Crock Pot Teriyaki Chicken is an Asian chicken dinner that you can enjoy without leaving your house! This recipe delivers all of the teriyaki flavors of Asian take-out, made easily in your slow cooker. This dish features juicy chicken thighs and fresh vegetables tossed in a sweet teriyaki sauce.
Is teriyaki chicken healthy?
While it may not be the healthiest Asian dinner, slow cooker teriyaki chicken is definitely on the healthier side. Especially in comparison to fried Asian foods like Bejing beef or orange chicken.
My crock pot teriyaki chicken recipe is a bit healthier than many others, in the following ways:
- I use low-sodium soy sauce. You may be surprised to know that one tablespoon of regular soy sauce has 879 milligrams of sodium. The American Heart Association recommends consuming no more than 2,300 milligrams per day. This means 1 tablespoon of soy sauce has more than one-third of the recommended daily intake of sodium for adults!
- This recipe calls for real mirin. Mirin is a sweet rice wine, similar to sake, but with less alcohol. The sugars in mirin form naturally during the fermentation process, so they are complex carbohydrates. There is no actual sucrose in real mirin.
- There is no corn starch in this dish. Instead of using corn starch to thicken the teriyaki chicken sauce, I use a grated potato. This is not the traditional way to make the dish, but a great way to avoid overly processed corn starch. As a resistant starch, potatoes won’t cause spikes in blood sugar like corn starch can. For thickening sauces, a grated potato is a healthier option, working almost as well as corn starch.
What type of chicken is best for crock pot teriyaki chicken?
When I make slow cooker recipes with chicken, like this one or my slow cooker lemon chicken, I use chicken thighs. While chicken breasts may be a healthier choice than chicken thighs for some, breast meat can dry out when it’s slow cooked.
Still, if you prefer white meat, you can substitute chicken breasts for thighs when you make this Crock Pot teriyaki chicken recipe. No matter which type of chicken you use, the cooking time will be the same, and it will still be super delicious.
Is teriyaki chicken a good meal prep recipe?
This recipe is perfect for making teriyaki chicken meal prep bowls! Teriyaki chicken thighs freeze well, so you may even want to double the recipe when cooking the chicken. Sadly, cooked veggies can become mushy when they’re reheated, so I recommend freezing the chicken without the veggies.
Slow Cooker Teriyaki Chicken Serving Suggestions
Here are a few ways that I enjoy serving teriyaki chicken:
- Serve over instant pot rice, choosing white, brown, or even wild rice.
- To make the dish healthier, swapping rice for spiralized zucchini is a great low carb option.
- You can even serve this crock pot teriyaki chicken in lettuce wraps!
Crock Pot Teriyaki Chicken
Ingredients
- 1.5 lbs skinless boneless chicken thighs
- 1 cup low sodium soy sauce
- 1/3 cup real mirin
- 1-2 inches grated fresh ginger
- 4 cloves crushed garlic
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1 white potato
- 4 cups small broccoli florets
- 2 thinly sliced red bell peppers
- sesame seeds
- spring onions
Instructions
- Add grated ginger, crushed garlic, soy sauce, mirin, and honey to your slow cooker and whisk until well combined.
- Peel and grate the white potato and add to sauce.
- Add chicken thighs, put on the lid and set to 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low.
- If cooking on high, remove the lid at the 3-hour mark and add broccoli and sliced bell pepper and cook uncovered for the last hour. If cooking on low, do the same but for the last 2 hours. This is to let gently steam the vegetables and thicken the sauce a little due to water evaporation.
- The chicken will easily fall apart. No need to cut or shred.
- Serve over rice and sprinkle with sesame seeds and sliced spring onions.
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Webb says
Is there a reason that a teriyaki chicken dish uses soy sauce and does not have any teriyaki?
Lorena Grater says
teriyaki is a mix of different ingredients, it’s not an ingredient as such. A store-bought teriyaki sauce will be mostly soy sauce and sugar.
Diane says
Instead of choosing either or, mixing 1/2 & 1/2 chicken thighs and breasts works out to a good balance of not too dry, but not too greasy in crockpots.
Thanks for all the testing you do. Always learning about unusual, quality ingredients from you.
Lorena says
That’s a great idea actually! I will definitely give that a try in the future. So far I find cooking chicken breasts for too long not so nice, haha.