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Our Crock Pot Bourbon Chicken recipe is just like the Chinese bourbon chicken from your favorite take out restaurant! There’s no bourbon in this recipe – it’s named after Bourbon Street in NOLA and it’s so flavorful and tasty!
Bust out the slow cooker, we’re making saucy shredded chicken for dinner!
Bourbon Chicken without the bourbon? Hear me out.
Every time I serve this recipe to friends and family they rave about it and ask for the recipe themselves. And without fail, they are confused about the lack of bourbon in the recipe.
This crockpot bourbon chicken is not named after the liquor! It’s said to have been created by a chef on Bourbon Street in NOLA! So, no, I didn’t forget to list the bourbon in the recipe. 😉
This one cooks up tender, saucy, drippy, and flavorful – perfect over a bed of white rice to soak up the juices!
We have this shown with our Asian cucumber salad and we also love to serve this with some air fryer egg rolls or our sausage egg rolls.
We serve this piled on white rice, but it’d be good on our bacon fried rice too!
♥ What We Love About This Recipe:
- Saucy Goodness: The star of this recipe is the sweet and savory sauce. It has an Asian flair, tasting similar to the bourbon chicken you get from the Asian restaurants in the food court at the mall.
- Easy Peasy: Whisk together the sauce and toss it in the slow cooker with some chicken. Dinner doesn’t get a lot easier than that!
- Meal Prep: This bourbon crock pot chicken reheats beautifully so feel free to make a double batch to have extra for lunches all week.
Ingredient Notes:
Chicken – We’re using boneless, skinless chicken breasts but you could also use boneless chicken thighs here if that’s what you prefer.
Bourbon Sauce – This simple homemade bourbon sauce is a mixture of honey, low sodium soy sauce, ketchup, sriracha, and salt. Be sure to use low sodium sauce or this will be overwhelmingly salty.
Corn Starch – We’ll whisk this in at the end to make the sauce a bit thick and glossy.
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
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How to Make Crockpot Bourbon Chicken:
Mix together the onion, garlic, honey, soy sauce, ketchup, sriracha, and salt in your slow cooker until it is well combined. Add the chicken to the sauce.
Cover and cook the bourbon chicken on low for 4 hours or on high for 2.5 hours. When ready shred the chicken with a couple of forks in the sauce and stir well.
Dissolve the cornstarch in water and add it ot the slow cooker with the sauce. Put it on high heat for 20 minutes or remove it to a pan on the stove over medium high heat to thicken the sauce up.
When the bourbon chicken sauce has thickened up to your liking serve it hot over some rice with green onion!
Serving Suggestions:
You can serve this crockpot bourbon chicken with all kinds of sides! We enjoy it most over white rice but you can change that up or serve it with other Chinese American dishes. Our bacon fried rice or spam fried rice would likely be tasty here too!
Our bacon lo mein would make a great side dish as well! Some spicy Szechuan green beans would pair well with the sweet and savory bourbon chicken sauce too.
Freezing & Storage Instructions:
If you have leftover crockpot bourbon chicken you can keep it stored in the refrigerator for about 4 days in an airtight container.
We reheat this with a bit of the sauce in the microwave.
This bourbon chicken recipe can also be frozen for up to a few months. Store the chicken and bourbon sauce in a freezer safe container or zip top bag. Let it thaw in the refrigerator overnight before reheating.
Recipe FAQs:
This simple homemade bourbon chicken sauce doesn’t actually contain bourbon! It’s a mixture of garlic, onion, honey, soy sauce, ketchup, sriracha sauce, and salt. Named after Bourbon Street in NOLA, this sauce packs big flavors.
Yes! It’s definitely okay to cook raw chicken or any raw meat in the slow cooker. It’s common to brown meat in a skillet or sear it a bit before slow cooking to add flavor. We mostly do that with beef or pork but you can brown the chicken first too if you prefer.
Low and slow is the best way to prepare this shredded crockpot bourbon chicken! It takes about 4 hours on low, or 2.5 hours on high if you need to save a bit of time.
Bourbon Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 sweet onion diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 3/4 cup honey
- 1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
- 1/4 cup ketchup
- 2 teaspoons sriracha more to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken breasts
- 2 tablespoons water
- 2 teaspoons corn starch
- cooked white rice for serving
- green onions for garnish
Instructions
- Add the onion, garlic, honey, soy sauce, ketchup, sriracha, and salt to a slow cooker. Stir well to combine.
- Add the chicken breasts to the sauce and stir to coat both sides.
- Cover and cook on low for 4 hours or high for 2 1/2 hours.
- Shred the chicken with two forks and stir well.
- Dissolve the corn starch in the water and add to the slow cooker. Return slow cooker to high heat for 20 minutes or remove to a pan on the stove over medium heat and cook until sauce has thickened over medium heat, about 5 minutes.
- Serve over rice with green onions.
Tips & Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Rance Walleston says
I just made this recipe. VERY salty. Could not eat it. 1/2 cup Soy sauce and more salt are too much. Just my opinion.
Katie says
Didn’t have a bourbon chicken taste but it was good anyway!
Susan Poweres says
I actually have this in the slow cooker now and had a question. When you add the cornstarch/water to mixture, is it just to the sauce or the sauce and chicken?
Richard Presser says
I had to take the sauce and thicken it on the stove really worked good when i did that
Emma says
This looks delicious! I have been looking for a slow cooker recipe lately, gonna try this one soon. Thanks for sharing.
Denise says
Hi! I’m trying this today! The recipe makes for a lot of servings and there are just 2 of us. Can I freeze the leftovers for another day? I usually freeze caserolls and then defrost when we want to eat & bake in the oven. Advice for the bourbon chicken? Thanks!
Karly says
Hi Denise! Sorry for the late reply – I haven’t tried freezing this, but I imagine it would work fine! Hope you enjoyed the meal!
Jocelyn says
We loved this dish! My sauce didn’t thicken up much, so perhaps I’ll try adding more cornstarch next time (there will be a next time!). Thank you.
Karly says
The cornstarch needs some decent heat to thicken up, so you could also try moving it to the stove top and thickening that way. Some slow cookers just don’t get super hot. 🙁
Mary says
Wow this looks amazing! I’ve been craving savory sweet dishes this summer and that fact that it’s a slow cooker recipe makes it even more appetizing!
Kat D says
Can this be converted for use in a pressure cooker?
Karly says
I’m sure it could! I’d probably add everything but the cornstarch on the poultry mode in an Instant Pot or for 15 minutes on high pressure. Let the pressure naturally release and then add your cornstarch slurry to everything over high heat until it’s thickened. 🙂
Agness of Run Agness Run says
This is such an appetizing dish, Kathy! This makes a perfect lunch idea!
Mark says
OMG. That was awesome. Its a keeper.
Karly says
Yay! Glad to hear that!
Jodi says
Looks amazing! Can’t wait to try it.
Karly says
Hope you love it as much as we do!
Emily says
I was JUST looking for a slow cooker recipe for Sunday. This is perfect! I might make wonton tacos with it too…oh man…
Karly says
Wonton tacos + bourbon chicken sounds like a winner dinner!
Claire @ Easy Pasta Sauces says
This looks delicious. So saucy and made with pantry ingredients.
Can’t wait to give this a try!
ozfoodhunter says
This looks Awesome!!! I love delicious chicken recipes, Thanks for sharing.
Marsha | Marsha's Baking Addiction says
This chicken looks so juicy and delicious! I love meat over rice meals!