Ranch Chicken and Potatoes with Bacon and Cheddar

Crockpot ranch chicken and potatoes with bacon and cheddar cheese will be a great dump and go meal for busy nights. Ranch seasoning and dressing, chicken breast, potatoes, bacon bits, seasonings, sour cream and cheese. Crockpot chicken and potatoes is a freezer friendly recipe as well. Just 15 minutes of prep work and then it is ready for the slow cooker.

Ingredients in Slow Cooker Chicken and Potatoes with Bacon

Chicken- 1-1/2 lbs of chicken breast trimmed and diced into small chunks, about 2 inch chunks. If you don’t have anything to weigh chicken breast with- eyeball 2 medium sized breasts or one of those huge ones would be fine, too. If you wanted to mix it up a bit, switch out chicken with stew meat.

Potatoes- I used 5 medium sized potatoes, or 4 large, usually. Again I kind of eyeball it and it really won’t matter much if you add a little more or little less. I did NOT peel my potatoes, but if you have picky kids go ahead and peel. I used red potatoes, but any kind would work.

Bacon – I made this very simple and added 1/2 cup bacon bits. Use high quality bacon bits- I like the Members Mark brand. You can also fry up some bacon and crumble it- right around 4 slices.

Ranch- this recipe calls for both dry seasoning and ranch dressing. I use any ‘off brand’ of ranch seasoning but will only use hidden valley ranch for the dressing. use your favorite. Can substitute dressing with a light version. Want to make your own ranch? You can do that too.

Dairy- I used mild cheddar cheese but this is very flexible. Use sharp, or add mozzarella if you wish. I highly suggest shredding your own cheese – it melts so much better. This recipe also calls for sour cream– any brand. A lighter version will work as well.

Seasonings – I used minced garlic, paprika (my kids did find this a little ‘hot’), onion powder, salt & pepper to taste.

Ways you could add variety to this Chicken Bacon Ranch Crockpot Casserole

I have a few ideas here. You could bake this in the oven all combined together and topped with cheese. Substitute diced chicken with diced stew meat. Add chives, cream cheese, mozzarella or maybe a little bit of spice. Add more veggies – root vegetables like carrots or onions would be good to add. Broccoli would be great too.

Freezer recipe for Ranch Chicken & Potatoes with Bacon

This could very easily be a freezer meal. I would suggest it two different ways to freeze.

Already cooked, cooled down, and frozen into freezer safe containers. Just thaw and reheat in microwave.

Dump and Go freezer meal: instead of cooking it, add all the ingredients to a gallon freezer bag. (leave out shredded cheese and sour cream- add those after you cook it). Then, thaw and add to your crockpot per instructions in recipe.

Looking for more freezer meal inspiration? Check out our freezer meal recipes. Having a freezer meal business– I am pretty good at figuring out what freezes well!

How do you know how long to slow cook?

It is done when the potatoes are tender to pierce with a fork and the chicken has an internal temp of 165 F or above.

Upgrade to a crockpot with a timer for seamless cooking while at work!

I upgraded to a timer crockpot and will never go back. It is very easy to tell the crockpot how long it needs to cook for, and then it immediately sets it to ‘warm’. If heading out the door at 9 AM and won’t be back until 5 PM? It won’t get burned or overcooked this way!

More recipes to try:

Chicken recipes: try this page of chicken recipes that we have on our blog.

Bacon Inspired Recipe: try this comforting white lasagna recipe with bacon and Italian sausage.

Crockpot recipes: we have another list of great crockpot inspired recipes.

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