Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili

First full week of summer vacation and I have already refereed fourteen arguments, cleaned up two spilled glasses of Kool-Aid, and said the phrase put that down at least forty times. Four kids at home all day is a different kind of chaos than four kids in school. The school chaos is logistical. The summer chaos is primal. They are feral animals released from captivity and my house is the savanna.

Dave is working his usual shifts at the truck stop, which means I am solo with the kids on the days I am not driving. Gayle takes them two days a week, bless that woman, but even Gayle has her limits, and her limit is approximately four hours before she calls me and says come get your children, Brenda, they are destroying my garden. She means Justin, who threw a baseball into her tomato plants. Justin does not do things gently.

I am trying to keep the food situation under control. Summer means the kids eat constantly, like they are fueling up for hibernation. I made a big batch of pasta salad on Sunday: rotini, diced ham, cheddar cheese cubes, cherry tomatoes, black olives, and Italian dressing. It lives in the fridge and they can help themselves. This is my summer strategy: make big batches of things that hold up cold and do not require a stove. Pasta salad, chicken salad, fruit salad, cold sandwiches. The oven does not get turned on between June and August unless I am baking bread, because Nebraska summer heat is already trying to cook us and I will not help it.

I am on the road three days this week, hauling to Omaha and back twice. The slow cooker has white chicken chili in it: chicken thighs, white beans, green chiles, cumin, chicken broth. It is lighter than my regular chili, better for summer, and the cab does not get that heavy beef smell that makes you feel like you are living inside a stew. Not that I mind living inside a stew, but in June, lighter is better.

Amber has started reading for the summer reading program at the library. She goes through books the way Justin goes through baseballs: fast and without mercy. Tyler is building things in the garage with scrap wood Dave brought home. Josie is six and believes summer will last forever, which is the most beautiful and heartbreaking thing about being six. It does not last forever. But right now, with the pasta salad in the fridge and the sprinkler running in the yard and four kids who are loud and alive, right now is enough.

The white chicken chili I mentioned above has become my warm-weather workhorse — I load it up before a haul and it’s ready when Dave gets home or when Gayle drops the kids back off smelling like garden dirt. It’s lighter than my usual beef chili, which matters when the heat index is already doing its worst out there, and the green chiles give it just enough kick that the adults are happy without the kids staging a revolt. If you’re solo with a houseful like I am, or just trying to keep dinner handled while life does its thing, this one’s worth keeping in your rotation.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 6–8 hours (low) or 3–4 hours (high) | Total Time: Up to 8 hours | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 (15 oz) cans white beans (cannellini or Great Northern), drained and rinsed
1 (4 oz) can diced green chiles
1 (10 oz) can diced tomatoes with green chiles (such as Ro-Tel), drained
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
4 oz cream cheese, softened and cut into cubes
Optional toppings: sour cream, shredded Monterey Jack, sliced green onions, tortilla chips

Instructions

Load the slow cooker. Place chicken thighs in the bottom of a 6-quart slow cooker. Add white beans, green chiles, diced tomatoes, onion, garlic, cumin, chili powder, oregano, salt, and pepper. Pour chicken broth over everything.
Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 6–8 hours or HIGH for 3–4 hours, until the chicken is cooked through and tender enough to shred easily.
Shred the chicken. Remove the chicken thighs and shred them with two forks on a cutting board, then return the meat to the slow cooker.
Add the cream cheese. Drop the cubed cream cheese into the chili and stir until fully melted and incorporated, about 10–15 minutes on HIGH with the lid off. This thickens the broth and gives it a creamy, silky finish without making it heavy.
Taste and adjust. Season with additional salt and pepper as needed. If you want more heat, stir in a pinch of cayenne or a dash of hot sauce.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with sour cream, shredded cheese, green onions, or crushed tortilla chips. It also holds well on the WARM setting for a couple of hours if dinner is on a sliding schedule.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili — My Summer Secret for Feeding a Feral Household