Slow Cooker Jerk Chicken and Rice

We have chicken as our main dish about 3-4 times a week. As you can imagine, the same old recipes get tiresome to prepare and even more boring to eat. So, I've been searching for some new ways to create exciting chicken dishes that all of my kiddos and the hubs will enjoy.

On our vacation last summer, we sampled some amazing, authentically Jamaican-prepared Jerk Chicken and I've never forgotten how great it was. The thought of making this on my own was daunting. C'mon! The Jamaicans had been perfecting this meal for many many many years. But I stumbled across this recipe and thought, "I can do that!"

I'm sure our new Jamaican friends don't use a slow cooker and I bet their recipes are not quite the same as this one. But the outcome is pretty close to what I remember enjoying and that is all that matters to us. I took the liberty to make a few modifications to the recipe I found that would better suite our taste buds. This is definitely a "do-again" meal.

Sorry, I don't have any pictures of the final prepared meal. We were too busy enjoying the dinner and remembering our vacation moments to stop and have a photo-shoot. But I will try to add some the next time I prepare this dish! If you make this and take your own photos, send them my way and I will add yours to this blog post!

Here I am enjoying the spicy aroma as the meat is cooking!

Ingredients:
5 drumsticks and 2 chicken breasts
4 teaspoons of salt
4 teaspoons of paprika
1 teaspoons of cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons of onion powder
2 teaspoons of thyme
2 teaspoons of garlic powder
2 teaspoons of black pepper

What to do:
1. Combine all of the spices together in a large bowl. This will be the rub or the chicken chicken. Feel free to adjust the amount of cayenne pepper based on your desired level of spiciness. You can even leave it out and add a bit more onion powder, but it will still be a bit spicy due to the paprika.

2. Wash each of the chicken pieces in cold water briefly and pat dry. Place the washed chicken meat into the bowl with the rub, and completely rub the spices onto the meat trying to get it under the chicken skin if you can.

3. Place chicken into the slow cooker. No need to add any liquid.

4. Set the slow ­cooker on low heat and cook for 5-­6 hours. When the chicken is done, the meat will fall off the bone.

We served the chicken over steamed white rice and a side salad. The chicken will produce extra juices while cooking so we used these juices as a sauce to spice up the rice. Enjoy!