Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Chili
Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Chili is delicious, simple and award winning! This is the go-to when you are tired of boring chili recipes!
You guys might tell me I’ve been living under a rock, and honestly that might not be far from the truth. But did you know that on Friday nights there is like a marathon of Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives on the Food Network? I go to turn on the TV and my six year old gears up for one of her favorite cartoons and I have to crush her dreams. I can’t take even one more episode of kid TV. Despite this somehow, at some point during the evening, the whole family ends up curled up in front of the TV drooling over all the amazing (and sometimes weird!) food and trying to figure out if it would be at all possible to plan a trip to whatever location Guy Fieri is featuring. Yep. We know how to party. Now I’m going to share with you something that you should have while you are watching your marathon TV session…. Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Chili. Yum! A great meal to come home to on a Friday night after a busy week. Easy to make! Easy to love this spicy, creamy goodness!
Heartier than a soup but different than a traditional chili this would be fun to serve up at a party, to take along to a tailgate, or to take to a potluck. Ground chicken instead of beef and white beans instead of chili beans make the base of this chili.
Lots of flavor from chicken broth, ranch dressing mix and fire-roasted tomatoes and some heat from the buffalo sauce are balanced out with some sweet corn and cream cheese. Top it all of with some cilantro for some super fresh flavor. And I can’t forget the blue cheese crumbles on the top! I leave them out of the soup since not everyone is a fan but I can guarantee you I have my bowl topped of with some!
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So park yourself on the couch with a big ‘ol bowl and watch endless episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives until you are convinced you should open your own funky restaurant so you can be featured on the show too. Or wait…is that just me? Yeah, I’m weird like that :). But at least it helps me dream up recipes like Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Chili!
This recipe was originally published on April 7, 2014 and has been updated to reflect fresh photos and updates to the recipe based on reader feedback and re-testing.
Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Chili
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground chicken
- 15 oz canned white navy beans drained and rinsed
- 14.5 oz can fire roasted tomatoes drained
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1/4 - 1/2 cup buffalo wing sauce start with 1/4 cup and add more at end if needed
- 1 package ranch dressing mix
- 1 cup frozen corn kernels
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon celery salt
- 1/2 teaspoon dried cilantro
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 8 oz cream cheese
- Blue cheese crumbles optional
Instructions
- Brown ground chicken until fully cooked, place in crock (or brown ahead of time and store in fridge until ready to assemble)
- Add remaining ingredients except for cream cheese and blue cheese and give it all a stir to combine
- Add block of cream cheese on the top and cover
- Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8
- Stir to incorporate cream cheese and add additional wing sauce as desired
- Top individual bowls with blue cheese crumbles if desired
Nutrition
Can’t get enough buffalo chicken?
Slow Cooker Cheesy Buffalo Chicken Pasta
Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Tater Tot Casserole
Original photos:
Do you think adding 2 raw chicken breasts to the recipe (instead of the gound chicken) and then shredding it at the end (much like I do with chicken tortilla soup) would work? The chicken cooks in the the tortilla recipe, I wonder if it would be okay for 4 hours on high for this recipe?
yes, that should work just fine!
Thanks for the recipe! It tastes really good and was pretty easy to make! (And would probably have taken less time if I hadn’t over cooked the meat beforehand!) Next time I make it, I will also reduce the amount of broth because it was a little soupier than I like. I also stirred it every hour to help dissolve the cream cheese, though it still came out lumpy. Some other changes I made: I used the hot sauce, but because we like things spicy in my house, I also added some super-hot red chili powder I got from an Indian market. Also, used ginger-garlic paste instead of powder (I would try onion paste too if I had any in the house). At the store they were out of frozen corn, so I used a can of corn with poblano peppers. I also found that the longer the chili stayed on “warm” (I’d cooked it on “high”), the faster the cream cheese melted. Thanks again for the great recipe!
May be a little spicy for me, but yum!!! Those sound like great changes!
Made this tonight and it was great! Husband and kids loved it. I used 3 cups of chicken broth instead of 4. Did not add any additional salt. Also, I did not put the cream cheese in on top in the beginning. I waited till the end, then cut the 8 oz block into cubes, microwaved it in a bowl for about 30-45 seconds. Then I ladled 3-4 ladles of hot broth from the chili into the cream cheese and whisked it up and it made a creamy sauce, then I stirred that into the crockpot and it made it nice and creamy and not at all grainy. We also sprinkled it with fresh chopped cilantro. I planned to add avocado chunks as a garnish too but did not have any avocado (next time I will, that would have been an awesome addition). I did not use blue cheese. I served it with bread, but tortilla chips would have been awesome and will do that next time. I also had celery sticks on the side. Yum! will definitely make this again.
I made this with 93/7 lean ground turkey and put it in the crockpot this morning. Talk about an AMAZING dinner to come home to! Just had to make a quick batch of corn bread & dinner was served. I use My Fitness Pal & guessed this would serve about 8 – at 239 calories per serving I’m definitely having seconds! My fiancé was super impressed as well – thanks for such a great recipe!
Yay!!!
What is a serving size? 1cup?
Yes it is.
Glad I read the comments, I don’t like my chili soupy. I used 2 cups of Chicken broth and it came out amazing. I never had this kind of soup. I did make changes, i used 1/4 frozen onion, Spicy Ranch Dressing mix, 2 cans of White Kidney beans (only thing i had) and used a bit more hot sauce. Soo good. Thanks for this recipe. I didn’t use Blue cheese, not my thing.
This is delicious and super easy! The whisk got rid of all of the “grit.” I also used chicken breasts that I shredded instead of ground chicken. YUM! Thanks for sharing this recipe!!
This is my new favorite chicken crockpot recipe. It was just right and so easy. I used shredded chicken and left out the bleu cheese. I know not (real) buffalo chicken without it, but I just don’t like it. The wing sauce I used was TexasPete. Yum-o!
Hooray!!! And yay for it finally being chili season again!
I’m so excited to be making this tomorrow. I make a similar one , but southwestern… I may be changing a few things using chicken breasts and canned corn I will see.
Well, this was a HUGE hit in our house. The hubs declared, “Put it on the ‘faves’ board!” after trying it. I doubled up the beans and ground chicken and added a little corn starch for thickness. I was also a little generous with the buffalo wing sauce, since we like things spicy around here. This was incredibly flavorful and might be one of our favorite fall/winter recipes to date!
Thank you so much for this recipe! I made it tonight (stove-top due to time constraints) and it was very easy and very good! I will keep this in my rotation for some cold nights this fall and winter. Thanks again!!! 🙂
So glad you liked it!! One of my faves for sure!