Slow Cooker Thai Peanut Chicken — Juicy chicken is coated in the most incredible peanut sauce! Serve it over rice for an easy meal, and garnish with green onions and extra peanuts for added crunch!
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Easiest Thai Peanut Chicken Recipe
I love peanut sauce. It makes everything it touches automatically amazing. And it makes this chicken tender, moist, juicy and there’s layers of rich flavors.
This is the easiest Thai peanut chicken recipe, and there’s no breading, browning, baking, or frying involved.
Topped with crunchy peanuts, cilantro, and green onions alongside a bed of rice (or use noodles), it’s an easy, weeknight recipe that everyone will love. There’s plenty of peanut butter sauce leftover in the bottom of the slow cooker, which I spoon generously over the chicken, rice, and any veggies I may have steamed.
But I’ve also been know to just eat Thai peanut sauce by the spoonful. So good!
Ingredients for Slow Cooker Thai Peanut Chicken
It might look like this Thai peanut butter chicken has a long ingredients list, but many of them are spices! Gather the following ingredients to make the peanut sauce chicken:
- Olive oil
- Chicken breasts
- Cornstarch
- Coconut milk
- Cream peanut butter
- Soy sauce
- Honey
- Rice wine vinegar
- Lime juice
- Sesame oil
- Spices (ground ginger, garlic powder, cayenne, salt, pepper)
- Optional garnishes (salted peanuts, fresh cilantro, green onions)
How to Make Thai Peanut Chicken in a Slow Cooker
This slow cooker Thai peanut sauce chicken requires minimal prep work, so it’s impossible to mess up! Simply mix up the sauce that’s full of complimentary flavors, including coconut milk, peanut butter, soy sauce, honey, rice wine vinegar, lime juice, sesame oil, ginger, and garlic.
Pour the sauce over bite-sized chicken pieces and let your slow cooker do the work!
- Add the diced chicken, cornstarch, salt, and pepper to a large bag. Seal and toss to coat chicken evenly before adding to the slow cooker.
- In a bowl, add the peanut sauce ingredients (coconut milk, peanut butter, soy sauce, honey, rice wine vinegar, lime juice, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, and cayenne). Whisk to combine, then pour mixture over the chicken.
- Cook the Thai peanut chicken covered on high for about 2 hours or on low for about 4 hours.
- When ready to eat, spoon extra peanut sauce over the chicken and garnish with peanuts, cilantro, and green onions.
Crockpot Thai Chicken FAQs
I haven’t made this recipe without a slow cooker so I can’t give specifics about how to tweak it if you don’t have a slow cooker. I have other peanut chicken and peanut sauce-based recipes listed below the recipe card that you can try until you can make this with a slow cooker.
You’ll need to use a 3- to 6-quart slow cooker.
Yes! You’re welcome to use lite or low-fat coconut milk, so long as it’s canned.
You must used canned coconut milk to make this recipe. Do NOT use coconut milk from a carton.
No, if you omit the cornstarch, the peanut chicken sauce will be far too runny and will never thicken.
Tips for the Best Thai Peanut Chicken
If your peanut butter is resistant to smoothing out when whisking it into the peanut sauce, heat it in the microwave for 30-second bursts until it’s smooth. Just be careful not to cook it too much — you just want to warm it a little bit to make it easier to stir.
No matter if you cook this peanut chicken on a high or low setting, you’ll want to begin checking its doneness 45 minutes to an hour before it’s supposed to be finished. Slow cookers can vary, so yours may cook the chicken slightly faster or slower than mine did.
If you have a meat thermometer, check to see if the chicken is 165 degrees. Once it reaches that point, it’s ready to eat!
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Slow Cooker Thai Peanut Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
- ⅓ cup cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
- ½ teaspoon pepper, or to taste
- one 14-ounce can coconut milk, lite okay
- ¾ cup creamy peanut butter
- ¼ cup low-sodium soy sauce
- ¼ cup honey
- 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- ½ to 1 teaspoon ground ginger, or to taste
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder or 2 garlic cloves, finely minced
- pinch cayenne pepper, optional and to taste
- ⅓ cup lightly salted peanuts, finely chopped for garnishing
- ¼ cup fresh cilantro leaves, stems discarded, optional for garnishing
- 2 tablespoons green onions sliced thin, optional for garnishing
Instructions
- Line a 3 to 6-quart slow cooker with a liner if using one. I prefer to use liners for easy cleanup.
- Drizzle olive oil over bottom of the liner or slow cooker.
- To a large, gallon-sized ziptop plastic bag, add the chicken, cornstarch, salt, pepper, seal bag, and toss to coat chicken evenly. Add chicken to slow cooker, evenly distributed; set aside.
