Slow Cooker Peanut Chicken

Slow cooker peanut chicken is my secret weapon for those nights when I’m running on empty but still want something that tastes amazing. You literally dump everything in, walk away, and come back to the most incredible smell wafting through your house. The chicken gets fork-tender, the sauce is creamy and rich with that perfect sweet-salty-spicy thing going on.

Love More Chicken Recipes? Try My Crock Pot Ranch Chicken or this Brown Sugar Garlic Chicken next.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

The peanut sauce gets all thick and clingy on the chicken, the veggies soak up all that flavor, and it’s just so satisfying without being heavy. Plus, leftovers taste even better the next day, which is saying something. It’s budget-friendly too since chicken breasts are usually on sale, and you probably have most of this stuff already.

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Ingredient List

Chicken & Vegetables

• 1.5 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• ½ large yellow onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped

Peanut Sauce

• ½ cup creamy peanut butter
• ½ cup chicken broth
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp chili garlic paste

Finishing & Garnish

• Juice of 1 lime
• 2 Tbsp chopped cilantro

Why These Ingredients Work

Okay storytime. About eight months ago I was on this health kick after seeing a photo of myself at my cousin’s wedding where I looked like a potato with legs. Decided to get that fancy organic natural peanut butter from Whole Foods, you know the kind where the oil’s all separated on top and you have to stir it with a knife for ten minutes. Thought I was being so healthy and responsible. Made this recipe with it.

The chicken broth stops this from being what I can only describe as “hot peanut butter with chicken in it” which sounds like something they’d serve in actual hell. How do I know? Made it without broth once because I thought half a cup couldn’t possibly matter that much. Spoiler alert: it mattered SO MUCH. It was essentially warm chunky peanut butter soup.

Soy sauce is what makes this taste like actual food instead of like I’m serving deconstructed peanut butter sandwiches for dinner which honestly sounds like something I’d try on a particularly bad Wednesday. I buy the absolutely massive Kikkoman bottle from Costco that lives in my fridge door for what feels like decades.

Sesame oil is that mysterious bottle hiding behind your expired ranch dressing from when you made fried rice in March 2020 during the first pandemic lockdown and then never again. Go find it right now. Dust it off. That bottle is literally magic in liquid form. One teaspoon—JUST ONE—makes the whole thing taste like it came from an actual restaurant instead of from my kitchen where there’s still spaghetti sauce dried on the backsplash from last Tuesday that I keep meaning to clean but haven’t yet. It’s the difference between “I made dinner” and people asking for your recipe at parties.

The chili garlic paste isn’t even spicy which I know sounds fake but I promise. My mother-in-law ate this and she once sent back soup at Olive Garden for being “too spicy” (it was minestrone?? there’s no heat in minestrone??). She ate this without complaining even once which is basically a miracle. It just adds this warm interesting depth thing that keeps it from tasting flat. I get the Huy Fong brand with the green cap and the rooster on the label, usually from the international aisle at whatever store I happen to be at. Sometimes Kroger. Sometimes Publix. Once from a gas station when I was desperate.

Bell peppers and onions are mostly decorative so I can convince myself I served vegetables and feel slightly less guilty about my kids’ nutrition. My daughter picks out every single piece with surgical precision and lines them up on her plate edge like she’s preparing evidence for court. But at least they’re there, right? That counts for something? The garlic though—absolutely non-negotiable, will die on this hill. Two cloves bare minimum. Sometimes I do five if they’re those tiny sad ones. Sometimes I don’t even chop them properly, just sort of smash them with the side of my knife because fine chopping feels aspirational and I am not aspirational at 6am.

Essential Tools and Equipment

• Slow cooker – Mine’s a 6-quart Crock-Pot that was a wedding gift from my husband’s aunt in 2013, it’s got mystery stains I’ve stopped trying to remove and a crack in the lid from when I dropped it that one time but it still works so we’re committed to each other at this point
• Literally any bowl – Could be your nice mixing bowl, could be a cereal bowl, could be that weird plastic bowl from the Chinese takeout, I don’t care and neither does this recipe
• Whisk or just a fork honestly – My actual whisk lives permanently in the dishwasher in a constant state of “dirty” so I usually just grab a fork
• Knife and cutting board – I use the same plastic cutting board I’ve had since college that’s covered in knife marks and probably has bacteria living in it but we’ve made peace with that
• Measuring cups and spoons – Though real talk at this point I just eyeball most of it because I’ve made this like forty times

How To Make Slow Cooker Peanut Chicken

Step 1: Layer the Vegetables

Take your chopped peppers, onions, and garlic and just throw them in the bottom of the slow cooker. Don’t arrange them. Don’t make it pretty. They’re gonna cook down into complete mush anyway and literally nobody will ever see them. This veggie layer stops the chicken from welding itself to the bottom of the pot and creating that burnt crusty situation.

