Slow Cooker Lemon Chicken + Orzo Salad | Easy, Fresh & Totally Delicious!

Looking for a fresh and easy dinner idea that doesn’t heat up your kitchen? This Slow Cooker Lemon Chicken is so simple and flavourful — and it pairs perfectly with my favourite Greek Orzo Salad for a light, satisfying meal.

I filmed this on a real-life hot day (no makeup, messy kitchen, the whole shebang!) and I’m walking you through it with a voiceover to keep things clear and easy to follow.

Whether you’re feeding your family or meal-prepping for the week, this is one of those recipes you’ll come back to again and again!
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🍋 Slow Cooker Lemon Oregano Chicken
Ingredients:

~2 to 3 lbs skinless, boneless chicken thighs
1 tsp dried oregano
½ tsp seasoned salt
¼ tsp pepper
2 tbsp butter or margarine
¼ cup water
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice (Fresh is KEY for this recipe)
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp Chicken Better Than Bouillon
2 tsp fresh parsley (optional)

Instructions:

Pat chicken dry and rub with oregano, salt, and pepper.

Brown in butter on the stove, then place in slow cooker.

In the same skillet, add water, lemon juice, garlic, bouillon. Bring to a boil.

Pour over chicken, cover and cook on LOW for 3–4 hours.

Baste, add parsley, and cook 15–30 mins more.

Serve with the Orzo Salad on the side or in wraps — it’s SO good!
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🥗 Greek Orzo Salad (My Way!)
Ingredients:

1 cup orzo pasta
Salt for boiling water
6 oz crumbled feta
2–4 tbsp grated Parmesan
½ cup chopped red onion
1 Cup Diced Peppers (I used yellow & orange)
1–4 cups baby spinach (I used 1 cup!)
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved (added the next day)
½ cup Kalamata olives, chopped (optional)
Freshly Shredded Parmesan cheese, to taste

Dressing:

3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar (used to use red wine vinegar, but balsamic is my fave now)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tsp Dijon mustard
3–4 fresh basil leaves, chopped (only use FRESH basil)
1 tsp dried oregano
Salt & pepper to taste

Optional Add-ins: Chickpeas, marinated artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes + their oil, toasted pine nuts or almonds

Instructions:

Cook orzo, drain, and rinse with cold water.

Toss with olive oil, add spinach, onion, feta, Parmesan, tomatoes, olives, and mix.

Mix dressing in a jar or (like I did) add ingredients directly into the bowl and stir!

Chill 1 hour. Garnish with extra cheese, nuts, or a drizzle of oil before serving.
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Let me know if you make this! And please don’t forget to hit that 👍🏼 if you enjoyed the video — it helps so much!

