Sticky, sweet slow cooker honey garlic chicken is a delicious dinner served over rice or noodles.
Honey garlic chicken breast uses skinless breasts or thighs slow cooked in a quick homemade honey garlic sauce!
This Honey Garlic Chicken is a Flavor Favorite Because…
- Tasty slow cooker honey garlic chicken is an easy one-pot dinner.
- Basic pantry ingredients and a little crock pot time are all it takes to make this delish dish.
- Double the sauce and use it as a glaze for pork, shrimp, and veggie dishes all week long!
Ingredient Tips and Swaps
- Chicken: Use split chicken breasts or bone-in thighs with the skin removed for this dish. You can also use boneless skinless breasts or thighs.
- Aromatics: For the best flavor, go for fresh ginger and garlic.
- Soy Sauce: Use low sodium soy sauce, or use regular or tamari and replace half the amount called for with water.
Variations
- Add vegetables like baby corn, mushrooms, water chestnuts, or pineapple chunks.
- Add sriracha or sambal to taste for a spicy-sweet glaze.
- Replace the homemade sauce with a jar of prepared honey garlic sauce (choose a thick sauce).
How to Make Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken
Slow-cooker chicken recipes like this one are so easy to make.
- Whisk the sauce according to the recipe below and pour over the chicken.
- Cook until tender and shred the chicken.
- Thicken the sauce in a small saucepan with a cornstarch slurry.
- Toss with the shredded chicken and enjoy.
Serving Suggestions
- Serve this chicken over rice, cauliflower rice, or noodles
- Serve it as lettuce wraps with a variety of toppings.
- Add a side of steamed veggies like broccoli or carrots.
Storing and Reheating Leftovers
- Keep leftover slow-cooker honey garlic chicken in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Reheat on the stovetop or in the microwave.
- Freeze portions in zippered bags for up to 1 month and thaw overnight in the refrigerator before reheating.
More Slow Cooker Chicken Recipes
Did you love this slow cooker honey garlic chicken recipe? Leave a comment and a rating below!
Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken
Make this easy slow cooker honey garlic chicken and enjoy it over rice or noodles.
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 pounds split chicken breasts skin removed, or 1 ½ pounds boneless chicken breasts or thighs
- ½ cup less sodium soy sauce *see note
- ⅓ cup honey
- ⅓ cup hoisin sauce
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
- 5 cloves garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon onion powder or ½ small onion, finely diced
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- sliced green onions and sesame seeds for garnish, optional
Instructions
- Combine soy sauce, honey, hoisin sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, garlic, sesame oil, onion powder, and red pepper flakes.
- Place chicken breasts in the bottom of a slow cooker and pour the sauce over top. Cook on low for 4 to 5 hours or until the chicken reaches 165°F in the thickest part.
- Remove the chicken from the slow cooker and place it in a bowl. Use two forks to shred it, discarding the bones. Lightly cover to keep warm and set aside.
- In a small bowl, combine 3 tablespoons of water and cornstarch. Transfer the liquid from the slow cooker to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. While whisking, drizzle in the cornstarch mixture a little at a time to reach the desired consistency; you may not need all of the mixture. Let boil 1 minute.
- Pour the sauce over shredded chicken and stir to coat. Garnish with green onion and sesame seeds if desired.
- Serve over rice or noodles.
Notes
Depending on how much liquid your chicken produces, you may not need all of the cornstarch mixture.
Soy Sauce Note: Use low-sodium soy sauce, or this dish will be too salty. If using regular soy sauce, replace half of the soy sauce with water.
Nutrition Information
Calories: 298 | Carbohydrates: 27g | Protein: 35g | Fat: 5g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.02g | Cholesterol: 97mg | Sodium: 1191mg | Potassium: 680mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 20g | Vitamin A: 71IU | Vitamin C: 3mg | Calcium: 27mg | Iron: 1mg
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Chicken, Dinner, Slow Cooker
Cuisine American, Asian© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
Sticky, sweet, and totally irresistible! This slow cooker honey garlic chicken is pure comfort food heaven! Perfect over fluffy rice or slurpy noodles! Can’t wait to try it!
What’s a good substitute for hoison sauce?
I haven’t tried this with a hoisin substitute so I can’t say for sure. Hoisin sauce can be ordered online or found in most grocery stores.
Easy to follow receipe.Good call on the drizzle of the cornstarch.Meal went down a treat with the family,already have been asked when will I be cooking it again
The recipe has become a family favorite. We add cashews to the recipe just before serving.
if I double the recipe, do I need up the cooking time a little?
As long as your crock pot is large enough to accommodate, the cooking time should remain the same.
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.
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.