10 Creamy Crockpot Chicken Dinners for Busy Weeknights

These creamy crockpot chicken dinners are my answer to a cold weeknight.

From marry me chicken to a pot pie filling with a biscuit on top, they’re the ones my family asks for by name.

Here’s how I do a rich dinner without standing at the stove!

For years I assumed cream sauces and slow cookers didn’t mix, because every one I tried either split or came out thin.

Turns out the dairy just has to go in at the end, and once I got that straight, half of what I make in there is some kind of cream sauce.

1. Marry Me Chicken

The name is silly and the dish deserves it!

Chicken breasts cook with sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, and basil, and a parmesan cream sauce goes in for the last half hour.

The tomatoes go in at the start so they flavor the broth for hours.

I make this when someone’s coming over and I don’t want to be cooking while they’re here, and it goes over pasta, rice, or nothing but a piece of bread.

2. Creamy Tuscan Chicken

A close cousin to the one above, and the one I reach for when I want thighs instead of breasts.

The fat in the thighs rounds out the sauce, plus there’s spinach stirred in at the end and a lighter hand on the tomatoes.

Add the spinach after you turn the crockpot off, and not a minute before, or it goes dark and slimy instead of wilting.

3. Chicken Pot Pie

The most comforting thing I make that isn’t soup, and it shows up at my house whenever someone’s sick.

It’s all the filling of a pot pie, chicken and carrots and peas and potatoes in a creamy gravy, without the crust.

I bake a tube of refrigerated biscuits separately and set one on top of each bowl, so you get the crust part without a soggy bottom.

The gravy thickens with a flour and butter paste in the last thirty minutes.

Frozen peas go in at the very end so they stay green.

4. Chicken Stroganoff

Cozy, tangy, and a nice change from the beef version.

Chicken, mushrooms, onion, and garlic cook all day, and the sour cream goes in after the crockpot’s off and the chicken is shredded, so it doesn’t curdle.

I use cream cheese for half of it, and the sauce comes out thicker without tasting much different.

Wide egg noodles cooked on the stove, not in the crock, where they’d go to mush.

5. Creamy Ranch Chicken

It’s not fancy and it’s not trying to be, and my kids would eat it every night if I let them.

Chicken breasts, a packet of ranch seasoning, a block of cream cheese, and a can of condensed soup.

The cream cheese goes in as a block on top of the chicken, melts down over four hours, and gets whisked into the liquid at the end.

Mashed potatoes underneath, plus bacon crumbled on top if you have it.

6. Cilantro Lime Chicken

The lightest thing on this list, for the week the others have started to feel like too much.

Chicken cooks in lime juice, garlic, cumin, and broth, then gets shredded, and the cream comes from a cilantro lime crema spooned over the top.

The crema is sour cream, lime zest, chopped cilantro, and salt, and it takes two minutes.

Rice bowls, tacos, or a salad, and it’s good cold for lunch the next day.

7. Creamy Chicken and Noodles

If you’ve never used a slow cooker, start here!

It’s somewhere between a soup and a stew, with chicken, carrots, celery, and egg noodles in a cream-thickened broth.

The noodles go in for the last twenty minutes and keep drinking broth as it sits, so a splash more when you reheat it brings it back.

Crackers on the side, and nobody argues.

8. Chicken and Gravy

Sunday dinner on a Wednesday, and it needs exactly five minutes from me in the morning.

Chicken breasts cook in a gravy built from broth, cream of chicken soup, and a gravy packet, then get shredded back into it.

There’s a from-scratch version and a packet version, and on a weeknight I make the packet one without guilt.

Mashed potatoes underneath, or split biscuits, or rice if that’s what’s in the cupboard.

9. Garlic Parmesan Chicken

Rich, garlicky, and the leftovers make a chicken sandwich worth planning for.

Chicken cooks in a garlic cream sauce with a lot of parmesan and a little Italian seasoning.

I grate the parmesan myself on a microplane, because the pre-shredded kind is coated in starch and the sauce goes grainy.

It’s good over pasta and better over roasted potatoes.

10. Creamy Mushroom Chicken

Earthy, savory, and I always make too much of it on purpose.

Chicken thighs cook with sliced mushrooms, garlic, and thyme, and the cream sauce comes together in the last half hour.

Brown the mushrooms in a skillet first if you can spare five minutes, since raw mushrooms in a slow cooker stay pale and rubbery.

Polenta or egg noodles underneath, plus a green vegetable on the side to feel better about the cream.

Notes on Cream Sauces in a Slow Cooker

Dairy goes in during the last thirty minutes, and that’s the rule that fixes most of what goes wrong with these.

Cream cheese is the most forgiving, heavy cream is fine if it doesn’t boil, and sour cream and half-and-half should only go in after the heat is off.

Milk splits almost every time, so I don’t use it.

For a sauce that’s thinner than you want, a tablespoon of cornstarch stirred into two tablespoons of cold water, added on high with the lid off for fifteen minutes, will fix any of these.

I whisk the cream cheese in with a silicone whisk so it doesn’t scratch the crock.

A box of liners is worth it for the cheesy ones, because the cleanup is otherwise the worst part of the day.

Leftovers keep three days in the fridge in glass containers, and none of these freeze well, since the cream separates when it thaws.

More Creamy Crockpot Dinners on the Site

My crockpot chicken alfredo pasta would sit right at the top of this list if it weren’t already its own post.

The slow cooker chicken and dumplings is the other creamy one I make on repeat.

And for the same kind of dinner with less time in the morning, the quick crockpot dinners with ten minutes of prep post is where to start.