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hi friends welcome to my kitchen If you’re new here my name is Tina I live in beautiful Nova Scotia Canada And I’m so happy you’re here And to all my friends returning hello I hope you are all well Today it is a scorcher It is 34° in the shade and it’s just past 5 And I knew it was going to be hot today Um the humidity is over the top So this morning I made um one of my favorite dishes lemon oregano chicken in the slow cooker It’s the same recipe I use lots of times on my ribs in the oven So you’ll have to try this in the oven It’s a little bit different So I’ll be sure to share that recipe with you Both ways of doing the ribs and the chicken that I’m doing today are so stinking easy but they are so good that they are company worthy So I’m going to show you how I made this chicken today And I also made an orzo salad that is fantastic Now I generally put cherry tomatoes and black olives in this salad And I don’t have any cherry tomatoes right now so I skipped them for today But tomorrow I’m going to go pick some up to add to the salad And I don’t think I’m even going to put the black olives in today So I’m going to show you how to put these two dishes together They are perfect any time of the year but especially when you don’t want to put your oven on and it’s going to be a hot day in your house or you just want something really really easy to make So this is a tried andrue well they’re both tried and true recipes that I think you’re really really going to enjoy All right my friends All I am doing is cooking up my orzo pasta which is tiny rice shaped pasta in my salted boiling water And I’m only cooking it for about seven or eight minutes until it’s al dente And then I strain it And as you can see I’m putting in my big old Tupperware bowl that I love And I’ve just set that aside because I’m going to start to brown my chicken for the slow cooker And browning it does make a difference Now I ordinarily use chicken breast for this lemon slow cooker recipe but they’re really expensive right now And I actually don’t have any in the freezer But what I do have are chicken thighs So I have just uh put 2 tablespoon of butter in my frying pan Butter does make a difference You could use oil if you wanted to And I’ve taken the skin off of the chicken thighs These do have bone in them Totally fine You can use skinless boneless if you like but I got a good deal on these chicken pieces so I stocked up And that’s what we’re having So I’m just putting them in my frying pan and I’m going to season them and lightly brown them before I put them in my slow cooker So here I am just shaking on oregano Now don’t be afraid of seasoning you guys It makes all the difference in the world You can’t go wrong And just season it to taste But I just sprinkled on some oregano generously And now my favorite Li seasoning salt And uh next I’m going to take some of my black pepper I’ve been using Watkins pepper for oh my gosh over 30 years I love Watkins products And I’m just going to eventually here well wipe up because I made a little bit of a mess But that’s a sign of a good cook right So I’m just flipping over my pieces It’s only been Well you’ve seen this is real time Uh it’s only been a minute or two that they’ve been browning I’m not trying to cook them through cuz the slow cooker is going to do that I’m just lightly browning them And the backside’s got to get seasoned too As is pardon We’ll leave that one alone Anyways seasoning salt oregano and black pepper And then I’m just going to let these brown just just until they’re nice and golden And then I’m going to put them in my slow cooker to finish You can change the seasoning salt for just regular salt if you don’t have seasoning salt too and that’s absolutely fine So I’m just transferring them over to my good old faithful slow cooker Look at that Oh my goodness And they already smell so amazing And I’m only just getting started And in case you’re wondering if you do use chicken breasts you guys cuz I’ve made this recipe I’ve been making it for well over 30 years Um my mom’s partner Jay um this was his favorite recipe So whenever they used to come visit me this is what I would make But the the chicken breasts don’t dry out They’re beautiful But the chicken thighs they’re fabulous So you can see I put the rest of the uh drippings in the slow cooker cooker as well And next I’m adding my chicken buon This is the kind that I like to use I get it at Costco You can get it in regular uh grocery store but obviously the price is better at Costco So my original recipe calls for one teaspoon of chicken buon Um I only had like maybe a teaspoon if that left in the jar So I ended up adding that as well And I am going to then compensate by adding a little bit more water So the recipe originally calls for 1/4 cup of water I’m actually going to bump it up to about half a cup of water And then you can chop up some fresh garlic I bought this big old container of chopped garlic at Costco as well quite some time ago and it’s a it’s a game saver for saving time that’s for sure So add garlic to taste I added about one teaspoon And now this is important Use fresh lemon If you’re stuck and in a pinch then yes go ahead and use what you have if you have lemon juice in the fridge in the bottles But I am going to tell you right now using the fresh lemon is 100% key in this restaurant uh recipe 100% key So I’m just squeezing one whole lemon And then I had half a lemon left um that was sitting on my counter from some tea I had the day before So I thought why not I’m going to throw in that half a lemon too So I’m putting in uh probably close to a good four to 5 tablespoon of lemon juice Um the original recipe calls for 3 tablespoons but you know you don’t have to follow every recipe to a