Crock Pot Honey Garlic Chicken has fall-apart tender chicken breasts or thighs coated in a sticky honey sauce. With only 10 minutes of prep, this is an easy weeknight dinner recipe.

Jump To:
- 👍Why you will love this recipe
- 🐓What your will need to make this recipe
- 👨🍳How to Make Honey Garlic Chicken in a Crock Pot
- ✔️Tips and Options
- ↕️How to make this a "for two" or "family size" recipe
- Suggested crock pot sizes
- ❓FAQs
- Serving and storage of leftovers
- 📖Chinese Recipes
- 🖼️Step-by-Step Photo Instructions
- Recipe
Everybody needs more easy chicken recipes. This is one of the easiest and best crock pot chicken recipes—save it or pin it today.
👍Why you will love this recipe
- This sticky honey chicken will become a family favorite with great Asian flavor and tender chicken breasts or thighs.
- You can use almost any size slow cooker and either chicken breasts or thighs.
- The sticky honey sauce is the feature of this recipe, but it is just a few pantry ingredients.
- It fits most healthy diets, like low-calorie and low-fat diets, and can be easily made gluten-free.
- Make it a complete meal by adding some vegetables with rice.
- Super easy to make with the step-by-step photo instructions.
Adapted from Allrecipes Honey-Garlic Slow Cooker Chicken Thighs.
🐓What your will need to make this recipe
- Chicken—skinless boneless chicken breasts or thighs
- Honey garlic sauce—soy sauce, honey, garlic cloves, basil(optional), crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
- Corn starch—optional for thickening
- For serving—rice, toasted sesame seeds, green onions
👨🍳How to Make Honey Garlic Chicken in a Crock Pot
- Trim and cut chicken breasts or thighs into pieces.
- Mix the honey garlic sauce.
- In a smaller crock pot, stir the chicken with the sauce until coated.
- Cook on low for 3-4 hours but check at 2 hours. Breasts are done at 165° and thighs at 180°.
- If you want a thicker sauce, add a cornstarch slurry for the last hour of cooking.
- Serve with rice and use the sauce as gravy. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds.
✔️Tips and Options
- Chicken tips
- Chicken skin does not cook well in a crock pot, so don't use chicken with skin.
- Bone-in chicken takes a bit longer to cook.
- Cutting the chicken breasts into a couple of pieces helps them cook faster and easier, making serving-size pieces and more surface area for the sauce to flavor.
- If using chicken thighs, use skinless, but they may be boneless or bone-in.
- The size of the thighs is thinner and smaller than the breasts, so they do not need to be cut into pieces.
- Cook chicken breasts to 165° and thighs, although safe at 165°, are tenderer at 180°+.
- You may shred the chicken near the end of cooking and mix it back into the sauce.
- Sauce tips
- 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 crushed red pepper flakes are good. I added red pepper as an option.
- The basil is in the model recipe, but I no longer use it, so it is optional. Some will use oregano to replace the basil.
- The recipe makes ¼ cup of the honey garlic sauce to use at serving, but some will want more, so adjust the amount of sauce to what you want. It will not affect the cooking.
↕️How to make this a "for two" or "family size" recipe
This is a very easy recipe to cut in half or double. As written, it makes four servings of about 1 cup and can be made in a 2-quart crock pot.
To adjust the recipe size in the recipe card
- Use the recipe card and change the number of servings to half or double.
- Use the amount of ingredients in the ingredient list, not the instructions—those do not adjust.
Suggested crock pot sizes
- For a half recipe—it will fit in a 1 quart, but crock pots smaller than 2 quarts are notoriously inaccurate in cooking. So use one at your own risk and watch the temperature.
- For a full-size recipe—a 2 to 4-quart crock pot works well. You can use bigger but watch the temperature closely. Cooking small recipes in large crock pots tends to overcook rapidly and may burn. Cook to an internal temperature and not by time.
- For a double recipe—use a 3-quart or larger crock pot and watch the final temperature.
❓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 issues with adding frozen chicken to a cooking crock pot.
First, the internal temperature of the chicken may not rise fast enough to cook safely.
Second, there have been a few reports of ceramic crock pots breaking due to temperature differentials.
The original recipe had a ½ cup of soy sauce. That was heavy on the salt. I receive complaints and suggest only ¼ cup of low sodium soy sauce. There is still a lot of flavor in the sauce.
Serving and storage of leftovers
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.
Store in the refrigerator for 3-4 days or freeze 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
Trim about 1 ½ pounds of chicken. If using skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut them into serving-size pieces. You may use skinless chicken thighs if you wish.
In a medium bowl, ½ cup of ketchup, ¼ cup of soy sauce (low sodium preferred), ¼ cup of 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 2-quarts or larger crock pot coated with PAM cooking spray. 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 180° minimum when done. Check the chicken temperature at about 2 hours since crock pots vary.
Serve with rice and use the sauce as gravy. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds.
Recipe
Crock Pot Honey Garlic Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds skinless chicken - breasts or thights
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
- Trim about 1 ½ pounds of chicken. If using skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut them into serving-size pieces. You may use skinless chicken thighs if you wish.
- In a medium bowl, ½ cup of ketchup, ¼ cup of soy sauce (low sodium preferred), ¼ cup of 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 2-quarts or larger crock pot coated with PAM cooking spray. 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 180° minimum when done. Check the chicken temperature at about 2 hours since crock pots vary.
- Serve with rice and use the sauce as gravy. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds.
Your Own Private Notes
Recipe Notes
Pro Tips:
- Use low-sodium soy sauce.
- It will fit nicely in a 2 qt or bigger crock pot. If you add vegetables, you will also need to increase the crock pot size and increase the sauce.
- 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 it to 180°+.
- 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.
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.
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!