Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken (Paleo)

Paleo Honey Garlic Chicken made in a slow cooker with only a handful of ingredients! You will love this easy paleo chicken dinner! Juicy chicken thighs slowly cooked in a delicious sweet and tangy honey garlic sauce. Serve with rice and veggies for a well-rounded meal!

Guys, is there anything better than to come home to a delicious home-cooked meal all ready for you, bubbling away in your slow cooker? Today, I will show you how to make a FREAKING delicious Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken - paleo, healthy and refined sugar-free without any weird ingredients! Picture fall apart-tender, bone-in and skinless chicken thighs  slow-cooked in a tangy-sweet honey garlic sauce!

I'm not gonna lie!  I might have watched family members pick up their plate and slurp up all the sauce after finishing off the chicken. No shame. It's that kind of delicious!

The sauce is made with simple ingredients like honey, soy sauce, tomato paste, rice vinegar, and plenty of garlic!

The taste, however, is truly memorable — an easy paleo chicken dinner that you will be thinking about long after the last leftovers have disappeared.

Talking about leftovers! This is an amazing recipe for meal prep! You can also make the sauce in advance. Refrigerate with the sauce for up to 3 days, or freeze for 3 months. If you want to make this whole dish ahead of time, you will be pleased to hear that the sauce soaks through the chicken while stored and tastes even better after a day or two!

How to make Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken:

Step 1 & 2 - First, layer your chicken at the bottom of your slow-cooker. In a blender or a small food processor blitz together the soy sauce, honey, tomato paste, chili sauce, garlic, and rice vinegar and add it to the chicken. Depending on how much time you have, either cook the chicken on high setting for 3 hours or low for 4-5 hours.

You don’t need the internal temp to get as high as you’ll find on the food safe charts because those charts don’t take into account the amount of time that a protein spends at a certain temperature. If you take the temp of your chicken at the end and it only reads 155-165F, don't worry! That’s totally fine because of how long it held at that temperature. 

Take out the chicken and set it aside while you finish the sauce.

Whisk the cornstarch separately with water or rice wine in a small glass. Add it to the leftover liquid in the slow-cooker. Put the lid back on and blast it on high for until the sauce thickens slightly, stirring occasionally. This can take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes.

If you want to speed this process up there are a couple options. You can transfer everything to a saucepan over high heat and cut your time down to 5-10 minutes. Or, if you were using the slow-cooker setting on an Instant-Pot, set it to Saute on high. Some slow-cookers also have oven/stovetop-safe inserts. If you know 100% sure that your model has this, you can just transfer that insert to the stovetop.

Step 3 & 4 - Shred the chicken and return it to the sauce. Give it a good stir to get the chicken evenly coated then stir in the lime juice. Garnish with the cilantro or scallions. (Unless somebody in your house absolutely hates cilantro, I really recommend it, as it pairs beautifully with the lime and the richness of the sauce)

What to serve with Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken?

I like to serve this paleo chicken dinner with cauliflower rice or broccoli rice or, if I’m craving carbs, on normal rice. Always with lots of fresh chopped green onions or cilantro but you can also go with parsley.

This also tastes amazing on veggie noodles, as a filling for baked sweet potatoes or as a topping for nachos or sweet potato nachos.

Tips:

• This chicken dinner is easily frozen, or lasts up to 4 days in the fridge.
• While the chicken thighs usually go into the slow cooker raw, pan-searing them first for just 2 minutes each side helps lock in juices and also creates a deeper flavor both for your chicken and the sauce!
• This also works great as a dip for nachos. Just make sure that you shred the chicken very finely or you’ll be fighting with it to get it onto your chip.
• You could use coconut aminos instead of soy sauce, if you want.
• You can also use chicken breasts instead of chicken thighs!

5 from 6 votes

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Paleo Honey Garlic Chicken

Paleo Honey Garlic Chicken made in a slow cooker with only a handful of ingredients! You will love this easy paleo chicken dinner! Juicy chicken thighs slowly cooked in a delicious sweet and tangy honey garlic sauce. Serve with rice and veggies for a well-rounded paleo meal!

Course dinner, main

Cuisine American, Asian

Keyword honey garlic chicken, paleo slow cooker chicken

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 5 hours

Total Time 5 hours 5 minutes

Servings 6

Calories 269 kcal

Ingredients

• 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs - or chicken breasts or a 1:1 mix of both
• ⅓ cup low sodium soy sauce + 1 tbsp
• ⅓ cup honey
• 3 Tbsp tomato paste
• 3 tsp chili sauce + more to taste
• 6 cloves garlic peeled
• 2 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with ¼ cup water or white wine
• juice of ½ lime
• fresh cilantro or scallions chopped

Instructions

1. First, layer your chicken at the bottom of your slow-cooker. In a blender or food processor blitz together the soy sauce, honey, tomato paste, chili sauce, garlic, and rice vinegar and add it to the chicken.

2. Depending on your own time constraints, either cook the chicken on high for 3 hours or low for 4-5 hours.

3. You don’t need the internal temp to get as high as you’ll find on the foodsafe charts because those charts don’t take into account the amount of time that a protein spends at a certain temperature. If you take the temp of your chicken at the end and it only reads 155-165F, that’s fine - because of how long it held at that temperature.

4. Take out the chicken and set it aside while you finish the sauce.

5. Whisk the cornstarch separately with water or rice wine in a small glass, then add it to the leftover liquid in the slow-cooker. Put the lid back on and blast it on high for until the sauce thickens slightly, stirring occasionally. This can take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes.

6. If you want to speed this process up there are a couple options. You can transfer everything to a saucepan over high heat and cut your time down to 5-10 minutes, or if you were using the slow-cooker setting on an Instant-Pot, set it to Saute on high. Some slow-cookers also have oven/stovetop-safe inserts, and if you know 100% for sure that your model has this, you can just transfer that insert to the stovetop.

7. Shred the chicken and return it to the sauce. Give it a good stir to get the chicken evenly coated then stir in the lime juice. Garnish with the cilantro or scallions (unless somebody in your house absolutely hates cilantro, I really recommend it, as it pairs beautifully with the lime and the richness of the sauce)

Recipe Notes

• This chicken dinner is easily frozen, or lasts up to 4 days in the fridge.
• While the chicken thighs usually go into the slow cooker raw, pan-searing them first for just 2 minutes each side helps lock in juices and also creates a deeper flavor both for your chicken and the sauce!
• This also works great as a dip for nachos. Just make sure that you shred the chicken very finely or you’ll be fighting with it to get it onto your chip.
• You could use coconut aminos instead of soy sauce, if you want.
• You can also use chicken breasts instead of chicken thighs!

Nutrition Facts

Paleo Honey Garlic Chicken

Amount Per Serving

Calories 269 Calories from Fat 54

% Daily Value*

Fat 6g9%

Saturated Fat 2g13%

Trans Fat 1g

Cholesterol 144mg48%

Sodium 705mg31%

Potassium 508mg15%

Carbohydrates 22g7%

Fiber 1g4%

Sugar 17g19%

Protein 31g62%

Vitamin A 176IU4%

Vitamin C 3mg4%

Calcium 26mg3%

Iron 2mg11%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

If you tried this Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken Recipe, don’t forget to rate the recipe below and let me know how it went in the comments – I love hearing from you! You can also follow me on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook for more deliciousness and behind-the-scenes!

 More healthy slow cooker recipes you will love:

• Slow Cooker Lemon & Rosemary Chicken
• Slow Cooker Butter Chicken 
• Baked Beans
• Slow Cooker Quinoa Chicken Chili
• Ginger Beef Stew