In the mood for something different for dinner? Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken should be in everyone’s recipe quiver. And you’ll have an excuse to buy a jar of blackberry jam. Hooray!
Layer chicken in the bottom of a crock pot. Pour over the sauce. Turn on the low setting. Then run some errands. go to the bookstore, get a pedicure, or do what I did and catch up on Homeland episodes – anything for 4-5 hours.
The original recipe calls for bone-in, skinless chicken breasts. Of course I didn’t have any, but I did have a couple of frozen skinless, boneless chicken breasts, and a bunch of skin on, bone-in chicken thighs. What the heck? I took the skin off the thighs, and threw them into the mix with the frozen chicken breasts. Once the chicken is cooked, take it out of the crock pot, remove the bones and shred the meat. In a saucepan, thicken the sauce on the stove with a slurry of cornstarch and water, add the cooked, shredded chicken, and pour into a serving dish. Fabulous! And it looks so impressive piled high sprinkled with sesame seeds and thinly sliced green onions. This chicken wonder is perfect over cooked rice.
Because I sometimes get lazy, I didn’t feel like getting out a clean saucepan to reduce the sauce. So, I left the sauce in the slow cooker, added the cornstarch slurry to the sauce, stirred it around a bit, dumped the shredded chicken back in, stirred that around a bit, put the lid back on over low, and left it alone, while I made the rice. The sauce probably could have been a bit thicker, but it wasn’t a deal breaker for me or Richard.
Actually, the sauce is so flavorful, you could slow cook a bunch of chicken legs or wings. Thicken the sauce before serving to pour over the meat or use it as a dipping sauce, and you’ve got an out of this world football afternoon snack or party dish.
Here you go:
- 3 large bone-in, skinless chicken breasts OR any combination of skinless chicken breasts and skinless chicken thighs to equal 2½ to 3 pounds
- ½ cup honey
- ½ cup soy sauce, regular or low sodium
- ¼ cup blackberry jam, seeded or seedless - your preference
- ¼ cup hoisin sauce
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ cup diced onion
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 3 Tablespoons water to form a slurry
- Sliced green onions
- Sesame seeds
- Line the bottom of a slow cooker with the chicken.
- In a medium bowl, mix together all the ingredients for the sauce: honey, soy sauce, jam, hoisin sauce, olive oil, garlic, onion, and pepper flakes. Pour over the chicken.
- Put the lid on the slow cooker. Set the temperature to low. Cook for 4-5 hours.
- When the chicken is done, remove it from the slow cooker. Remove the bones from the meat, and shred.
- To thicken the sauce, pour it into a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the cornstarch/water slurry, and whisk until the mixture begins to thicken and become translucent.
- Pour the sauce over the shredded chicken. Toss to evenly distribute the sauce. Serve with cooked rice.
