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Slow Cooker Cranberry Chicken

"This is a delicious and easy way to prepare chicken breasts. I like to serve the cooked sauce over mashed potatoes or rice."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and cranberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 148 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

The recipe

4 servings
Prep5 min
Cook4 hr

Ingredients

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Place the 4 chicken breast halves in the bottom of a slow cooker in a single layer, overlapping them slightly if needed.

  2. In a bowl, stir together the Catalina dressing, whole berry cranberry sauce, and onion soup mix until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture evenly over the chicken. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours (240 minutes).

  4. Check the thickest part of the chicken with a meat thermometer. It must reach 165°F (74°C); if not, cook 15 to 30 minutes more and check again.

  5. Transfer the chicken to a serving plate, spoon some of the sauce over it, and serve warm with the remaining sauce on the side.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Chicken + cranberrytop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Berry + cranberrytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together68 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Chicken + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Sauce + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together10,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cranberry + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together166 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

Sauce and onion share little aroma chemistry, yet 10,465 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, berry, cranberry, sauce):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, berry, cranberry, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).