- To a medium bowl, add the coconut milk, peanut butter, soy sauce, honey, rice wine vinegar, lime juice, sesame oil, ginger (I prefer 1 teaspoon but some people are sensitive to ginger), garlic, optional cayenne, and whisk to combine. Tip – If your peanut butter is resistant to smoothing out, place bowl in microwave and heat on high power for 30-seconds, making sure the bowl is microwave-safe.
- Pour mixture over the chicken, using a spoon to distribute the sauce if necessary, making sure all pieces are coated. It looks like a lot of sauce but it reduces by at least half during cooking.
- Cook covered on high for about 2 hours or on low for about 4 hours. If cooking on high, start checking at 90 minutes and if cooking on low, start checking at 3 hours. All slow cookers vary so cook until chicken is done (reaches 165F on an instant read thermometer).
- Add chicken to a plate with as much extra cooking sauce spooned over the top as desired, garnish with peanuts, optional cilantro, optional green onions, and serve immediately. Chicken is best warm and fresh but will keep airtight in the fridge for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Chicken Recipes with Peanut Sauce:
Peanut Chicken with Peanut Noodles – Easy, ready in 20 minutes, tastes better, and way healthier than takeout!! Peanut sauce automatically makes everything taste AMAZING!!
Easy Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce — Look no further from this FAST and EASY recipe for authentic-tasting Thai chicken satay.
Crunchy Peanut Salad with Chicken — Crispy fried chicken with crunchy cabbage, carrots, peanuts, cilantro and the EASIEST and BEST homemade peanut sauce that coats every bite!! A salad that you’ll CRAVE over and over!!
Peanut Chicken Lettuce Wraps – Easy, ready in 20 minutes, healthy, and the peanut sauce is the best! Great flavors and textures in every bite of these irresistible wraps!
Thai Peanut Chicken Salad – Eat the Rainbow with this easy, healthy salad that’s ready in 20 minutes! Juicy chicken and crisp vegetables are tossed in the best peanut sauce!
What would the cooking time be if I doubled the amount of chicken (4lbs)?
I can’t say because I haven’t tried that but it would depend on the size of the slow cooker for one thing – so somewhat longer but not necessarily double the time. You’ll just have to watch it and use common sense.
Looks really good on your pictures. I’m not much of a cooker, but you got me, I’ll try this recipe for sure.
Could you make this and freeze it after ?
Probably although I haven’t tried that way personally so can’t speak from experience.
peanut sauce is addicting! and anything that I can make in the slow cooker is a win in my book!
Thanks for the great recipes, Averie, love your blog.
Question though – if I don’t have a slow cooker what’s an alternative method to make this? I plan on getting one eventually but just waiting until everything is finalized on the new home bc I have enough kitchen stuff as it is in our tiny apartment!
I haven’t made this recipe without a slow cooker so can’t give specifics about how to tweak it. I have other peanut chicken and peanut sauce-based recipes listed in the Related Recipes that you can try until you get a slow cooker.
hello averie…this recipe looks amazing … what would you advise me if cooking this in a dutch oven instead?? or maybe a regular skillet ? thanks a lot…
I haven’t made this recipe without a slow cooker so can’t give specifics about how to tweak it. I have other peanut chicken and peanut sauce-based recipes listed in the Related Recipes that you can try until you get a slow cooker.
Love this dish. Thank you.
This is fantastic! I love that peanut sauce, perfect in a slow cooker.
I am in love with slow cooking everything lately :)
Very different way of doing it!
You can’t go wrong with peanut sauce! Yum!
Wow very interesting with peanut sauce, it must give the chicken lots of flavour. Peanut sauce is new to me and I like the idea :-)
I could just DRINK that sauce!!!
So good! I mean you can’t go wrong with peanut sauce!
This looks so yummy!! I’m with you on the peanut sauce – it takes anything from bland to amazing!
It sure does!
My slow cooker is waiting for this one out on our countertop right now! A quick sub for GF soy sauce will be so easy to do. Thanks for such a great idea :)
Let me know how you like it!
This looks every bit as good as the orange chicken! I love peanut sauce also so I ‘m already anxious to try this version. I’ll probably be on a big slow cooker kick too since I have a new one now!
This is my last one for a little bit, probably the next month :) Because I had the last 4/6 posts or so were slow cooker recipes…oh well! Making up for lost time :) But I already have some more formulated for a bit off into the future. This was so good. The peanut sauce! Enjoy! LMK what you think!
This hit the spot today–easy to whip up and incredibly tasty! Jon was ready for dinner as soon as he walked in the door and smelled it. The peanut sauce is awesome– thick with just enough richness and great flavor…very satisfying!
So glad you guys enjoyed it and you’re certainly breaking in that new slow cooker! I loved how thick and rich this peanut sauce was too!
Totally, you can’t be wasting that peanut sauce ;) It’s too good to go to waste! This looks so AHHHHMAZING! I could see this coking up in my meal plan very soon! :)