Slow Cooker Chicken Teriyaki

Published May 30, 2012. Updated March 22, 2024

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Slow Cooker Teriyaki Chicken is tender, saucy chicken that is perfectly cooked with almost no effort. With a little bit of prep and quickly cooking up some fluffy white rice, you’ll have a fantastic and easy weeknight meal. 

The easiest slow cooker teriyaki chicken! It’s deliciously tender and packed with flavor. A recipe the whole family can agree.

Crockpot Chicken Teriyaki

Weeknight Crockpot Meals

Slow cooker meals, aren’t they just amazing? Throw the food in, say goodbye, then several hours later say hello to dinner. It really doesn’t get much easier. I saw this photo/recipe on foodgawker.com and new I had to try it.

I think I’ve finally realized another reason I love slow cooker meals, because I always have dessert after dinner so if I’m making dessert it’s nice to have a simple dinner to throw together. Also, I can never get over how tender and flavorful the meat is that’s been slowly simmered all day in the slow cooker.

Slow Cooker Chicken Teriyaki

I’m a sucker for a good chicken teriyaki dish, and I love to try it at different Japanese restaurants whenever I can. This crockpot version is so easy and delicious, because the sauce has time to really soak into the chicken—which is tender and packed with protein.

If you have a rice cooker or instant pot, you can quickly whip up some fresh, fluffy rice and get this on the table in under 20 minutes (with just a little prep work to get it started in the slow cooker in the morning). It’s a perfect weeknight meal for a family, since it’s satisfying and healthy and can be served whenever the family or individual members are ready to eat.

Slow cooker Chicken Teriyaki

I might also serve this with other Asian side dishes that I love, like potstickers, egg rolls, wontons, or fried rice! Enjoy!

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5 from 2 votes

Slow Cooker Chicken Teriyaki

The easiest slow cooker teriyaki chicken! It's deliciously tender and packed with flavor. A recipe the whole family can agree.
Servings: 6
Prep15 minutes
Cook4 hours 20 minutes
Ready in: 4 hours 35 minutes

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Place chicken in a slow cooker, set aside. In a mixing bowl, whisk together soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, light-brown sugar, honey, orange marmalade, ginger, garlic and pepper. Pour mixture over chicken in slow cooker, cover with lid and cook on low heat 4 - 5 hours. 
  • Remove chicken from slow cooker and shred. Strain sauce from slow cooker through a fine mesh strainer into a medium saucepan. In a small mixing bowl whisk together 1 1/2 Tbsp cold water and cornstarch. Pour cornstarch mixture into liquid in saucepan and heat mixture over medium high heat, stirring constantly, until mixture begins to gently boil. 
  • Allow mixture to gently boil about 20 seconds until thickened. Return chicken to slow cooker and pour teriyaki sauce from saucepan over chicken. Toss mixture gently to evenly coat. Serve warm over cooked rice garnished with optional sesame seeds and serve with diced fresh pineapple if desired.
  • Recipe Source: slightly adapted from Lake Lure Cottage Kitchen

Notes

*Adjust soy sauce to taste, sub unsalted chicken stock for soy sauce to reach desired level of saltiness.

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91 Comments

  • Jaclyn

    Hi Julie – I would recommend using thawed for this recipe. I hope you enjoy!

  • Anonymous

    Hi Jaclyn,
    can I put frozen chicken breasts in the crock? or is it better to use thawed?!?!?
    thx,
    Julie

  • Jaclyn

    Anonymous – it totally depends on the size of the chicken breasts you have, if you have 3 really large ones then they may be about 1 lb each and that would probably work great. I didn’t have a kitchen scale until last year and I actually picked one up at Bed Bath and Beyond for about $15 and I use it all the time now, you may find one helpful =). It also helps if I ever really want to count calories.

  • Anonymous

    How many (more or less) would be 3lbs of chicken. I have 3 chicken breast in the fridge that I cut in half because they were big. Maybe I can use that.

  • Jaclyn

    Janeth – I would recommend Sriracha hot sauce (one of my favorites and it goes great with Chinese food) but not too much so it doesn’t alter the taste of the teriyaki sauce.

  • Naomi Hitchcock

    Made this tonight and the family loved it! DEEEELISH! Thank you for all of your wonderful posts!

  • toelleandback

    I hate to be the Debbie Downer of the bunch, but I stumbled across this whilst stalking a friend’s Facebook, and was hardly able to contain my excitement since I had everything I needed to make it. Well, I made it exactly as written, save for making 1/2, since there’s only the 2 of us. I plugged everything in my private recipe box to make sure I had the division correct, and…it was terrible. I mean almost nauseating it was so bad. As a good American lover of Asian food, when in doubt, I tried covering it in sriracha. It didn’t help. I won’t be making this one again, for sure. But! I do have your slow cooker chicken tikka masala in my crock pot now. This one has smelled and looked delicious from the get, so I’m sure this will turn out much better! Even though the teriyaki was a bust, I’m still thrilled to have stumbled onto a blog with just the kinda food that gets me excited…AND in crock pot form!