tea And this is one of those recipes as is the salad recipe I’m going to show you in a few minutes Uh these are both recipes that you can tweak um using what you have and based on your preferences So I’m mixing up that lemon juice with the chicken buong and I’m pouring it on top of my chicken And this recipe um which I’ve been following for years uh it says you can just put it on low 3 to four hours and that’s pretty much what I do And then I just keep it on warm or you can turn it right off after 3 or 4 hours and then just turn it on high for a little bit to warm everything up Now I went through my fridge and I had some peppers that had to get used up And I am just slicing up a little bit of um yellow and orange pepper And this is for the salad not the chicken The chicken is done by the way It is It is done It is just going to cook and do its thing I am just making the salad now So you can use green pepper you can use red pepper use what you have use what’s on sale And uh just finally chop some up And uh if you want you could even use roasted red peppers I’ve done that before Those are delicious chopped up in this salad You can use a combination Whatever makes your heart happy whatever you’ve got in the fridge And this orange pepper actually part of it was frozen which is weird So um the part that was a little bit frozen I guess my crisper was just getting a little bit too cold in one area I don’t know But anyhow I am just going to end up chopping up that those leftover peppers that I’m putting in my little reusable bag and I’m going to freeze them and then they can go in soups down the road so nothing gets wasted And usually when um I’m cutting things up like my onions or peeling my potatoes or sorry my carrots and uh the celery like I’ll cut them up and save the tops and I put them in a big old Ziploc bag and keep them in the fridge And that’s for my soup stock And I’ll do the same thing if I’m having a roast chicken If I don’t have time to make soup I’ll just put the bones in a Ziploc bag And then when I have time and I’m ready to make a stock or broth I just pull out my uh veggie scraps and my chicken bones and go to town and make my my stocks So here I’m just you using a small red onion Wala wala onion would also be fabulous in this salad I don’t recommend using yellow onions I think that would just be too strong If you don’t like onions don’t put them in But um the red onion is nice and the walawala onions well you can’t go wrong with sweet onions So just you can cut them up in whatever size you want small chunky kind of as if you were making a Greek salad And just put that in your bowl [Music] And as you can see I’ve got my Canada Day decorations going on Okay Adding some more basil I love basil And this is just regular basil It’s not Thai basil Um I forget what exactly kind of basil I planted And all of my herbs are planted um that I started by seed and they do really really well Okay now this is something I had never added to the salad before but it’s in my freezer It’s edetamame and it turned out to be fabulous I will definitely be adding it to my salads here on end And you can add chickpeas you can add sundried tomatoes whatever floats your boat And yes fresh lemon juice Again it’s one of the key ingredients but you can certainly use bottled lemon juice in this recipe Now this was a little bit of olive oil that I had left over It was a flavored olive oil There was maybe a tablespoon left in that bottle so it went in And then I realized while I was making today’s recipe I was out of red wine vinegar which I ordinarily used for this salad So I used basalamic vinegar Oh my goodness you guys That is all I will ever use from now on in this salad because it adds that beautiful sweetness Now I also added some olive oil being a little bit generous again with some oregano and some black pepper And again you can adjust the seasonings as you like Now I’m putting in some feta cheese That’s going to add some nice saltiness And just mixing it all together And ordinarily I would add um did I already mention I would add cherry tomatoes that I had halfed and I don’t have any so I added some the next day And pine nuts Well pine nuts are so expensive right now so I haven’t got any in the house but you can absolutely add some slivered almonds or some chopped walnuts if you want a little bit of crunch Now that I’m thinking about it I wish I had added the almonds I didn’t even think about it when I was making this All righty Now that you know how to put these two recipes together I’m going to show you how I’m going to serve them up for dinner tonight Ordinarily I would use chicken breasts in this recipe Today I just use uh chicken thighs because it’s what I have and chicken breasts right now are not on sale and they’re really expensive And this is a fabulous recipe to have just the chicken on the side with the salad But we are going to have them in wraps and this is a great way to use this dish to assemble I’m just putting a flour tortilla down And then I’m going to take a chicken piece break the meat off and take the bone out Look it’s just falling apart Oh my gosh So tender and juicy with all those delicious flavors Okay Next I’m going to put some of this delicious salad that I made on top A little bit of parmesan Add a little bit more pepper and some fresh romaine lettuce And that’s it Okay And I’m just going to roll this up And there is a delicious summer dinner Let’s get that chicken in there that just fell out A delicious sandwich dinner Perfect for lunch any time of day It is so great Okay let’s give this a try Look at all that goodness This is delicious Give this a try Let me know what you think of it I think you’re going to love it And it’s perfect for summertime Thanks for watching friends See you next time And take care [Music]