Step 2: Add the Chicken

Open the package of chicken breasts (why are they always so wet and slippery??) and drop them on top of the veggies. Don’t trim off the weird bits. Don’t pound them flat like they do on cooking shows. Don’t butterfly them or whatever that French technique is called. Just plop them in there.

Step 3: Make the Peanut Sauce

This is the only part where you need to be awake and present for like two whole minutes. Grab your bowl—any bowl, doesn’t matter—and dump in the peanut butter, chicken broth, soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, and chili paste. Now whisk it.

Step 4: Pour and Cook

Pour all that beautiful sauce over your chicken and veggies. I try to distribute it evenly but honestly it’s gonna spread and seep into everything while it cooks so if you miss a spot nobody’s gonna die. Put the lid on the slow cooker.

Step 5: Finish and Serve

When your timer finally goes off (and your entire house smells like you hired a personal chef instead of being a disaster person who once burned soup), take off the lid. Squeeze in that lime juice—I usually just cut it in half and squeeze it with my hand directly over the pot because I’m too lazy to dig out the citrus squeezer. Dump in the cilantro. Grab a wooden spoon or whatever and just stir everything around. The chicken will completely fall apart into perfect bite-sized shreds without any effort. Serve it over rice if you remembered to make rice, or noodles, or that quinoa you bought six months ago when you were feeling healthy.

You Must Know

I’m gonna say this once and I need you to really internalize it—DO NOT LIFT THAT LID WHILE IT’S COOKING. I know you want to. I know it smells incredible and you’re curious and you just want to check if it looks okay. RESIST THE URGE. Every single time you lift that lid, all the heat and steam escape and you’re adding 20-30 minutes minimum to your cook time, possibly more.

The slow cooker works by creating this sealed environment where heat and moisture are trapped and everything cooks low and slow in its own steam. When you break that seal by lifting the lid, it has to basically start rebuilding that environment from scratch.

Pro Tips & Cooking Hacks

• Take your peanut butter out of the fridge like 30-45 minutes before you make this because room temperature peanut butter mixes into the sauce smoothly while cold peanut butter turns into cement and refuses to cooperate and you end up with chunks everywhere—learned this after fighting with cold peanut butter for ten minutes at 6am and almost having a breakdown
• Adding mushrooms or zucchini or other watery sad vegetables? That’s fine, live your truth, but add them in the LAST HOUR or they’ll turn into gross slimy mush that tastes like regret and disappointment. My mom never believes me about this and then complains that her zucchini is “weird and watery” and I’m like YES BARBARA THAT’S WHAT I TOLD YOU WOULD HAPPEN
• Always taste it before you call everyone to the table because limes are unpredictable little jerks—sometimes super tart and you need less, sometimes weak and watery and you need a whole extra one or even two. You just never know. Gotta taste and adjust
• DO NOT use natural organic peanut butter with the oil separation situation on top. Already told you about that $45 disaster. This is not the place for health consciousness. Buy the regular Skippy or Jif like your grandma did and trust the process
• Keep a bag of frozen pre-diced peppers and onions in your freezer—Trader Joe’s has them, so does Walmart, probably everywhere does at this point. Total game-changer for nights when chopping vegetables feels like an impossible ask (which is honestly most nights for me)
• Sauce too thick? Add broth a little at a time. Too thin? Cornstarch slurry (cornstarch plus cold water mixed until smooth). It’s not rocket science even though sometimes I act like it is

Flavor Variations & Suggestions

Thai situation: My friend Jess adds like a quarter cup of coconut milk at the very end and she swears it tastes just like pad thai from that place near her old apartment. Tried it last month and she’s absolutely right, it gets all creamy and coconutty and makes you feel fancy

Vegetable smuggling: Throw in broccoli florets, snap peas, shredded carrots, whatever vegetable guilt you’re carrying around in the last hour of cooking—my sister-in-law does this constantly and posts the pictures on Facebook with paragraphs about “nutrition” and “family health” and honestly good for her I guess

Spicy version for people with destroyed taste buds: My brother doubles the chili paste and then adds sriracha on top because he’s been eating suicide wings every Sunday for a decade and I’m pretty sure he can’t actually taste regular food anymore. Says it needs to burn to be interesting. I disagree but he’s made it his way at least thirty times

Extra sweet for emotional support: Sometimes when work is terrible or my kids are being particularly challenging or I’m just having one of those weeks, I add an extra tablespoon or two of honey because comfort food should actually provide comfort. Don’t judge my coping mechanisms

Cashew butter version: My neighbor Annie can’t eat peanuts for some medical reason I’ve forgotten so she makes this with cashew butter and tops it with roasted cashews from the Costco bin. It’s milder and butterier and really different but really good, just not the same flavor profile

