Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken is a delicious and easy meal that my whole family loves! Tender chicken cooked in a sweet and sticky sauce is perfect served over fluffy rice!
We serve this easy side dish with steamed broccoli or even fresh Stir Fry Veggies for the perfect meal!
Easy to Make & Delicious Every Time
I love anything with Asian flavors and when I saw this slow cooker Honey Garlic Chicken recipe over at Just a Taste a couple of years ago, I knew I had to give it a try. Let me tell you I’m so glad I did! I have made a few different takes on this recipe over the past couple of years and this is definitely one of my favorite honey garlic chicken crockpot recipes; it gets gobbled up quickly every single time!
It’s really easy to make and uses ingredients I always have in the fridge making it a staple in our dinner rotation.
Tips For Making Crock Pot Honey Garlic Chicken
This Crock Pot honey garlic chicken recipe starts with bone-in chicken breasts cooked until perfectly tender in the slow cooker. You can certainly use boneless (or even chicken thighs like I use in my Slow Cooker Bourbon Chicken recipe) if you prefer but I find the bone in gives better flavor and the meat is more tender.
If you’re not familiar with hoisin sauce, it’s often called Chinese barbecue sauce and it’s commonly added to stir-fries and Asian dipping sauces. It’s a sweet and it has a salty flavor like soy sauce but it also adds a very unique punch to it! If you have never tried it, we just can’t get enough… it’s perfect to marinate grilled meats as well!
Don’t skip the fresh ginger in this recipe! Ginger adds such a nice flavor and it’s really inexpensive. I personally buy a small knob of ginger for under $1 at the grocery store and as I need it, I use a cheese grater to grate the desired amount (I don’t even peel it first). I store it on the counter for up to 3-4 weeks and if I notice it starting to get a bit wrinkly, I toss it into the freezer (and I grate it right from frozen the next time I need ginger). It’s perfect in stir-fries, marinades or even add a few slices to the water when you’re cooking rice!
A Delectable Rice or Noodle Topping
This dish creates lots of honey garlic sauce so it’s perfect for rice OR noodles. Most of the time we pile it up on a bed of rice and serve it with some steamed veggies (like broccoli or even sesame ginger snap peas ) on the side for an easy delicious meal. I’ve also served this over our favorite Asian noodles with stir-fried veggies.
More Asian Dishes You’ll Love:
- Cashew Chicken Stir Fry – Easy and delicious!
- Asian Beef Skewers
- Easy Pepper Steak – So flavorful!
- Baked Chinese Chicken and Rice
- Beef and Broccoli – Classic!
- Easy Mongolian Beef – Reader favorite!
Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 split chicken breasts skin removed
- ½ cup less sodium soy sauce
- ⅓ cup honey
- ⅓ cup hoisin sauce
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 teaspoon Toasted Sesame Oil
- 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 5 cloves garlic minced
- 1 small onion finely diced
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
Instructions
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Combine soy sauce, honey, hoisin sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, fresh ginger, garlic, chopped onion and chili flakes.
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Place chicken breasts in slow cooker and pour sauce on top. Cook on low for 4-5 hours.
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Remove chicken from slow cooker and shred, set aside.
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In a small bowl, combine 3 tablespoons of water and cornstarch. Place liquid from slow cooker into a saucepan and bring to a boil. While stirring the liquid, add cornstarch mixture a little at a time and stir until thickened. Let boil 1 minute.
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Pour sauce over shredded chicken and stir to combine.
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Serve over rice with desired toppings.
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Dinner
Cuisine American, Asian
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Sweet and Sour Chicken
Made this tonight and it was delicious! I was dubious about the low for 4 hours, but it was perfect. The chicken was cooked through and tender, and the sauce was tasty. My husband said that it’s a definite re-do, and he’s not usually a fan of slow cooker meals.
