As a mom, I don’t think I need to spend a lot of time explaining why I love my slow cooker. It makes insanely delicious meals with little to no prep time or clean up and makes my kitchen smell amazing. Plus, by cooking the food low and slow it really allows the flavors to take their time together and create a lot of depth with very little work. Yeah. We’re buds. Even better about this particular recipe is that you can easily chop, slice, mince and juice everything the night before so on cooking day, you can dump everything in the slow cooker at the start of the day and you’re good to go.

Active Time: 15 minutes | Cooking Time: 8 hours

Difficulty Level: Easy

Ingredients

• 15 oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1 medium onion, chopped (chop the night before)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced (mince the night before)
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 3/4 tsp, plus 1/2 tsp, plus 1/4 tsp sea salt, divided
• 1/2 tsp, plus 1/2 tsp, plus 1/4 tsp fresh cracked black pepper, divided
• 8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 1/2 cup whole far coconut milk
• 1 cucumber, quartered and thinly sliced (slice the night before)
• 1/2 lemon, juiced (juice the night before)
• 1 handful fresh cilantro leaves, chopped (chop the night before)
• 1 head of cauliflower
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Directions

In the slow cooker, combine the crushed tomatoes, onion, garlic, tomato paste, garam masala, 3/4 tsp each of sea salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper. Give it a quick stir and lay the chicken breasts on top of the tomato mixture and cook on low for 8 hours. If you’re in a slow-cooker hurry, you can also do this on high for 4 hours.

About 15 minutes before you’re ready to serve, prep your cauliflower rice and cucumber relish. Turn your broiler to high and remove the stalk from the head of cauliflower so only the florets remain. Working in batches, dump the cauliflower florets into a blender or food processor and process until very small granules remain, between the size of quinoa and cous cous. Turn the cauliflower out onto a rimmed baking sheet lined with a silicone mat or parchment paper. Repeat until all your cauliflower has gone through the food processor. Drizzle the 1 tbsp of olive oil and 1/2 tsp each of salt and pepper over the cauliflower and give it a quick stir with a spatula. Broil for 5 minutes, stir and again for another 5 minutes. The cauliflower rice is done when it is slightly golden brown in a few spots.

While the cauliflower broils, prepare your cucumber relish by combining the sliced cucumber, lemon juice and remaining 1/4 tsp each of salt and pepper in a small bowl.

Once you are ready to serve, stir the coconut milk into the chicken tikka masala and break up the chicken (it should shred without much effort). To plate, start with a scoop of cauliflower rice followed by the chicken tikka masala and a small scoop of the cucumber relish.