That accidental discovery: One time I ran out of peanut butter halfway through making this (why didn’t I check first? great question, no answer) and used almond butter for the rest. Then I panicked and threw in some cumin I found in the back of my spice cabinet from who knows when. Ended up tasting super Mediterranean and completely wrong but also kind of incredible? My husband had three bowls and asked me to make it again. Sometimes mistakes work out and that’s beautiful

Make-Ahead Options

Sunday nights when the stars align and I’m feeling motivated (happens maybe twice a month on a good month), I sit on the couch with whatever reality show I’m currently obsessed with and chop all the vegetables and mix the sauce. Put everything in separate containers in the fridge. Then Monday morning before work I just dump it all in the slow cooker before I leave—takes literally 45 seconds max, barely even requires being conscious. Makes me feel like one of those people who has their life together and meal preps with matching containers. I am not that person but I can pretend for a few seconds.

Freezer bags legitimately changed my entire existence: Last month I had one Saturday where my in-laws took the kids to the zoo and I had three glorious hours alone. Made SEVEN of these freezer meals in one go while listening to a true crime podcast. Here’s what you do: put raw chicken, all the veggies, peanut butter, broth, soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, and chili paste in gallon freezer bags. Squish them flat so they freeze faster and stack better.

Leftover freezing situation: The fully cooked chicken freezes beautifully. I portion it into those cheap dollar store containers (the ones where the lids never quite fit right and you have to sort of force them but whatever, they cost 88 cents). Freeze them and eat for lunch when I don’t want to spend $15 on a mediocre desk salad from the cafeteria that’s mostly iceberg lettuce and sadness. Lasts at least three months in there, probably longer but I’ve never made it past two months without eating them all.

Recipe Notes & Baker’s Tips

If you open the slow cooker and your sauce looks too watery and thin—which happened to me two weeks ago because I was measuring chicken broth while also arguing with my credit card company on the phone and apparently poured in way too much—don’t panic and don’t throw it away. Mix one tablespoon of cornstarch with one tablespoon of cold water in a small cup until it’s completely smooth with zero lumps. Stir that into the slow cooker. Put the lid back on. Let it cook on HIGH for 30 more minutes. The cornstarch will thicken everything right up and nobody has to know you screwed up the measurements while distracted by customer service holding music.

The great chicken breast versus thigh debate: I’ve made this approximately a billion times with both cuts at this point. Breasts are what I usually buy because they’re what goes on sale most often at my Publix—last week they were $1.99/lb and I bought six packages like a responsible adult. But thighs are way more forgiving if your timing gets messed up. Like if you get stuck in traffic behind an accident and what should’ve been a 20-minute drive turns into 90 minutes and the chicken cooks an extra hour. Or if your kid’s school calls about a “situation” and you spend 45 minutes dealing with that and forget dinner exists. Thighs stay juicy through overcooking. Breasts can get a little dry and sad if they go too long. Both work great, just pick whichever fits your life and budget.

Critical information about sesame oil: One teaspoon is the correct amount. Not more. Please trust me on this. My husband decided to get experimental one time because he was feeling confident after watching one episode of a cooking show. Dumped in approximately a tablespoon of sesame oil thinking it would taste “more authentic” (his actual words). It was SO overpowering and weird and tasted like we were eating perfume. Even our dog wouldn’t touch the leftovers and she once ate an entire rotisserie chicken off the counter including the bones. One teaspoon. That’s it. Some lessons you learn the expensive and disgusting way.

Serving Suggestions

At this point we’ve eaten this probably sixty different ways depending on what’s in the pantry, how lazy I’m feeling, and whether I remembered to buy rice:

• Plain white rice – The default option, classic for a reason, soaks up that sauce like its job, can’t go wrong unless you burn it (have done this, multiple times, while distracted)
• Coconut rice – Use a can of coconut milk instead of water when making rice and it tastes expensive and tropical even though it costs maybe $2 extra, makes me feel like I’m on vacation instead of just eating dinner on a Tuesday
• Rice noodles – More of a noodle bowl vibe, feels lighter, good for when you’re pretending to care about things like “portion control” before a wedding or vacation or whatever
• Lettuce wraps – Did this in January during my annual “new year new me” phase that traditionally lasts between 8-14 days before I remember that I hate everything
• Over a giant pile of steamed vegetables – Usually broccoli because I can steam it in the microwave in a covered bowl and it requires almost zero effort, good for when you’re trying to balance out the cheese and wine you had yesterday

How to Store Your Slow Cooker Peanut Chicken

Fridge situation: Dump leftovers into whatever container you can find that has a matching lid—I have approximately 47 containers and 12 lids at this point so this is always an adventure. Keeps for 3-4 days though honestly we usually eat it all before then. Day two might actually be better than day one because all the flavors have gotten to hang out together overnight and become friends. I eat it cold sometimes at 11:53pm standing at the open refrigerator in my old pajamas scrolling TikTok and judging nobody because we’re all doing our best.

