Fire up the slow cooker, time for some take-out at home with this easy honey garlic chicken breast recipe. Healthy, great taste with a few pantry ingredients, and 10 minutes prep is all it takes. Everybody can use another easy crockpot chicken recipe.
Introduction
Cooked in a thick Asian glaze, this honey garlic chicken breast recipe uses skinless boneless chicken breasts to make a healthy fall-apart tender, easy dinner full of flavor. But chicken thighs are an option.
Honey chicken breasts are low fat and bursting with a wonderful taste. Make it a complete meal by adding some vegetables with rice. Just follow the easy step-by-step photo instructions for one of the best crock pot chicken recipes.
Based on an Allrecipes Honey-Garlic Slow Cooker Chicken Thighs, which was originally a much larger recipe and used chicken thighs.
My Rating
A solid 4 for us, but 5 if honey chicken is a favorite take-out meal for you.
👨🍳How to Make Crock Pot Honey Garlic Chicken Breasts
- Trim 1 to 1 ½ skinless boneless chicken breasts or thighs. If large, cut into several serving size pieces.
- Mix sauce. Only pantry ingredients are used.
- In a smaller crock pot (3-quart minimum), spray with cooking spray and line the bottom with the chicken.
- Pour sauce over the chicken and cook for 3-4 hours on low. Breasts should reach 165° or thighs should be 175° minimum when done.
- The sauce can be thickened with a corn starch slurry.
- Serve with rice and garnish with toasted sesame seeds.
🥣The Sauce
The sauce is very simple and has lots of taste. But you can modify it for your needs. You can use Tamari to replace the soy sauce if you need gluten-free. Most Tamari is gluten-free but check the label.
A touch of rice vinegar (some may contain gluten) or red pepper flakes are good. I added red pepper as an option.
Basil is in the model recipe, and many like it, but I generally leave it out, so it is optional. Some readers have replaced it with oregano.
The sauce may be thickened by adding 1 tablespoon of corn starch to 2 tablespoons of water, then adding it near the end of cooking.
A sodium note. The original recipe had a ½ cup of soy sauce. That was heavy on the salt. I receive complaints and now suggest only ¼ cup of low sodium soy sauce. There is still lots of flavor in the sauce.
❓FAQs
Yes. Any chicken will do as long as you monitor the final internal temperature. But the bone is clumsy to eat around, and the skin does not cook nicely in a crock pot.
No. There are two safety issues with adding frozen raw chicken to a crock pot to cook.
First is the internal temperature of the chicken may not rise fast enough to safely cook.
Second, there have been a few reports of ceramic crock pots breaking due to temperature differentials.
The simplest serving method is with the honey garlic sauce over rice or cauliflower rice with a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds and some sliced green onions.
Oriental vegetables are an excellent side dish. I suggest you stir-fry separately, but some readers add them in the last hour of cooking. I feel there are a number of possible issues with cooking time so if you do this, please be sure to get both the chicken and vegetables fully cooked.
Store in the refrigerator for 3-4 days and frozen in an airtight container for 3-4 months.
📖Chinese Recipes
Crock Pot Chinese Boneless Ribs
Crock Pot Beef and Broccoli
Easy General Tso Chicken
This recipe is listed in these categories. See them for more similar recipes.
🖼️Step-by-Step Photo Instructions
Just pantry staples you already have.
Start with 1 to 1 ½ pounds of skinless boneless chicken breast cut into 4-6 pieces. You may use chicken thighs if you wish.
In a medium bowl ½ cup of ketchup, ¼ cup soy sauce (low sodium preferred), ¼ cup honey, four cloves crushed garlic, ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional), and ½ teaspoon basil (optional) whisk together.
Spread the chicken across the bottom of a 3-quarts or larger crock pot. Add the sauce and mix.
If you want a thicker sauce, in a small bowl, make a cornstarch slurry by mixing 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with 2 tablespoons of cool water until smooth. Add to the crock pot and mix well during the last hour of cooking.
Cook on low for 3-4 hours. Breasts should reach 165°, or thighs should be 175° minimum when done.
Serve with rice and use the sauce as gravy. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds.
📖Recipe
Crock Pot Honey Garlic Chicken Breast
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds skinless boneless chicken breasts - May use thighs.