Leaving comment for myself if i make again! It was delicious,biggest pain was chopping the garlic,and onion, mom reminded that i hve a garlic press. Once sauce made, you dont need to get too extreme in butchering the chicken, just throw it in and pour the sauce. Also pita was moving sauce to pan but worth the thickness the sauce turns to. Very tasty. Worth the effort to have leftovers. Will make again, the fresh ginger made it. Didnt use green onions or sesame, doesnt need($)
The sauce was excellent, I, however, did not have chicken so I substituted pork loin and cooked it on low so that I could shred it. I served it with sweet rice and broccoli and toasted some sesame seeds to sprinkle on it. I really enjoyed this meal! (I like the idea of adding pineapple to this recipe too, test kitchen anybody?)
Hi Emily. How long did you slow cook the pork on low?
Hi Deb, I have only made this recipe with chicken so I can’t say for sure. But we have a great crock pot pork tenderloin recipe you could try referencing for cooking times.
I never leave reviews but this sauce is the best we have tried!!! I made this using chicken thighs that I cut up to strips and browned then poured the sauce over it! Served with broccoli and rice! The whole family LOVED IT!!!
I am so happy to hear your family loves this recipe Cristina!
Love this recipe! It is easy to fix, I served it with sticky rice and it tasted great!! Will definitely make again.
This was surprisingly good! I was looking for a quick easy meal that was a little different than the pineapple (American) Chinese chicken I usually make. I used local orange blossom honey and it really set it over the top! I also added a little bit of balsamic vinegar at the end to give a bit more depth. If you use the slow cooker function on your IP you can just sauté the chicken with sauce to thicken it up, one less pan. Will definitely recommend to my mother, thanks for the good recipe!
Oh my, drooling over here! That sounds so yummy, thanks for sharing.
Have you ever used boneless chicken for this recipe?
Boneless chicken will work in this recipe but we find bone-in has better flavor and produces more juices. If using boneless breasts you will want to cook them for 3 hours.
I’m looking for instant pot chicken drumstick? Any receipts please ?
Thanks!
Hi Kimberley, we don’t have an instant pot chicken drumstick recipe but we have a delicious Instant Pot Chicken Thighs recipe.
I made this Saturday night… It didn’t look like yours. I did use 2 boneless chicken breast and package of tenders. It didn’t have a ton of juice. The flavor is great! What did I do wrong?
The recipe calls for bone-in chicken, which will produce more juicy chicken. For boneless chicken, you’d want to try cooking for only about 3 hours. Enjoy Becky!
Can you cook this on low for longer? Or would the pressure cooker work.
This is cooked on low for 4-5 hours. Cooking it longer may cause the honey to start to burn. I have only made this in the slow cooker so I can’t say for sure how it would work out in a pressure cooker.
Smelled incredible while cooking and the chicken turned out super tender (I used bone in chicken thighs instead of breasts), but my husband and I agreed it was suuuuuper salty. I used the low sodium soy sauce, so maybe it was the amount of hoisin sauce? No clue. For the leftovers, I mixed pineapple juice in to balance it out and that worked pretty well. We are still working through the leftovers; eating on hoagie buns with Miracle Whip and sliced pineapple chunks – like a chicken sloppy joe. Pretty good, but I’m not sure if we’ll make it again with how salty it turned out.
Thank you for trying the recipe Bailey.
I rarely review recipes (too lazy) – but this is awesome! The flavors are perfect. I have made it twice and both were excellent. The second time, I added extra chicken to make chicken salad – the little bit of sweet with mayo was wonderful. I added some pecans to the chicken salad as well so the sweet, nutty flavors were perfect! A great recipe and the sauce works very well with beef as well.
Thank you for sharing Diane! LOVE the idea of making leftovers into a salad!
Delicious recipe!
Loved this recipe. I used boneless chicken breasts, and it was fantastic. Hubby loved it. Also super easy to throw in the slow cooker with a new born and have a home cooked meal at the end of the day.