The Classic Dish
Is there anything more classically French than coq au vin? The dish was developed to take a tough old rooster and turn it tender. Since almost no one uses a rooster these days, so it’s actually poulet au vin, if we want to be picky. I don’t care what you call it — it’s delicious.
Julia Child’s coq au vin is one of her most famous recipes. You can almost hear her voice when you read her it . . . but to make her version will take much more hands-on time than many of us have to spend on a single dish. If you are feeling the desire to get your full-on Julia going, and want to channel her voice and immerse yourself in her recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, you can find it here on the Food Network site: Chicken in red wine with onions, mushrooms and bacon.
Coq au Vin in a Slow Cooker
This is an adaptation of the coq au vin recipe for a slow cooker. Note: if you are expecting a dump recipe where your toss all of the ingredients in your slow cooker with no real pre-work — look elsewhere. To develop flavor you must brown the chicken, fry the bacon, and sauté the shallots and mushrooms. Between prepping veg and doing the sauté and browning work, this recipe takes about 40 minutes before you put everything into the slow cooker and forget about it for: 7.5 hours on a low heat OR 5 hours on a medium heat. I’ve cooked it on both temperatures, and each works well.
When I was still working, this is the kind of cooking I’d do on the weekend — get the work done mid-morning and forget about it until dinner. Now in the days of COVID, so many people are working at home, it will work for many people any day of the week. My daughter and I love this coq au vin: it’s delicious, it’s great leftover, and it freezes really well.
Coq au Vin in a Slow Cooker
How long this takes to cook will depend whether your use a LOW heat in your slow cooker, or a MEDIUM heat.
Prep time and preliminary cooking will take 40 – 45 minutes.
Slow cooker time: 7.5 hours on LOW heat OR 5 hours on MEDIUM heat.
Thickening sauce: 15 minutes, regardless of whether you choose to cook on low or medium heat.
- 5 chicken thighs, (bone in and skin on)
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 5 slices of bacon
- 8 oz baby bella mushrooms, (cut in quarters)
- 3 shallots, (finely chopped)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced (if cloves are small, use 3)
- 2 Tbsp flour, (could be part of the flour your dredge your chicken in)
- 1 lb carrots, (cut in 1 to 2 inch pieces)
- 1.5 medium yellow onions, (cut in large chunks)
- 4 Tbsp olive oil
- 3 Tbsp butter
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste
- 3.5 cups low sodium chicken broth
- 1.5 cup dry red wine
- 1/4 cup cognac
- 4 sprigs fresh thyme, (or 1/2 teaspoon dry thyme)
- 1 bay leaf, (if your bay leaves are small, use 2)
- 1/2 lemon
- 3 Tbsp. flour
Prep — about 15 minutes
- Wash and chop vegetable: finely chop shallots, mince garlic; cut mushrooms in halves or quarters, depending on how large they are; cut carrots in 1 or 2 inch pieces — depending on your preference; cut onions in large pieces.
- Pat chicken dry, season well with salt and pepper. Put 1/2 cup of flour on a plate and dredge chicken thoroughly in the flour.
Pre-slow cooker work — about 25 minutes
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Fry bacon — about 10 minutes. Do not overcook. Place bacon on a paper towel to drain and drain off excess grease.
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Add 2 tbsp. olive oil to skillet over medium high heat. When oil is very hot, place flour-dredged chicken in skin side down. If you cannot cook all pieces in your skillet without crowding them, cook them in 2 batches.
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Cook 4 minutes — skin side down. Then turn over and cook another 3 minutes or until chicken has good brown color. Remove chicken to plate. Drain excess grease.
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You may need to add 2 tbsp. olive oil to the skillet. Medium-high heat until oil is shimmering hot. Add shallots, mushrooms, crumble bacon over the top. Cook for 3 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add minced garlic and cook an additional 2 minutes.
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Add butter and tomato paste to shallot/mushroom mixture. Sprinkle 2 tbsp. flour over everything. Cook 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of the chicken broth, and cook, stirring constantly for another 2 – 3 minutes. Turn off your burner.
Slow Cooker — 7.5 hours on low heat OR 5 hours on medium heat
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Into slow cooker: place a layer of carrots and onions, then place chicken thighs.
2) place half of mushroom/shallot mixture
3) Put in the rest of the carrots and onions over chicken. Salt and pepper lightly, to taste.
4) place the rest of mushroom/shallot mixture over carrots and onions. Add sprigs of thyme and bay leaf.
5) Pour dry red wine, cognac, and remainder of chicken broth over everything.
6) Cook on low in your slow cooker for: 5 hours on medium OR 7.5 hours on low.
Thickening the sauce – 15 minutes
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Remove chicken and keep warm in oven. Turn your slow cooker up to its high setting.
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Taste your sauce and adjust seasoning — adding more salt and pepper to taste. At this point, squeeze the juice of half a lemon. Carrots and onions add a lot more sweetness than you might expect, and the lemon juice adds some acidity to balance the sweetness.
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Take 3 tablespoons of flour and dissolve in a 1/4 cup of water. Add this to the sauce and cook for 15 – 20 minutes to thicken.
This recipe serves 5 people.
I like to serve this with mashed potatoes and a salad with a classic French vinaigrette.
Tip for getting heat up faster in a slow cooker: if you are going to be at home while this is cooking, start your cooker on a HIGH heat, and let it stay at that heat for an hour before turning it down to either medium or low. When it has been cooking for an hour, I also take a spoon and kind of settle everything further down in the liquid (sometimes when you start some of the onions are sticking up from the liquid). Then I don’t touch it again until it’s time to thicken the sauce.
ALSO: once you have thickened the sauce, you can toss the chicken back in and turn the dish down to low or warm, if you don’t want to serve it immediately.
