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| Slow Cooker Chicken Teryaki |
A slow cooker gourmet meal that’s fit for company.
Another adventure in crock pot cooking!
This is one of the best ones I’ve made yet. Yes, I know it has 2 more steps than “throw it in, set it, forget it,” but these steps are well worth the effort.
Browning the chicken gives it that glorious “caramel-y” taste that can’t be achieved in a slow cooker. Deglazing the pan for the juice is another step that adds extra flavor.
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| Marvelous infused flavor |
OK the broiler part is probably cosmetic, but it makes it look fantastic.
Basically here the slow cooker is used to infuse the flavor throughout the meat. This could probably be achieved with marinating, but this process is much quicker than the 12 hour marinating time! And that wonderful teryaki flavor is infused right down to the bone.
This is also a beautiful looking meal. One that’s good enough to serve to company! I suggest jasmine rice as an accompaniment but any rice will do. Steamed baby bok choi on the side would be an added yum.
If you can’t find dark sesame oil in your local store, try this link:
- 2 lbs chicken thighs (may use skinless)
- 1 tbs oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tbs grated fresh ginger or ½ tsp ground dry ginger
- ¼ cup water
- ⅓ cup soy sauce
- 3 tbs honey
- 2 tbs molasses
- 1 tbs rice vinegar
- ¼ cup sherry (apple juice may be substituted)
- 4 green onions sliced
- ½ tsp dark sesame oil
- To thicken:
- 2 tbs cornstarch
- ¼ cup water
- Spray or line (with a slow cooker bag) a 5-6 quart slow cooker.
- In a heavy large skillet, heat the 1 tbs of oil and brown chicken very well on both sides. Place browned chicken in slow cooker.
- Saute garlic and ginger in the same pan you browned the chicken for about 1 minute. Add the ¼ cup water, scraping up all the browned bits at the bottom of the pan. Add the soy sauce, honey, sherry, molasses and vinegar. Stir well and pour over chicken in slow cooker.
- Cover slow cooker and cook on HI for 4-5 hours (or until chicken is done).
- Remove the chicken from the slow cooker. Add the sesame oil to the remaining slow cooker juices. Mix cornstarch with ¼ cup water. With slow cooker set to HI, slowly add the cornstarch mixture and stir until sauce is thickened. Let bubble about 1 minute to swell and cook the cornstarch.
- NOTE: You may want to remove the juice to another pan if you used skin-on chicken as there will be fat. It will be easier to skim the fat if you remove to another pan.
- Preheat broiler to high. Place chicken on a broiler pan. Broil about 3 minutes each side or until chicken surface is slightly caramelized and bubbly.
- Place chicken on serving tray and pour sauce over chicken. Garnish with sliced green onions.
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| Slow Cooker Chicken Teryaki |
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| Slow Cooker Chicken Teryaki |
Copyright © Judith Hannemann aka The Midnight Baker 2014. All Rights Reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced without The Midnight Baker’s express consent.
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Yum
I live in a small town. I have never heard of rice vinegar. How does it differ? I have only normal white vinegar and apple cider vinegar.
Also, is there any substitute for dark sesame oil? We have no sesame oil of any kind here.
Hi Mandy–you can substitute either of those vinegars for the rice vinegar. I'd personally choose the apple cider though.
If you can't get sesame oil in the store, I've added a link to Amazon where you can purchase it. It really is necessary for flavor. You can leave it out, but I *highly* recommend getting some if you can. You can use it in so many things–not just this.
i don't have a slow cooker. is there an alternative cooking method?
thanks!!
Michelle–what I'd do then is marinate it in the sauce ingredients for about 8 hours or so, I'd also use a meat tenderizer to pucture the meat in a few places so the flavor infused. Then I'd just bake it at 350-375 for about 30-50 minutes–short time for boneless, more time for bone-in chicken.
Hello. I'm new here. I live in Israel and although we no longer live in tents! There are some things we can't get for some absurd reason or another.
No slow cooker. With anything that says slow cooking how long and on what heat should it be.
Had to stop for a moment. One of my cats demanded strokes.
I used sesame oil to fry with and it didn't work – I thought it was good for frying – and the smell was yukky. I chucked it and the date was good.
What can I use instead of molasses?
LOL Judy–your comment really made me smile!!! Oh, I know you guys don't live in tents…I have some friends in Tel A'Viv…live a lot more modern than I do…but onto the slow cooker–it's really weird that you can't get one there, but in a comment above I gave a method for doing this sans slow cooker. Basically marinate it and bake it. That should produce good results. Can you get treacle or golden syrup? They would be decent substitutes, even though not flavored like molasses, it's pretty similar in sweetness and texture. OMG…don't fry with sesame oil!!! That's used like a condiment –a few drops is all that's necessary. Too much will make the food taste gross!!!
Man oh man does this look and sound good. How do you think they would turn out with chicken wings?
Wings? Oh HECK YEAH!!!! Love it!!!
Thanks for your lovely reply. I haven't really looked seriously for a slow cooker.
I'm going to be. 70 next year :-[ and we didn't use them in the olden days. Oh my I thought you could fry with sesame oil. Dah. No golden syrup :'( Iuused to eat it by the spoonful in England in my youth and skinny days.
No treacle either. I don't think I've ever tasted it.
I had a big break in cooking when the kids were in the army and I got divorced so I stopped cooking and I've lost it. I used to cook bake make jams granola all sorts of things and now I'm sort of starting out again. My 15 year old granddaughter didn't know I could bake till her mum said I used to make wonderful cakes. My mum was good in the kitchen and she said I was better. Soooo. That's my story. I do make a good chicken curry and mushroom Alfredo.
