Life is busy and you’re swamped trying to figure out dinner for tonight. What a familiar feeling! This honey teriyaki chicken recipe requires little effort, yet delivers so much flavor. We’re taking advantage of the slow cooker for this meal, as well as preparing a homemade honey teriyaki sauce. The whole process is fairly easy and the crockpot does most of the work. And bonus! It’s consistently crowd-pleasing, making it one of my favorite fall dinner recipes.
Tell Me About Slow Cooker Honey Teriyaki Chicken
Time: This recipe requires about 15-20 minutes of prep time which includes chopping an onion, making the quick sauce on the stove, and shredding the chicken which is a step later in the recipe. Plus, set aside a total of 4-6 hours for slow cooking. If easy slow cooker recipes are your jam, you’ll appreciate this sweet potato turkey chili and these slow cooker turkey meatballs, too. Preparation & Texture Go Hand-in-Hand: Once the chicken has cooked in the honey teriyaki sauce for a few hours, it locks in all that massive flavor and becomes incredibly tender. Then it’s time to remove and shred the chicken. Since it’s so tender, it shreds very quickly and easily. Place the chicken back into the slow cooker so it can soak up even more of the juicy sauce. (Shredded chicken offers more surface area for the sauce to coat!) Flavor: The chicken is infused with so much sweet-salty flavor from the bold and garlicky honey teriyaki sauce. Garnished with sesame seeds and scallions, this dish truly comes to life. I added onion for extra flavor, but you can leave it out if you’re not a fan.
What about leftovers? We can’t say this about many meals, but reheated honey teriyaki chicken is SO GOOD. It’s even tastier and more flavorful on day 2 or 3 after the sauce has thickened in the refrigerator—it sticks right to the chicken.
How to Make Honey Teriyaki Sauce
It’s certainly convenient to purchase a bottle of store-bought sauce, but we prefer making our own because you have total control of the ingredients and flavor. Plus, it tastes fresher and that makes a big difference in the final dish. You need cornstarch, brown sugar, honey, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and vinegar. We usually use rice wine vinegar, but apple cider vinegar works well too.
Are you looking for a traditional Japanese-style teriyaki sauce? We’ve made and loved Nami’s homemade teriyaki sauce. It’s incredible over salmon.
Today’s honey teriyaki sauce recipe is similar to the teriyaki sauce we use for pineapple teriyaki chicken. Though we use mostly honey in this version for a slightly different flavor, we still add a little brown sugar. Why both honey and brown sugar? Depth of flavor. We found the sauce lacking when we skipped the brown sugar completely.
No Slow Cooker? No Problem.
Follow the directions in the recipe note to make this teriyaki chicken recipe on the stove.
More Easy & Dependable Dinner Recipes
Slow Cooker Chicken Chili Honey Garlic Shrimp Walnut Crusted Chicken Baked Lemon Herb Salmon Vegetarian Pumpkin Chili Sweet Chili Chicken Lemon Thyme Chicken Turkey Pot Pie Baked Chicken Meatballs Creamy Garlic Chicken Crispy Coconut Chicken
