Very Lazy Slow Cooker Paste Pots – Chicken and Chorizo Stew – 5sp

The Slow Cooker

The slow cooker is one of my favourite kitchen accessories and something I know a lot of my followers regularly rely on to rustle up gorgeous meals with minimum preparation.

Being able to pop dinner in the slow cooker in the morning helps me to feel uber organised and ready for the day ahead and for me, there is nothing better than being greeted by the delicious smell of dinner bubbling away when I come home from work in an evening.

Building a few staple slow cooker recipes into your weekly meal plan will allow you to plan ahead, reduce the preparation time of any meal and ultimately keep on track. For me, having a slow cooker meal ready in the evening means that I get back that little bit of extra time to take myself off to the gym or go to a class, without having to eat too late in the evening. It also means that I know exactly how many points I will be using for my evening meal early that morning, so I can plan the rest of the day’s food and points easily around it.

Very Lazy

Being an avid fan and user of the Very Lazy Garlic and Ginger products, when the lovely folks there approached me to try out their new range of Slow Cooking Paste Pots, I jumped at the chance. The pots come in four flavours; Chicken and Chorizo Stew, Aromatic Thai Chicken Curry, Harissa Lamb Tagine and Sausage and Lentil Casserole – all very much my kind of vibe! The packaging is great as it lets you know exactly what you need to pop onto your shopping list and provides a simple method to create the meal. Each pot also includes a recipe for a vegetarian alternative and, since the pots are vegan and veggie friendly, they can be tweaked to suit your own dietary requirements.

Best of all, the pots are low in points which means they fit into the WW plan very nicely! I’ve included the Smart Points for each of the pots below (as calculated using the barcode scanner in the WW app). The total number of points for each dish would need to be calculated once each of the extra ingredients has been accounted for when making up the recipe.

Smart Points per Paste Pot:

• Chicken and Chorizo Stew – 2sp
• Aromatic Thai Chicken Curry – 3sp
• Harissa Lamb Tagine – 3sp
• Sausage and Lentil Casserole – 4sp

Chicken and Chorizo Stew

Chicken and chorizo is one of my all time favourite meal combo’s and so I knew I would have to give the stew a whirl first. The result was delicious – creamy, smoky and bursting with flavour. Best of all, it took virtually no preparation to rustle up this delicious dinner.

I’ve included the full recipe that I made for you here, as well as the overall points value for the dish. I’ve tweaked the recipe here and there to make it as WW friendly as possible whilst keeping the same delicious flavour. The main tweaks I’ve made are to replace the chicken thigh with chicken breast (since chicken breast is 0sp), use reduced fat soured cream instead of crème fraiche (even reduced fat crème fraiche is double the points of reduced fat soured cream) and I’ve upped the veg content to bulk out the dish a little more. I’ve also added coriander and a sprinkle of crushed chillies at the end to add freshness and up the flavour without adding extra points. If you want to bulk out the dish further, you could add 400g of raw new potatoes (halved) at the same time as the onions and pepper. This would make the dish 7sp per serving. I served with green beans for some extra 0sp colour and crunch.

The pots are currently available exclusively in Tesco and each pack (priced at £2 per pack) comes with 3 paste pots inside.

Chicken and Chorizo Stew

Serves 4 – 5sp per serving (Flex)

Ingredients

1 x Very Lazy Chicken and Chorizo Paste Pot

400g chicken breast (4 whole breasts)

75g chorizo sausage, skinned and sliced

1 x onion, finely diced

2 x peppers, deseeded and sliced

1 x 400g tin of butter beans, drained

1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes

1/4 tsp sugar

Juice of 1 lime

75g reduced soured cream

Handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped

Sprinkle of crushed chillies

Method

1. Place the chicken, chorizo, onion, pepper, butter beans, tomatoes, sugar and paste into your slow cooker along with 200ml of water and mix together.
2. Place the lid on the cooker, turn to low and cook for 8-10 hours.
3. Remove the lid, add the lime juice and stir.
4. Add the soured cream, season, stir and serve into four bowls (I added one chicken breast to each bowl and topped with the rest of the stew).
5. Top with a sprinkling of fresh coriander and crushed chillies.

Enjoy!

This post has been produced in brand partnership with Very Lazy. Whilst it is a sponsored post, this in no way affects my opinion of the products or the content of my review; all views expressed are my own.