Butternut Chicken Stew

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Are you ready for fall?  After the heat of the summer I am ready for some cooler weather!  And cool weather is soup and stew season!  To be honest, I’m not sure if this is a soup or a stew.  The chunky butternut squash and shredded chicken make me think stew, but it’s served in a light broth, which I find more soupish.  So I flipped a coin when naming it – here’s my Butternut Chicken Stew.

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Butternut Chicken Stew

Welcome in fall with the first of the winter squashes in this light chicken stew.

Course Main Course, Side Dish

Cuisine American

Keyword Clean Eating, Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Nut Free, WW Friendly

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 6 hours

Total Time 6 hours 15 minutes

Servings 6

Calories 291kcal

Equipment

• Crock Pot

Ingredients

• 1.5 lbs. chicken breast
• 3 cup butternut squash cubed, one medium squash
• 1 onion chopped
• 3.5 cups chicken broth
• 6 oz carrots baby carrots, or chopped
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp sage
• salt to taste

Instructions

• Chop butternut, onion, and carrots
• Place chicken in crock pot. Sprinkle seasonings over meat.
• Add vegetables to crock pot.
• Pour broth over vegetables and chicken.
• Cook stew on high for three hours or low for 6.
• Remove chicken from crock pot. Shred, and return to pot. Stir to combine.
• Serve hot.

Notes

This recipe is 2 Green or 0 Blue and Purple WW points.  

Jump to Nutritional Information

Fall is here.  Cooler weather, golden colored leaves, and football!  Plus, all those wonderful fall flavors are coming back into the kitchen.  Fall makes me think of fresh apples dipped in caramel.  Acorn, spaghetti, and butternut squashes.  And pumpkin, although I’m not a fan of pumpkin – you can have my share.  It’s getting into stew and soup season so my crock pot will be making more appearances, like for this Butternut Chicken Stew.

Butternut makes many, many appearances in my kitchen in the winter.  It’s great roasted with a little garam marsala.  Pureed it makes a great filling for vegetable lasagna.  And it’s the center of a number of stews and soups.  Here’s a simple, crock pot recipe that great for the transitional time you want stew, even if it doesn’t 100% feel like stew and soup season. 

Start by preparing your equipment and ingredients.  While I prepare my ingredients, I turned the crockpot on and let it warm up.  Ever notice that you’re always advised to preheat ovens and stovetop pans, but never the crockpot?  I remember reading somewhere that it’s actually a good idea.  One site suggested letting it heat for half an hour before adding the ingredients.  Ok, so I don’t go that far, but I will plug it in and turn it on while I prepare the ingredients for my dish.

Preparing the ingredients is pretty simple.  It’s really just chopping the vegetables – and there are plenty of short cuts to make it easier.  For carrots, I just use baby carrots – no need to cut them up!  The squash and onion can usually be bought shopped or diced from the grocery store.  It’s easy and convenient, and during certain times of the year, I can only find the precut butternut squash in my local grocery store.  However, if butternut is in season, it’s much, much cheaper to buy it and peel and dice it myself. 

Butternut can be a bit difficult to peel.  A standard vegetable peeler won’t cut it.  I used to slice the squash in half and use a large knife to cut the skin away.  That’s what I did until I found this three-piece peeler and slicer set.  Yes, it really does peel difficult vegetables like butternut squash.  They really can handle anything – butternut squash, mango, carrots, apples.  You can even slice items like carrots, or shred cheese!  Check them out in the Hoppin Meal Plans store.

Ok, so back to the stew.  Once you have all your vegetables chopped and ready, place the chicken breast in the bottom of the crock pot.  Then sprinkle the seasoning – garlic powder and sage.  If you want to add a little salt, sprinkle it in now. 

Top the chicken and seasoning with the vegetables you just prepared – butternut squash, onion, and carrots.  Finally, add in about three and a half cups of chicken broth.  Cover the pot and allow the stew to cook.  I recommend 3 hours on high, or 6 hours on low.

After the stew has cooked, remove the chicken from the pot.  Shred the meat and then return it to the stew.  Stir to combine everything, and then serve.  Even though it’s broth based, the meat and chunky vegetables make this a great, filling meal.  The recipe makes six generous servings if you are having it as a meal, it can go even further if you are having it as a side.  One of the great things about making big batches of soups and stews is that the leftovers make great snacks or easy lunches.  If you can’t eat it that fast, you can divide leftovers into smaller portions to freeze.

Speaking of freezing, this is also a great freezer dump meal.  What’s a freezer dump meal? It’s when you place all the ingredients in a large Ziplock freezer bag and freeze it.  Then you dump everything into the crock pot on the day you want to make it.  Often when I make a recipe I can dump, I buy double the ingredients. Half go in the pot that day, half go into a freezer bag.  If you want to make a second batch of the Butternut Chicken Stew, get twice the ingredients, place half od the seasoning, chicken, and vegetables in a Ziplock bag, push out as much of the air as possible, and seal.  Don’t add the broth to the freezer bag, just make sure on the day you cook it there’s a container in the pantry. 

Like soups and stews?  Check out some of my other favorites like Garlic Shrimp Soup and Barley Chicken Soup.

Butternut squash dishes are all over my winter meal plans!  What do your winter meal plans look like?  Don’t have one?  That’s ok, check out ours in the Hoppin Meal Plans Store. 

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