Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken
Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken is an easy crockpot recipe and a true family favorite. We use skinless chicken thighs (although chicken breast works, too!) and slow cook them in a sticky honey garlic sauce. Serve them whole with the sauce poured over the top, or shred the meat and mix it with some of the deliciously sweet sauce. Either way, you're going to love it!
This Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken Recipe was originally published in 2013.
Slow cooker dinners are the best, right? Throw everything in a pot, turn it on and then go do fun stuff while your dinner cooks itself. Awesome.
Why we love this slow cooker honey garlic chicken
- The easy to make sauce is sweet, garlicky, and totally delicious.
- It's refined sugar-free! Most honey garlic chicken recipes made in a crockpot call for ketchup (loaded in sugar) and often brown sugar. We skip these and add a little tomato paste for flavor and let the honey do the sweetening.
- You won't find any fussy steps here. Pop everything into your slow cooker and turn it on. Done!
- Two options for serving: deliciously tender chicken thighs with the sauce poured over the top or made into honey garlic shredded chicken.We recommend trying it both ways cause we can't make up our minds about which way we like best.
How to make these slow cooker honey garlic chicken thighs
Are you ready for this? You might want to sit down …
- Put everything into your slow cooker and turn it on.
Phew, that was tough. Joking!
Technically, I do mix the sauce ingredients in a bowl and pour them over the chicken thighs. But this is only because I have a smaller Crockpot. If yours is bigger, you'll be able to mix the sauce in the pot, add the chicken, then give it a little stir so that the chicken is coated in the sauce.
What to serve with Crockpot Honey Garlic Chicken
I love this recipe with mashed potatoes or mashed cauliflower. There is lots of sauce so you can pour some over the top and pretend it's gravy. And a simple green salad with one of our favorite salad dressing recipes will round out the meal.
Another delicious option is our Roasted Winter Green Salad. It goes really well with this chicken.
If you've opted to shred the chicken, you can sandwich some between bread with a handful of arugula.
Love honey garlic?
We do, too! Here are our favorite honey garlic recipes:
- Honey Garlic Corn on the Cob
- Sticky Honey Garlic Chicken Wings
- Paleo Honey Garlic Chicken Fingers
- Baked Honey Garlic Chicken
- Sticky Sesame Honey Shrimp with Ginger Broccoli (honey garlic with an Asian twist)
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Healthy Crockpot Chicken Recipes
- Crockpot Thai Chicken Soup
- Best Crockpot General Tso's Chicken
- Crockpot Thai Chicken Curry
- BBQ Bourbon Crockpot Chicken Chili
- Crockpot Tuscan Chicken Soup with Prosciutto and Parmesan
- Crockpot Chicken Taco Lettuce Boats
- Best Crockpot Chicken Tortilla Soup
Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken
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Prep Time: 10 mins -
Cook Time: 4 hours 10 mins
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Total Time: 4 hours 10 mins
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Yield: 4 servings 1x -
Category: Crockpot -
Method: Slow Cooker -
Cuisine: American
Description
Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken is an easy crockpot recipe and a true family favorite. We use skinless chicken thighs (although chicken breast works, too!) and slow cook them in a sticky honey garlic sauce. Serve them whole with the sauce poured over the top, or shred the meat and mix it with some of the deliciously sweet sauce. Either way, you're going to love it!
Ingredients
- 8 bone-in, skinless chicken thighs
- ¼ cup honey
- ¼ cup coco aminos (can sub soy sauce)
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon salt (omit if you use soy sauce)
- 1 teaspoon molasses
- ½ teaspoon oregano
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tablespoons tapioca starch or cornstarch
- Sesame seeds and chives, to garnish
Instructions
- Place the chicken thighs in your slow cooker in a single layer.
- In a small bowl, mix the honey, tomato paste, coco aminos, salt, molasses, oregano, and garlic. (See notes.) Pour the sauce over the chicken. Put the lid on the slow cooker and turn it to high for 2-3 hours or low for 5-6 hours. (See notes)
- A half hour before you're ready to eat, whisk the tapioca starch with 2 tablespoons of cold water and pour it into the crockpot. Mix it around a little to thicken the sauce.
- Either serve the chicken with some sauce poured over the top or shred the chicken and mix in ½ cup of the sauce.
Notes
If you have a large slow cooker you can mix the sauce in the slow cooker then add the chicken and mix it around. We find this a little hard to do in a small slow cooker.
While you can cook this longer (8 hours on low) the chicken will be very tender and is best shredded.
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Hi, what setting do I put the slow cooker on?
Hi Ronda,
The ‘low’ setting. 🙂
This looks delicious! I make a similar soy/honey roasted drummies, but they are kind of a pain because you have to watch them closely to make sure they don’t burn. My family loves this flavor combination, and the slow cooker is perfect for weeknights.
I made this for Christmas Eve dinner and everyone loved it. I used skinless boneless chicken breast, subbed brown sugar for morin, subbed ground ginger for fresh. It’s a definite keeper!
★★★★★
This sounds delicious, I’m always on the lookout for new slow cooker recipes!
where do u get mirin ? not familiar with it .
Mirin is an Asian style sweet cooking wine. You can find it most well stocked supermarkets or Asian grocery stores. When I don’t have any on hand I just substitute some brown sugar for the sweetness 🙂
★★★★★
Love the slow cooker, you can make such amazing dishes like this chicken. It looks perfect and so easy to make.
This made my mouth water, I tell you :–) The garlic-honey combo sounds awesome, and I’m eager to have this for dinner soon. I’m loving how easy to make it is too!
Happy Sunday! xo