Sorry. This isn't really a chatting blog is it. 🙂
Can you use boneless chicken breasts instead of thighs?
Personally I wouldn't Anne because slow cooking (to me) tends to make boneless, skinless breasts dry and stringy. If you prefer to use breasts, I'd marinate them for about 8 hrs in the sauce I give above and either bake or broil them.
I prefer to use my electric pressure cooker that has a browning setting whenever possible over a slow cooker. Do you think this recipe would translate well? I haven't put chicken thighs in before.
Thank you for you wonderful recipes!
It's worth a try Katie. But I would use a low pressure to cook it. Maybe 5 psi to 7 psi. Depending on your model. I have a Wolfgang Puck one (the digital) and I'd use "Vegetable" or "rice") and maybe cook for 7 min then check.
Hello! This recipe sounds delicious! My question is that I have a son who is allergic to corn – is there any alternative to the corn starch in the last steps to thicken the sauce? Thanks so much for all of your wonderful recipes!! 🙂
Hi Tina–you could use any thickening agent. Arrowroot may be a good choice here but even good old instant potatoes work in a pinch. Only thing is, the sauce will not be clear but that's just a visual thing. It will taste the same no matter what you use to thicken.
What about a little gelatine? Or is that a stupid idea?
I've never used my pressure cooker nor do I have a slow cooker. If I can get one here I don't know if it's worthwhile at my age 70 in August! What do you think Judith. Regards Judy. 🙂
The gelatine made me think of tapioca–which Rival used to recommend for thickening with their original recipes! So Tina, you can add about 1-2 tbs instant tapioca at the *beginning* of cooking! Thanks for the memory nudge Judy!
Judy, I just turned 60 and took a 15 yr subscription to a magazine, so yep, I'd buy a slow cooker. 60 is the new 30 and 70 is the new 40 (my sister will be 70 next year LOL).
40 was a terrible birthday for some reason. 70 doesn't bother me. It's just the number sounds sooooo old. I certainly don't look it. I'd send you a picture but I don't know how on my phone. Mazal tov to you – 60 and your sister 70.
🙂
I loved 40 so much I decided to stay that age…and this is just my 20th year of it!!!
Just had a thought tick tock
Instead of the molasses could I use the stuff made from dated the name of which I have conveniently forgotten or goodness forgotten that in English. Fruit with hard peel and luscious pink seeds inside. Bet your sister doesn't suffer from this. In the middle of sentences I forget what I'm talking about!
🙁
Pomagranates? Oh, sure that happens to us!!! And right in the middle of talking about something too. "What was I talking about," is an often-used phrase with either of us!
Pomegranate. Thank you. Easier to remember in Hebrew. Rimon which is also the word for hand grenade!
You didn't tell me if I could use it or the fig one. Wait starts with an S.
Silan. Do you know what that is?
Never heard of it LOL, but as long as it's thick, syrupy and sweet, it can probably be substituted.
Just been to my uncles '95th' birthday party and then went to see my sister's ma in law who is 98!
I fixed it for supper tonight,the whole family loved it. We will definitely be having it again.
Thank you for sharing,
LindY G
So glad your family liked it Lindy! If they like BBQ, I have one up that was absolutely fantastic. Tasted great cold too!
Just looked at BBQ chicken recipe, sounds like another keeper, thanks sweetie. I do love being able to cook in my Crockpot.
LindY
<3
can I make this for 20 people in the slow cooker? Thanks, Christine
I would try to use 2 slow cookers if I was going to do this for that many people Christine. If you are having a buffet with another choice of food, I'd substitute wings then you can pack the slow cooker.
I just made these today using boneless skinless chicken thighs and they were fabulous. Thank you.
Glad you liked them Mary. If you try that pork roast thing we talked about, let me know. 🙂
Has anyone tried this with Chicken breasts? Also has anyone calculated calories?
Chicken breast (especially if you mean boneless skinless) would probably come out very dry and I wouldn't recommend that.
You can try Spark People to estimate a caloric count as they have a calorie counter on the site. You can try fit people (I think that's the name) however, many of these apps are highly inaccurate, so proceed with caution.
Coupla comments. Maybe HI settings differ on slow cookers. I made this last night and the chicken thighs looked close to done at the two hour mark. I turned it down to medium at that point, and at four hours, the chicken fell from the bone entirely, making the transfer to a broiler more of a pulled-chicken affair–not something that could be plated separately as in the photos. The other point/recommendation: DO NOT SUBSTITUTE POMEGRANATE MOLASSES for regular molasses, it turned out tasting very strange, needing a flavor-overpowering mask of hawaiian sweet rolls, regular bbq sauce and sweet cole slaw
Absolutely–they all cook differently and if you have an older one–like from 10 yrs ago, it cooks at a lower temp. Times really are only "recommended" times because of this. I use just plain old Rival crock pots (newer iterations), but always check after a minimum time–maybe 3 hrs if you cook on HI.
Never heard of pomegranate molasses–I just used Crosby's
Made this tonight and loved it. I didn't have any honey so substituted corn syrup and it still came out good. My crockpot cooks on the high side, too, so they were done at the 2 hour mark. This would be excellent with pineapple and veggies in the sauce. I'm going to try that next time.
The pineapple sounds wonderful Jack! Corn syrup is always great to have around–never goes bad, never crystalizes and doubles well for honey in a pinch–as you know 😉 That's fast cooking, even for high–unless it's a Ninja. I find mine cooks in 2/3 of the time as a conventional slow cooker.
Can this slow cooker recipe be cooked on low? I would like to start it before work at 7:30' then eat after 6pm cook 10 hours).
Sure Linda. Using high is just a personal preference.