I tossed this in my slow cooker around lunch time, and it was so good and so easy for dinner that I thought I would post the recipe here! This is a perfect fall/cold weather low calorie meal. I recently discovered butternut squash - the texture and taste is so similar to potatoes. It is also lower cal & lower on the glycemic index than white potatoes!

Ingredients:

1/2 of a large butternut squash
16 - 20 oz. of boneless/skinless chicken breasts (4 oz. per serving)
1 - 1.5 or so cups of fat free chicken broth
Favorite chicken spice (I used Red Robin spice)
1-2 Tbsp cornstarch

Directions:

Peel, seed & cut butternut squash into large cubes. Put squash in bottom of slow cooker. Pour chicken broth over squash and add a dash of salt (if you want). Lay chicken breast pieces on top of squash and sprinkle with chicken spice. Cook on low about 6 hours. I believe you could probably cook in high for 3 hours or so.

Turn slow cooker up to high and remove chicken & squash. Cover them to keep warm. Mix cornstarch with equal amount of water and stir into remaining liquid in slow cooker. Let cook until thickened (about 20 min or so). Serve chicken with butternut squash on the side and pour gravy over chicken - or even over both. I also served this with some steamed sugar snap peas & made some cornbread for the kids. It was a delicious, hearty meal and the chicken turned out very tender.

Calorie breakdown:

Gravy - entire amount of gravy is 50-60 calories if 1 Tbsp cornstarch & 1.5 cups broth (if serving 4, about 15 cals per serving)
Butternut Squash - one cup - 82 calories
Chicken breast - 125 calories per 4 oz.

Total Cals: 222

Total Fat: 2 grams

Total Carbs: 22 grams

If pairing this with sugar snap peas, as I did (60 calories per cup), the meal is only 282 calories - and you would get an entire cup each of squash & sugar snaps.

Hope someone can use this and enjoy!

Sounds wonderful - I have a butternut squash that is looking for a great meal!

It was delish! And I forgot to add, if anyone hasn't discovered the Reynolds Slow Cooker Liners - they are great. I just grabbed up the liner out of the cooker after the meal & threw it away - really easy clean up for those slow cookers. I hated having to scrub that thing afterwards before I used those.

sounds yummy, thanks for the tip about the liners!

Mmmm sounds delish I have acorn squash to use instead, I'll try it.

I have never had any type of squash in my life before. I have spaghetti squash in the fridge now to use for 'home fries'. I heard these taste like potatoes to? DH will NOT eat squash if he knows its squash...will I be able to trick him? Thanks for this recipe! I will be doing this when I get back home from WV.

I never really liked squash either, so I am not sure about the spaghetti squash. My previous experience with squash was that it was just plain mushy & tasteless. I should really try some other squash besides butternut - I really like the butternut! Sorry I can't be of more help there.

I have heard you can shred spaghetti squash with a fork after baking it I think? And use it like spaghetti with pasta sauce over it. I have never tried it.. but now that I am thinking about it, that sounds pretty good!

Does acorn squash have similar texture & taste?

I'm not sure, but acorn squash is quite sweet, more like pumpkin, actually better than pumpkin if you are making pies.

I use sweet taters for my "fries" and they are delish



To the OP - The recipe sounds wonderful and I am saving it to use for a time in the (near) future. Thanks for sharing.

Ohhhhhh - my favorite - but I did actually buy the butternut squash to shred for hash browns - sounds like I'll be picking up another one as I'm going to do the crockpot chicken today.

Nice, I will have to check it out

The chicken and squash was really good - it took a bit more cornstarch for my "gravy" to thicken but was worth it - I added lots of freshly ground black pepper. Can't wait for leftovers. One thing I might do next time is line the bottom of the crock with sliced onions - I love how the sugar from the squash helps carmelize the onions - I also do that when I do sweet potatoes in the crock pot - a touch crunchy and sweet.

So glad you liked it! It reminded me so much of my mom's cooking when I lived on the farm How much cornstarch did you end up adding? I didn't measure mine and just guessed at the amount I used. I must have been off

Ok ... now I have to try this


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