If you haven’t pulled out your crockpot in a while, tonight is the night. I’ve had this Easy Crockpot Teriyaki Chicken recipe sitting on my computer for ages because I needed to take better pictures.
I wanted better shots that accurately portray just how easy and delicious this recipe is, but let’s be honest, chicken meals in the crockpot don’t pop out looking like a magazine picture and don’t believe the ones you see all over pinterest.
Most bloggers spend a whole lot of time garnishing and propping the sauce up just so, but most often, it’s not a reality because slow cooked chicken meals often all look very similar. Let’s just chuckle together about this and agree to never feel bad when your end result doesn’t look just like the picture, well, except for this time. 😉
Your recipe will look like this (or you can shred it a bit more to get it looking extra pretty.)
Any time I make chicken in the crockpot, I make extra because the shredded chicken offers so many additional C.O.S.T. (Cook once, serve twice) meals. When I have time, there’s nothing better than using a homemade Teriyaki Sauce. It allows you to control the ingredients, but does take a bit longer. I keep storebought on hand just for those busy days, which are most of them. 😉
Remember, crockpot meals are always flexible. Since I list a store bought teriyaki sauce, your favorite spice flavors may not come through. My family always likes tiny bite to our recipes, so I might add a teaspoon or two of red pepper flakes, ginger and garlic powder, but they aren’t in the ingredients list since this has lots of flavor as is.
For the first meal, I typically serve this recipe over rice with steamed veggies and we enjoy the extra sauce this makes. Sometimes I add the veggies in the final hour for ease. I want to note that I offer the option to remove the chicken to thicken up the sauce. If I’m in a hurry, sometimes I will push the chicken to the side and just thicken it with the chicken right in the crock pot. Crock pot times vary and so it’s difficult to say an exact amount of time. I have kept it on low for 8 hours before when I’m gone for the day. Very rarely does it dry out due to the amount of liquid, but it can happen (as with any crockpot chicken recipes.) I find that using fresh chicken breasts makes a huge difference with that, but since frozen tends to be cheaper, you find me using those as well.
If you tweak the recipe a bit, I’d love to hear what you do.
Enjoy!!
Recipe: Easy Crockpot Teriyaki Chicken
Summary: This easy and flavorful Crockpot Teriyaki Chicken comes together in minutes.
Ingredients
- 1 cup teriyaki sauce (I love this simple homemade teriyaki sauce.)
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 2/3 cup brown sugar, packed (you can reduce this if you don’t like it too sweet or are watching sugar content)
- 1/2 cup low sodium (my preference) soy sauce
- 4-5 garlic cloves, minced (or storebought)
- 3 teaspoon sesame oil
- 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (typically about 3 pounds)
- 2TB cornstarch *
- 2TB cold water *
- 1 green onion, thinly sliced for garnish* optional
- Sesame seeds, garnish*
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together teriyaki sauce, chicken broth, brown sugar, soy sauce, garlic and sesame oil.
- Line the chicken breasts into the bottom of the crockpot. Pour teriyaki mixture over the top of chicken and gently toss to combine.
- Cover and cook on low heat for 4+ hours. (Crock pots vary so much.)
- *To thicken sauce, remove chicken breasts. (The next three steps are optional.)
- In separate bowl, whisk the cornstarch and cold water together, then pour into sauce and stir together.
- Turn crockpot on high for 30 minutes until thickens.
- Shred the chicken before returning to the sauce.
- Cover and keep warm.
- Serve immediately over rice or Asian noodles. Garnish with green onions and sesame seeds, if desired.
Preparation time: 8 minute(s)
Cooking time:
Number of servings (yield): 8
Yum! This looks good. I bet pineapple juice or apple cider vinegar might add extra flavor as well. Can’t wait to try it-thanks for sharing.
[Reply]
Jen Reply:
April 24th, 2015 at 8:04 am
Absolutely. In fact, sometimes if I don’t use store bought sauce, I’ve made it with apple cider vinegar and a few other ingredients.
[Reply]
Just thought I’d let you know that the big advert at the top of the screen hangs up for quite a while. I got past it by backspacing to just the name of your blog, but when I wanted to ‘read more’ it returned and sat forever. You might be losing some readers because of this; or it might just be my computer. Then again, I see there is another advert that pops up in the lower right corner, so maybe this is important to you. I admire anyone who can make money from their blog, but if people are annoyed by the adverts it might be something you want to consider.
[Reply]
Jen Reply:
April 24th, 2015 at 5:00 pm
I don’t actually place the ads on my site, so I have no idea what is popping up since I am not on the home page of my blog often, but this is VERY important for me to know since I have repeatedly told them not to use any like that. I do NOT want those pop ups on there and dont want annoyed readers (like I get when those are there), so this is something that has been added without my knowledge. Do you by chance remember what the ad was for? Thanks for letting me know since I have tried to get that to happen from my laptop and it’s not coming up.
[Reply]
I’ve noticed the same thing for quite a while. I scroll down to get past it whatever HUGE add it is, have hit your blog button or home button to get to your site-without the add. Until today,
I didn’t know that it should NOT be there-just figured it was a pain that had to be dealt with-in our wonderful age of technology. Right now, it is a shoe company “Off Broadway Shoe”-click to see more! And yep-it comes up large and clear. I would dump whoever you are dealing with re: adds, and agree with the gal that said it is costing you readers. Kind of like an advertisement taking over the cover of a magazine. Let me at LEAST open the cover before I’m bombarded with adds. Viewers, likewise should be able to see your blog FIRST!
[Reply]
Jen Reply:
April 25th, 2015 at 10:20 pm
Ann – are you seeing those on your cell phone, ipad or is it on your home computer? Thanks so much for helping. They’ll ask that when I tell them since the ads are different on mobile vs laptop.
[Reply]
ps It is “Off Broadway Shoe Warehouse.” I forgot to put the warehouse in.
[Reply]
Jen – The one that makes it hard to get into your site is a huge banner at the top and the advert is always the same – Tu brand clothes from Sainsbury’s (a supermarket chain here in Britain, where I live). Don’t remember what the annoying pop up was at the bottom – I try to ignore them as best I can! Thanks for responding to this – there is so much really helpful information on your blog I’d hate for anyone to give up on getting to it!
[Reply]
The ad is smaller today-“Ashley Furniture”-makes your site name at least visible
However, when I went to click “read more” there is now a pop up for a survey
“Voice 5” in a small box. I had to opt out of that to get past it..pheew! The hoops
that make all of this technology so “convenient!”-ha! Hope readers feed back helps,
but I do imagine that many think they have just hit a commercial site and opt out.
[Reply]
I have mostly stopped coming to your blog because of the pop-ups, especially on my cell phone. They take up the whole page and are super obnoxious. 🙁 If you can get rid of them, I’ll be back more often!
[Reply]
Jen Reply:
April 29th, 2015 at 3:59 pm
I think all the pop ups on the cell phone should be done now. I’ve switched my theme for that. I just didn’t even know about the pop ups because I don’t get any on my computer. So wish I had known earlier, but Glad it was brought to my attention now so it can be fixed.
[Reply]
Clicked on the link and got straight to your beautiful green print background (and the rest of the blog) – no horrible banner hang up now! Yay! Thanks!
[Reply]