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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:
Richard Presser says
I made this and added the bourbon at the beginning, we loved how it turned out. Had it over the bacon fried rice Both will be made again.
Karly says
Sounds delicious over fried rice!
Selina says
I am gonna try this!!!! Looks so good. Hope my kids will like it.
Liz says
Starting recipe now. Wondering if anyone tried it with Bourbon?
JoAnn Jayson says
i don’t even see bourbon mentioned !
SELINA@BEGINCOOKING says
It looks fantastic and can’t wait for my family and I to try it!
Thanks for your sharing!!
Selina says
I followed this recipe exactly and omg it came out so good!!
Thanks for your sharing!!
Karly says
So glad you gave it a try! 🙂
Susan says
Delicious chicken , its my favorite dish i love it
Michele says
Could I use the shredded chicken I already have on hand?
Karly says
You could try making the sauce on the stove and tossing the chicken with it, but I wouldn’t do this in the slow cooker.