Slow Cooker help shortening cooking time?

If the recipe calls for cooking on low, you can set the cooker on high instead and that will shorten the cooking time, but perhaps at the expense of some flavor or tenderness.

In general the food will done as soon as the chicken hits an internal temperature of 160 degrees, which probably won't take as long as 6 hours. However, some things, like potatoes or carrots may not be as soft as you may like them at that time.

The other reason for the longer cooking time is to break down tougher cuts of meat, and form gelatin which turns the simple broth you threw in at the beginning into a thick satisfying stew.

I find if you brown the meat, use hot or boiling water/broth you shorten it by 1 hour for sure, chicken once it has come to the simmer and put on low only takes 3-4 hours at best, 8 and it will be mush, I cooked curry with chicken quarter (legs & thighs) and I am table ready in 4 if I use bone in, for boneless meats of any kind 3-4 hours is plenty

I totally agree with The Unknown Chef about preheating the chicken (and any other ingredients) in a skillet, microwave, etc, first to shorten the slow cooker time.

I also agree that 8 hrs even on Low in most slow cookers would make chicken breasts overcooked ("dry" and tough), though would be okay for dark meat (legs, thighs). Also slow cookers made these days run much hotter on both Low and High than they did in the past which makes those things worse (and most recipes are based on those older cookers).

You can read much more about the slow cooker situation, including chicken in them, in my answer to this previous question if you're interested:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AonFq...

and this one: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201105...

(and there will be a few more links in my answer here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201203... )

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Cook it on high for 4 hours.