Slow Cooker Chicken Mole

By Kath Dedon

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Who knew it could be so easy to make really good mole sauce? Cooking Light’s recipe for Slow Cooker Chicken Mole in their April 2015 issue is amazingly good!

Carrie made the recipe before I had gotten around to it. She shredded the chicken to use for tacos (with homemade corn tortillas!) and told me that it was delicious. It wasn’t long before I gave it a try.

I did make a couple of changes. Cooking Light recommends cooking the chicken for 8 hours. I had read in America’s Test Kitchen’s Slow Cooker Revolution, Volume 2 that they recommend cooking chicken thighs on Low for 4 – 5 hours. I decided to try 5 hours.

The other change I made was a substitution for the smoked almonds that they used. I’m not crazy about the ingredients in the smoked almonds that I have seen. A little research revealed that many Mexican recipes for mole use peanuts so that’s what I used. For the smoked almonds, I subbed ¼ cup of roasted peanuts and ¼ teaspoon of smoked salt*.

Instead of shredding the chicken, I served the thighs over steamed rice. Thinking that Bob would want to add Tabasco sauce, as he usually does with this type of dish, I put some on the table. He thought it was seasoned perfectly as it was, so he didn’t need the Tabasco. This recipe is a winner!

This Slow Cooker Chicken Mole is very quick and easy to put together. If you are home midday, you can get it going and then have the afternoon free to do whatever you want. I think you will be amazed, as we were, at how fantastic it is! I made the full recipe for the two of us and we eagerly ate it two nights in a row. I also took some to school for my lunch, and it reheated beautifully in a microwave oven. This is a recipe that WILL be part of my regular rotation!

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Slow Cooker Chicken Mole

(Adapted from a recipe in the April 2015 Cooking Light magazine)

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(print the recipe)

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Serves 4

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8 skinless, bone-in chicken thighs

¼ teaspoon kosher salt (I subbed smoked salt)

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

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Mole Sauce

¼ cup water

¼ cup smoked almonds (I used ¼ cup peanuts plus ¼ teaspoon of smoked salt)

¼ cup raisins

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

1 tablespoon ground cumin

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 chipotle chiles, canned in adobo sauce

1 tablespoon adobo sauce

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 garlic cloves, crushed

1 small sweet onion, chopped

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1. Sprinkle the chicken thighs with the salt and pepper and put them in a 5 – 6 quart slow cooker.

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2. Put all of the ingredients for the mole sauce in a food processor and process until it is smooth. You’ll probably have to stop the machine and push the sauce down the sides of the bowl a time or two.

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3. Spread the mole sauce over the chicken in the slow cooker.

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4. Cook on Low for 5 hours.

5. Serve the chicken and sauce over rice. (Or shred the chicken to make tacos.)

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* A note about smoked salt – I needed smoked salt for another recipe (which turned out to be delicious and will be posted soon). I wasn’t sure I had ever seen smoked salt at my usual grocery stores, but I put it on my list when I headed to Thriftway.  They had 3 kinds of smoked salt, all produced by the same company. They had mesquite smoked, hickory smoked, and alderwood smoked. Their salts are naturally smoked over wood; there are no other ingredients. I chose the alderwood smoked salt and was blown away by the flavor. I have a new favorite ingredient!

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