Description
This Slow Cooker Thai Peanut Chicken recipe offers a rich, flavorful, and easy-to-make meal featuring tender shredded chicken in a creamy peanut sauce infused with coconut milk, lime, garlic, and a touch of heat. Perfect for weeknight dinners, it’s served with rice, noodles, or as lettuce wraps topped with crunchy peanuts and fresh cilantro.
Ingredients
Scale
Chicken and Broth
- 1 ½ pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts
- ½ cup chicken broth
- Salt + freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Sauce
- 1 cup unsweetened canned coconut milk
- ½ cup unsweetened natural peanut butter, crunchy or creamy
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, more or less to taste
For Garnish and Serving
- Chopped peanuts, for garnish
- Chopped fresh cilantro, for garnish
- Rice, rice noodles, or lettuce leaves, for serving
Instructions
- Cook Chicken: Arrange the chicken breasts in a large slow cooker, season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper, then pour the chicken broth onto the bottom. Cover and cook on LOW for 4 to 6 hours, or until the chicken is fall-apart tender.
- Shred Chicken: Remove the cooked chicken from the slow cooker to a cutting board. Cut into chunks and shred it using two forks. Drain the cooking liquid from the slow cooker and wipe the inside clean. Return the shredded chicken to the empty slow cooker.
- Prepare Sauce: In a medium bowl, whisk together the coconut milk, peanut butter, minced garlic, honey, low-sodium soy sauce, lime juice, rice wine vinegar, fish sauce, and crushed red pepper flakes until the mixture is smooth and well combined.
- Combine and Cook: Pour the prepared peanut sauce over the shredded chicken in the slow cooker, stirring well to coat all the chicken pieces evenly. Cover again and cook on LOW for an additional 45 minutes to 1 hour, stirring halfway through, until the sauce has thickened and the chicken is heated through.
- Serve: Serve the saucy Thai peanut chicken over cooked white or brown rice, cooked rice noodles, or inside large lettuce leaves as wraps. Garnish with chopped peanuts, fresh cilantro, and additional crushed red pepper flakes if desired for extra heat.
Notes
- The chicken should be fall-apart tender; if not, cook longer. Cooking times vary based on slow cooker models.
- Older slow cookers may require 6 to 8 hours, while newer, hotter models can cook chicken breasts in 3 to 4 hours.
- Leftovers can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 to 4 days, or frozen for up to 3 months.
- Thaw frozen leftovers overnight in the refrigerator before gently reheating.
- This recipe was updated in 2025 to suit modern slow cooker heat output. For the original version where chicken cooks in the sauce, refer to the original recipe link.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 serving (approx. 1 cup chicken with sauce)
- Calories: 380
- Sugar: 9g
- Sodium: 480mg
- Fat: 22g
- Saturated Fat: 9g
- Unsaturated Fat: 12g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 20g
- Fiber: 3g
- Protein: 32g
- Cholesterol: 85mg
