Slow Cooker Orange Chicken
This sweet and tangy slow cooker orange chicken recipe is a quick prep dinner that your family will love! This easy crock pot orange chicken is refined sugar-free and can easily be made gluten-free. Fresh orange juice and honey make a sticky sweet sauce that coats the chicken and brings fresh orange flavor to every bite!
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You can prep this slow cooker orange chicken in less time than it would take you to pick up takeout! And this homemade dinner is likely much healthier than what you might order from a restaurant.
This crockpot orange chicken with orange juice, honey and red pepper flakes takes just 10 minutes to prep! And the resulting chicken is tender with a sweet and tangy sauce that can be as spicy as you like it… or not spicy at all! Just leave out the red pepper flakes if you don’t want spicy orange chicken.
Serve this Slow Cooker Orange Chicken with brown rice and either steamed broccoli or roasted broccoli. To cook the rice try one of my rice recipes: Instant Pot Rice, Instant Pot Brown Rice or Stove top brown rice.
If you have any leftover orange chicken it reheats well for lunch the next day.
This orange chicken is healthier because it’s not breaded or fried. It’s also sweetened with honey and fresh orange juice instead of refined sugars. The honey makes a sticky sweet sauce that coats the chicken and brings fresh orange flavor to every bite!
This orange chicken cooks in your slow cooker on low for 4-5 hours or high for 2 1/2-3 hours. It’s the perfect dinner recipe for those days when you’ll be home in the afternoon to get a head start on dinner. Cook your rice earlier in the day while you’re getting the chicken started and dinner will come together in a flash later on!
You might also like these easy slow cooker chicken recipes:
- Crockpot Honey Sesame Chicken
- Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili
- Easy Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup
- Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken
- Slow Cooker BBQ Chicken
- 14+ Best Easy Crockpot Chicken Recipes
Tips for making this slow cooker orange chicken recipe:
- You can make this recipe gluten-free by substituting tamari for the soy sauce.
- The last step in this recipe is to thicken the sauce on your slow cooker’s high setting. This will take closer to 10 minutes if your slow cooker was already heated to high from cooking the chicken. If you cooked the chicken on low and then turn it to high to thicken the sauce, it will take longer for your insert to heat up and thicken the sauce.
- The red pepper flakes in this recipe are optional. I like a little bit of spice in my orange chicken but I leave it out when I’m serving this to my kids.
Slow Cooker Orange Chicken
Ingredients
- ½ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ cup honey
- 3 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce, or tamari for gluten-free
- 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- pinch of crushed red pepper flakes, optional, more or less to taste
- 1 ½ pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts
- salt and pepper
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- ¼ cup water
- cooked brown or white rice, for serving
- chopped green onions, for serving
Instructions
- In a liquid measuring cup or medium bowl, whisk together the orange juice, water, honey, soy sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, ground ginger, and red pepper flakes (if using).
- Place chicken in bottom of slow cooker. (I use and recommend this 5 quart slow cooker.) Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pour sauce over chicken.
- Cover and cook on high setting for 2 ½-3 hours or low setting for 4-5 hours, until chicken is cooked through.
- Remove chicken to a cutting board, and let cool slightly. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and ¼ cup water. Pour into the sauce in the slow cooker and stir until well combined.
- Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces and return it to the slow cooker. Cover and cook on high until sauce is thickened. This can take anywhere from 10-30 minutes, depending on if your slow cooker was previously on high or low.
- Serve chicken and sauce over cooked brown or white rice. Garnish with chopped green onions, if desired.
Notes
Hello!! I so enjoyed cruisig around your website/blog. Your recipe for Slow Cooker Orange Chicken caught my eye. I always have frozen chicken breasts on hand and I actually had all the other ingredients except the fresh squeezed orange juice. We have a Farmers’ Market just down the street from the condo, and they had some nice ripe oranges so I could squeeze them for the freshest of fresh orange juice. This was a fun recipe to put together and gave me a chance to try out my new slow cooker. Everything turned out great and was very, very yummy. Thanks for sharing!!