Honey Garlic Sauce
- ½ cup ketchup
- ¼ cup soy sauce - low sodium
- ¼ cup honey
- 2-4 cloves garlic - crushed
- ½ teaspoon basil - optional
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes - optional
Optional thickening
- 1 tablespoon corn starch
- 2 tablespoons water
For serving
- rice
- toasted sesame seeds
- sliced green onions
Instructions
- Start with 1 to 1 ½ pounds of skinless boneless chicken breast cut into 4-6 pieces. You may use chicken thighs if you wish.
- In a medium bowl ½ cup of ketchup, ¼ cup soy sauce (low sodium preferred), ¼ cup honey, four cloves crushed garlic, ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional), and ½ teaspoon basil (optional) whisk together.
- Spread the chicken across the bottom of a 3-quarts or larger crock pot. Add the sauce and mix.
- If you want a thicker sauce, in a small bowl, make a cornstarch slurry by mixing 1 tablespoon of cornstarch with 2 tablespoons of cool water until smooth. Add to the crock pot and mix well during the last hour of cooking.
- Cook on low for 3-4 hours. Breasts should reach 165°, or thighs should be 175° minimum when done.
- Serve with rice and use the sauce as gravy. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds.
My Private Notes
Recipe Notes
Pro Tips:
- Use low sodium soy sauce.
- It will fit nicely in a 3 qt or bigger crock pot. If you add vegetables, you will also need to increase the crock pot size.I
- Cook to an internal temperature of 165° for the chicken breasts. If using thighs, you will be happier with the texture of the chicken if you cook to 175°+.
- Thickening is optional and you may want to increase the amount of sauce for serving.
- Good refrigerated for 3-4 days. Good frozen for 3-4 months but cooked rice does not freeze well.
To adjust the recipe size:
You may adjust the number of servings in this recipe card under servings. This does the math for the ingredients for you. BUT it does NOT adjust the text of the instructions. So you need to do that yourself.
Nutrition Estimate
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Originally Published January 4, 2015. Updated with expanded options, refreshed photos, and a table of contents to help navigation.
geno
Never ever make this again. Weird concoction to say the least. Save the chicken for something good.
Menolly
Hi! I don't own a crockpot. But I have dutch ovens of every possible size. If I were to bring this to boil and cook in a 275F - 300F oven in a cast iron dutch oven, how much chicken stock should I add, and how long should I cook it? Thank you.
PS: are thawed but previously frozen chicken breasts acceptable? I wanted to use this on frozen chicken that I need to rotate out of the freezer. I typically thaw overnight in the fridge.
Barbara
Recipe looks and sounds great. Can I start with frozen chicken breasts?
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Barbara,
Welcome to the blog.
The two problems with frozen chicken in a crockpot is first, frozen chicken has been known to break ceramic crockpots during cooking, so a safety problem if the pot is ceramic. And second, a cooking time issue—be sure the chicken reaches 165°.
Dan
Paul D.
Fantastic recipe! My family loves it. My wife thinks I'm a genius, lol. I added chopped red, yellow, and orange bell pepper to the sauce and it was fantastic. I see a lot of comments about the sauce being a bit watery. My suggestion would be to use a fresh, dark honey in the recipe. The viscosity of the dark honey holds up better in the slow cooker. Just a suggestion. I'm lucky enough to live in the country, so it's readily available. If people have access to a farmer's market, you can probably find it there. My family wants me to make it again, so great job!
Sara
My sauce wasn't nearly as dark as the picture and I followed the directions to the T. Plenty of it and it was very flavorful, but looked more like a watered down blush colored sauce. Very wet and runny.
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Sara,
Welcome to the blog.
The color is determined by the ingredients, mainly the soy sauce and ketchup so perhaps one of those broke down some with cooking. Another possibility is the chicken releasing more fluid during cooking. This would happen if it had been previously frozen. At least the taste was good.
Dan
Jackie
I use this for both chicken and pork. Right now I'm using it with cubed pork - just a couple of boneless chops go a long way So easy I feel like I'm cheating. I find the sauce comes out tangy - almost like sweet and sour, perhaps that is because of the vinegar in ketchup. My secret ingredient is to add sliced water chestnuts. If I have a green pepper on hand I'll throw that in. Love your recipes since I don't have to run around looking for things I don't normally have on hand. Who would have thought such a simple sauce would be so great and versatile!