Freezer storage: Let it cool down first or your freezer will get all frosty and weird and your ice maker will hate you. I usually stick the entire slow cooker insert in the fridge for an hour or so because waiting for it to cool naturally on the counter takes approximately forever and I have the patience of a caffeinated squirrel. Then scoop it into containers or freezer bags. Try to squeeze most of the air out but honestly sometimes I just throw it in there and hope for the best because perfectionism is exhausting and I quit that years ago. Should last three months, maybe longer but we’ve never made it past two months without eating it all first.

Reheating instructions: If it’s frozen, move it from freezer to fridge the night before you want it (or morning of if you’re like me and forgot the night before). Reheat on the stove over medium heat, stirring every minute or so because it will stick and burn if you ignore it (have learned this lesson multiple expensive times). If it’s too thick and gloppy, add a splash of chicken broth or honestly just tap water works fine, I’m not picky about it at this point. Microwave works too if you’re eating it at your desk at work and don’t have access to a stove—do one minute, stir, another minute, stir, usually takes three total rounds. Sometimes I squeeze extra lime juice on reheated leftovers to make them taste fresher and less like day-old takeout.

Allergy Information

Things in here that might cause problems: Peanuts obviously, soy from the soy sauce, sesame from that sesame oil

Can’t do gluten: My coworker Sarah has celiac and literally can’t eat gluten or she gets super sick. She uses tamari instead of regular soy sauce and swears it tastes identical. I’ve tried hers and honestly can’t tell the difference so that’s an easy swap

Peanut allergies are serious: My niece is deathly allergic to peanuts—like EpiPen and hospital allergic, not just “makes me feel weird” allergic. My sister makes this exact recipe with sunflower seed butter instead and her whole family loves it. Says it tastes slightly different but still really good. Tahini also works but it’s more earthy and savory, less sweet

Dairy makes you miserable: Good news, there’s literally zero dairy in this entire recipe which is great because dairy makes my stomach do absolutely terrible things I will not describe in detail here but trust me, it’s bad

Watching your sodium intake: Buy low-sodium versions of the soy sauce and chicken broth. Fair warning though, it might taste a little flat and bland so you’ll probably need to compensate with extra lime juice or maybe a tiny bit of extra honey to balance it out. Taste as you go.

Questions I Get Asked A Lot

Can I use crunchy peanut butter instead of creamy?

Listen, it’s your kitchen and your life and I’m not the boss of you so yeah, you can do whatever you want. But the sauce won’t be smooth—you’ll have peanut chunks floating around everywhere. Some people are into that texture situation. My dad specifically requests that I make it with crunchy when he comes over because he’s weird and likes chunky things. I personally think it’s wrong on multiple levels but he’s 68 years old and has made it his way at least forty times so clearly it works for some people. Try it if you want, you won’t die, it just won’t be smooth.

My sauce turned out too thick and gloppy, what do I do?

Just add more liquid until it looks right—chicken broth is best but honestly water works totally fine too, I’ve used water probably a hundred times. Add a tablespoon at a time, stir it in, look at it, add more if needed. I have to do this constantly because apparently I can’t measure consistently to save my life and sometimes I add too much peanut butter or not enough broth or I get distracted mid-measuring and lose track of what I’m doing. Do this in the last 30-45 minutes of cooking so everything stays hot and has time to mix together properly.

Can I make this in an Instant Pot instead of a slow cooker?

My sister exclusively uses her Instant Pot for literally everything because she spent $129 on it three years ago and now feels morally obligated to use it constantly to justify the purchase. She does the sauté function first, cooks the veggies for 2-3 minutes, dumps everything else in, pressure cooks on high for 12 minutes, then does natural release. Says it works perfectly and tastes exactly the same, just faster. I’m too lazy to dig my Instant Pot out from the cabinet where it’s currently buried under four sheet pans, two cooling racks, and a waffle iron I used exactly one time in 2018 and then never again. The slow cooker lives on my counter so that’s what I use but you do you.

Will this work if my chicken is still frozen?

Yeah it’ll work but you need to add at least an extra hour to the cook time, maybe 90 minutes or even more depending on how frozen-solid it is. And you HAVE to make absolutely sure it reaches 165°F in the very thickest part before anyone eats it because food poisoning is genuinely awful—learned that lesson sophomore year of college with some questionable gas station chicken and I will never ever repeat that experience as long as I live. Thawed chicken cooks more evenly though. Frozen chicken sometimes gives you overcooked dry edges and still-cold centers which is disgusting and wrong.

💬 Tried this recipe? Leave a comment and rating below! I’d love to hear how it turned out and what you served it with. Did you make any fun variations? Share your creations with me!