Ann's Ruby Chicken

This crockpot chicken earned its ‘ruby’ name from what happens during the long slow cook. The cranberries break down, the orange juice concentrate caramelizes, and the chicken takes on a deep ruby-red color from the fruit. It’s a one-pot dump-and-go dinner that uses pantry staples to produce something that tastes far more involved than it actually is.

Pumpkin pie spice is the unexpected seasoning that makes this work. The combination of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice in a single bottle aligns with cranberry’s natural flavor profile and adds the kind of warmth you’d otherwise need five separate jars to build.

Eight to ten hours on low is the right cooking range. Less and the cranberries don’t fully break down and the sauce stays pucker-tart. More and the chicken meat starts to fall apart and shred into the sauce, which moves you away from clean chicken-in-cranberry-sauce territory.

Pro Tips

• Use bone-in chicken pieces (thighs, drumsticks, breasts), bone-in cuts hold their shape and flavor through long slow cooking better than boneless
• Frozen orange juice concentrate works fine, no need to thaw first. The slow cook will dissolve it
• Fresh or frozen cranberries both work, frozen go straight from freezer to crockpot
• Skim the fat from the surface before serving if you used skin-on chicken, the slow cook renders quite a bit
• Serve over rice or buttered egg noodles, the ruby sauce needs a starch to soak it up

Variations

• Add ¼ cup of brown sugar instead of white for a deeper, molasses-tinged sauce
• Stir in a splash of bourbon or orange liqueur in the last 30 minutes for an adult version
• Substitute Cornish hens cut in half for the chicken pieces for a more elegant presentation