do about one-inch pieces, though some of mine are probably closer to an inch and a half and some are smaller — it doesn’t matter as long as they’re roughly the same size so they cook at the same rate. Spread them in the bottom of your Slow Cooker in a fairly even layer.
Melt the butter. I do this in the microwave in a glass measuring cup, about a minute and a half, give or take. Stir in the garlic right in the cup and then pour the whole mixture over the raw chicken. Make sure you get the garlic out of the bottom of the cup — use a spatula if you have one nearby. That garlic is the whole point.
Pour the chicken broth over everything. Give it a gentle stir, just enough to get the chicken nestled down into the liquid. Don’t over-stir — you’ll break up the nice pool of garlic butter sitting on top and honestly, it looks pretty.
Put the lid on. Cook on LOW for about four to five hours, or HIGH for two and a half. I’ve done both. I prefer LOW when I have time because the chicken comes out more tender. On HIGH it can get a little stringy if you let it go too long, so check it on the earlier end.
When the chicken is cooked through — it should shred easily with a fork — taste the broth. This is when I add salt and a good amount of black pepper. I never measure the pepper. A lot. More than you think.
Now push the noodles in. You want them mostly submerged in the broth. If they’re poking out the top, add a small splash more broth or even just water — it’ll get absorbed and you won’t taste a difference. Put the lid back on and switch to HIGH if you’re not already there. Let the noodles cook for twenty to thirty minutes, stirring once in the middle. They’ll soak up that buttery broth and get silky and soft.
Don’t walk away and forget about them. I’ve done that. Noodles went to mush. They were fine — we ate them — but it wasn’t the same.
Variations
Chicken thighs work beautifully here — they stay more moist and are more forgiving in the slow cooker. Use them when that’s what’s on sale and there’s no shame in it.
If you want something creamier, stir in a scoop of sour cream right before you add the noodles. Maybe half a cup. It makes it richer, more of a stroganoff situation. I tried it once with cream of chicken soup and it was fine but it changed the character of it — felt heavier, and I lost some of that clean garlic butter flavor.
Frozen peas tossed in the last thirty minutes, along with the noodles, work fine. Perfectly fine. I still prefer it without.
Leftovers
They keep in the refrigerator for a few days. The noodles will soak up most of the remaining broth overnight, so when you reheat it, add a splash of water or extra broth to loosen things up. I do it on the stovetop over medium-low, stirring gently. You can microwave it too — I just find it easier to add liquid and stir on the stove without accidentally making it rubbery.
I’ve never frozen this one. Something about frozen noodles coming back to life has never appealed to me, though I suspect it would work fine if you were desperate.