11 Crockpot Asian Chicken Dinners

These crockpot Asian chicken dinners are how I cut our takeout bill in half.

From orange chicken and sesame chicken to a butter chicken with naan and a sticky Mongolian version, they all come together with a bottle of soy sauce and things I already have in the pantry.

Here are the eleven we order from our own kitchen!

None of these are the crispy, battered kind, and I want to say that up front.

What you get is tender chicken in a glossy sauce over rice, and on a Tuesday at six o’clock, that’s better than crispy anyway.

1. Teriyaki Chicken

Soy, brown sugar, garlic, ginger, and a splash of rice vinegar, and the chicken simmers in it until it pulls apart.

The sauce gets thickened with cornstarch at the end so it clings to the chicken and doesn’t pool underneath.

Rice, steamed broccoli, and sesame seeds, and my kids have never once turned it down.

I double the sauce every time, because there’s never enough for the rice.

2. Honey Garlic Chicken

Thighs cook in honey, soy sauce, and a whole head’s worth of garlic, with carrots and potatoes tucked in around them.

The vegetables soak up the sauce and the whole dinner comes out of one crock, so there’s nothing else to make.

It’s sweeter than the teriyaki above and less salty, and it’s the one I’d hand to a picky eater first!

3. Orange Chicken

The mall food court favorite, without the fryer.

Chicken pieces cook in orange juice, orange zest, soy sauce, brown sugar, and a little rice vinegar, and the sauce reduces to a glaze that’s sweet with a real orange bite.

A pinch of red pepper flakes keeps it from being cloying, and the zest is what makes it taste like orange and not like juice.

Over rice with green beans, and the leftovers are good cold.

4. Sesame Chicken

Honey, soy, sesame oil, and garlic, and a handful of toasted sesame seeds stirred in at the end.

It’s close to the honey garlic version in ingredients and far from it in flavor, because the sesame oil changes everything.

Use toasted sesame oil and add it late, since it loses its flavor over a long cook.

Steamed rice and broccoli, and a few more sesame seeds on top for looks.

5. Honey Sesame Chicken with Broccoli and Rice

The full bowl, built in the slow cooker, with the rice and broccoli cooked alongside the chicken.

The rice goes in with an hour left and the broccoli with thirty minutes, so nothing turns to paste.

It’s the meal-prep version of the sesame chicken above, and it holds up in the fridge for four days without the broccoli going gray.

A drizzle of sriracha over each bowl wakes it up on day three.

6. Cashew Chicken

Chicken and bell peppers in a soy, hoisin, and ginger sauce, with a big handful of cashews stirred in right before serving.

The cashews go in last so they stay crunchy, which is the point of the dish.

Toss the chicken in cornstarch before it goes in, and the sauce thickens itself by the time it’s done.

Rice and a few sliced green onions, and it’s a bowl I’d pay for.

7. Sweet and Sour Chicken

Pineapple chunks, bell peppers, and chicken in a sauce made from the pineapple juice, vinegar, ketchup, and brown sugar.

It’s tangy, it’s a little sweet, and it’s brighter than the bottled sauce by a mile.

The peppers go in late so they keep some crunch.

Rice underneath, and it’s the one my kids call “the pineapple chicken” and ask for by that name.

8. Butter Chicken

Not Chinese takeout, but it’s the Indian dish I make more than any other and I wasn’t leaving it out!

Chicken cooks in a sauce of tomatoes, garam masala, ginger, garlic, and butter, and heavy cream finishes it so it’s silky.

Warm naan from the store, basmati rice, and a spoonful of yogurt, and it’s better than most restaurant versions I’ve paid for.

It freezes well, and a double batch is no more work.

9. Chicken Tikka Masala

Butter chicken’s spicier cousin, with a yogurt marinade and a little more heat.

The chicken marinates in yogurt and spices for an hour or overnight, then cooks in a tomato sauce with the same warm spices and a splash of cream.

Coconut milk works instead of cream and makes it a bit lighter.

Rice, naan, cilantro, and lime over the top.

10. Mongolian Chicken

The sweet, sticky, soy-and-brown-sugar sauce from Mongolian beef, on chicken, and it’s cheaper and just as good.

Thin-sliced thighs cook in a soy, brown sugar, garlic, and ginger sauce with a cornstarch coating that thickens the sauce as it goes.

Green onions cut long go in at the end, and they’re half the dish.

Rice, plenty of it, since the sauce is the point.

11. Asian Glazed Chicken

Chicken thighs in a glaze of soy, honey, hoisin, and sriracha, and it’s the one to make when you can’t decide between the others.

It’s a little sweet, a little spicy, and sticky enough that everyone ends up licking a finger.

Serve it over rice with cucumber slices and sesame seeds, and keep the extra glaze in a bowl on the table.

Notes on Asian Chicken in a Slow Cooker

Thighs are the better cut for every one of these, because they stay juicy through a four-hour cook and breasts turn stringy in a sweet sauce.

Chicken breasts work at three hours on low if that’s what you have, and not a minute more.

Nearly every sauce here needs a cornstarch slurry near the end, on high, and without it the sauce is soup.

Low-sodium soy sauce, because the sauces reduce and regular soy gets too salty by the end.

A small rice cooker running alongside the slow cooker is how dinner shows up at the same time.

Fresh ginger keeps for months in the freezer and grates straight from frozen with a microplane, so there’s no reason to use the jarred kind.

I keep toasted sesame oil and hoisin sauce in the fridge door, and between them, soy sauce, and honey, most of these sauces are already in the house.

All of the saucy ones freeze for three months, and the ones with rice or broccoli cooked in don’t.

More Crockpot Chicken on the Site

The crockpot meals with chicken breast that don’t dry out post has the timing I use when I’m cooking breasts in a sweet sauce.

My quick crockpot dinners with ten minutes of prep post is where the teriyaki chicken first showed up.

And when I want creamy instead of sticky, it’s the crockpot chicken alfredo pasta.