~ This chicken stew is so quick and easy with pantry staples and your slow cooker! Tender chicken, potatoes and carrots in a rich and savory, creamy, tomato-based sauce. Seriously delicious comfort food your whole family will love! ~

So, you know that childhood friend? The one you giggled and shared secrets with at recess? And then, the one that moved away in third grade? (We’ll call her Vanessa.)

You’d always kinda wondered how she’d turned out, what happened to her …

Then one day … (No way! What are the chances?!?)

There, right in front of you in the grocery line …

Vanessa!

Yep – definitely her! The same happy smile and sparkly eyes (she was always the life of every elementary school sleepover!).

But she’s not the third-grader of your memories. Nope! She’s all grown up (that’s pretty much the way time works, after all) … and she’s better than ever!

That fab cut and color (note to self: who is her stylist??) … those killer-cool boots (where did she score those beauties??) … and that lean, fit physique (Pilates? Marathons? Zumba?? Seriously – she must only eat recipes she finds on Two Healthy Kitchens! 😀 )!

An old friend … all grown up, reinvented, new-and-improved!

Just like this Chicken Stew. (I know … it’s a little bit of a leap from Vanessa to stew, but work with me on this one …)

Seriously. This stew is an old friend of mine that’s gradually been reinvented into something even more wonderful. It started as a crock pot beef pot roast. But over the years, it’s evolved and changed in more ways than I can even remember.

And now here it is, all grown up and better than ever!

Health-ified Comfort Food

This chicken stew is loaded with lots of yummy veggies, waaaaaaay healthier ingredients, and great new flavor components (kinda like Vanessa’s sleek new haircut and those killer boots)! But at its heart, it still strikes the same homey, comforting notes that I loved from the very beginning, back when it was a (third-grade, swingset-loving) beef pot roast recipe.

Incredibly tender, fall-apart chicken is nestled in a rich, creamy, tomato-based sauce. (Hint … you’re seriously gonna want some hearty, whole-grain bread to mop up every last drop of this delicious sauce. It’ll save you the embarrassment of licking your plate!) Plus, there are potatoes, sweet carrots, and savory bits of onion and tomato.

Oh my goodness, it makes me happy just thinking about it! (Old friends are like that.)

Stew is comfort food at its best, perfect for cold winter nights. It’s even better when it magically cooks all by itself in your slow cooker, while you go do something more exciting (like scouring the Internet for killer-cool boots!).

You’ll love this. So easy. So quick to throw together in the morning. So warm-you-up and give-you-a-hug comforting.

No doubt, you’re already adding these ingredients to your grocery list, but stick with me for just one more second while I give you some tips for the best chicken stew ever:

The Perfect Veggies for This Chicken Stew

You may be wondering why we didn’t use fresh veggies. I know … you expect fresh, vibrant produce from THK! But there’s a reason. Actually, a couple of really good reasons.

We’ve tested this recipe so many different ways, including with fresh veggies, like fresh diced onions. As with many of our crock pot recipes, though, we find that frozen vegetables actually work best here. (Remember this discussion from our Crock-Pot Creamy Chicken Corn Chowder?) Frozen veggies meld and soften better than fresh, and you don’t end up with still-crunchy bits of onions or overly tough carrots, especially if you’re cooking this stew towards the shorter end of the suggested time frame.

And don’t worry – research is finding that frozen vegetables are generally at least as nutritious as their fresh counterparts, and sometime even more nutritious. (You can read more about that here or here.)

And fresh red skins? Yep – we tested this recipe with fresh potatoes, too. It worked fine, but really wasn’t any more delicious than when we used much-faster canned potatoes. You can try using fresh potatoes if you prefer, but here’s the other reason we don’t spec fresh veggies in this recipe:

The bonus for busy families! You can keep most everything you need for this stew recipe on hand, so you can throw it together at a moment’s notice! Believe me – I’ve done it! (And psssst … if you love throw-together slow cooker recipes, be sure to check out the whole list of Our Best Slow Cooker Chicken Recipes Ever, that’ll definitely make your life easier!)

All right! Now you’re ready to grab that shopping list and head to the grocery store! (And who knows … you just might see Vanessa!).

P.S. All Vanessas appearing in this post are entirely fictitious and any resemblance to Vanessas real or imagined is purely coincidental. I never had a best childhood chum named Vanessa, although if I did, I’d for sure want to rediscover her at the grocery store and share some of this stew with her while I admired her cool boots.

This recipe was loosely inspired by the So-Easy Slow-Cooker Pot Roast recipe I found years ago in the Gooseberry Patch Super-Fast Slow Cooking cookbook.