For those busy days when you crave something savory, comforting, and full of flavor, this Crockpot Slow Cooker Soy Honey Garlic Chicken recipe is a perfect go-to. This dish, which only requires a few basic ingredients like garlic, honey, and soy sauce, combines a perfect balance of savory and sweet flavors with a subtle umami that intensifies with slow cooking. The beauty of this recipe lies in its simplicity, as you can prepare the morning and come back to a perfectly cooked meal that’s ready to serve. I serve this dish over rice or alongside steamed vegetables, but it’s so versatile you can serve it with almost anything!
Drawing inspiration from Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cuisines, these dishes incorporate soy sauce, honey, and garlic as core ingredients. The combination of soy sauce with a sweet element, like honey, is especially popular in East and Southeast Asian cooking as it balances savory, sweet, and umami flavors. While traditional dishes often use ingredients like soy and garlic for marinades, glazes, or stir-fry sauces, the idea of combining them with honey for a slightly sweet touch has made many dishes appealing to Western palates.
Since ancient times, honey has been utilized in Chinese cooking because of its therapeutic qualities as well as its sweetness. Honey also provides a beautiful golden color and caramelized crust on roasted meats like pork, chicken, and duck. Cantonese-style char siu (barbecued pork) and Peking duck are brushed with a honey-based glaze, creating a crisp, sweet finish that enhances both flavor and appearance.
I love to eat out at Chinese restaurants, and I enjoy great chicken dishes around the world. LA, San Francisco, and New York all spring to mind when I think of good Chinese food, but you can probably find great Chinese and Asian restaurants in most cities and towns. Much of Chinese food is stir-fried in a wok with oil and seasonings as this method preserves the color, flavor, and texture of ingredients, and it is ideal for fast cooking. Steaming and braising are also popular, and while the likes of congee and soups are slow-cooked, meat is not usually cooked slowly.
Chinese cuisine is incredibly diverse and varies significantly across its many regions, each boasting its own cooking techniques, ingredients, and flavors. With thousands of years of culinary tradition, China’s food reflects deep cultural roots, agricultural variety, and intricate culinary philosophy. Key to this culinary diversity is the “Eight Culinary Traditions of China,” which include Sichuan, Cantonese, Shandong, Jiangsu, Fujian, Hunan, Anhui, and Zhejiang cuisines, each defined by distinctive flavors and ingredients.
In recent years, recipes made for slow cookers and crock pots have become a convenient way for busy families to cook home-cooked meals. Blending Asian flavors with the ease of Western cooking techniques has also been popular for decades, and slow-cooked Asian dishes like my Crockpot Slow Cooker Soy Honey Garlic Chicken are popular on dining tables across the States. Using a crockpot or slow cooker can make cooking incredibly convenient while producing flavorful and tender dishes. You can just add your meat straight to the pot, as I do in this recipe, or you can sear the meat before adding it to the crockpot so it caramelizes the surface and enhances the flavor.
The next time you’re craving Chinese food but don’t really have the time to prepare it after you get home, leave the takeout menu in the drawer and enjoy this Crockpot Slow Cooker Soy Honey Garlic Chicken.
Ingredients:
- 2 lbs (4 pieces) of chicken breast
- 1 cup reduced sodium soy sauce
- ½ cup honey
- ¼ cup hoisin sauce
- 1 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
- 6-8 cloves of garlic
- 2 scallions
- 1 tsp sesame seeds
- ¼ tsp salt, or to taste
- ¼ tsp black pepper, or to taste
Instructions:
- Grate your garlic.
- In your slow cooker add the chicken, soy sauce, honey, hoisin sauce, garlic, rice vinegar, toasted sesame oil, and salt and pepper. Stir until well combined.
- Cook in the slow cooker for 3-4 hours on high or 6-7 hours on low. Make sure to flip the chicken breast over when cooked halfway.
- Once fully cooked, shred the chicken. I use a hand mixer for easy shredding.
- Serve with rice and top with scallions and sesame seeds
