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This delicious and tangy orange chicken is made right in your slow cooker and is better than takeout. It’s coated in an irresistible sauce that will keep your family asking for this at least once a week!
If you love delicious homemade food that actually tastes better than takeout. You should make this into a meal and add in some sides like this Easy Fried Rice, these delicious Chicken Lettuce Wraps, and these Air Fryer Cream Cheese Wontons!
Slow Cooker Orange Chicken Recipe
Orange chicken is one of my family’s all-time favorite foods. It has just the right blend of flavors that combine tangy and sweet. And if you want to really make this the best, then you cook it in the slow cooker! This gives the chicken a change to really absorb the flavors making it taste so delicious when you are ready to eat it at dinner time! It tastes like its from a restaurant!
This crockpot orange chicken recipe is so easy and delicious, and it only takes about 15 minutes of prep time. Then you can pop it in your slow cooker and let it cook all day, and you will have an insanely delicious meal to eat at the end of the day! We love eating it with some delicious fried rice or some chow mein! It’s a recipe that will become a staple, and you will definitely want it on your regular dinner rotation!
Ingredients in Orange Chicken
This slow cooker orange chicken is simple to make. You will love the flavor combination and the orange marmalade really brings out that citrusy flavor that we all know and love! Check out the recipe card at the bottom of the post for all of the exact measurements.
- Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts: Cut these into cubes that are similar in size so that they cook evenly.
- Cornstarch: This helps to coat the chicken so that you end up with that deliciously crispy outside.
- Vegetable Oil: The oil is what you will cook the chicken in before placing it in the crockpot.
- Rice Wine Vinegar: This adds a tangy flavor to the sauce.
- Soy Sauce: This adds a delicious salty flavor that goes well with the other ingredients.
- Sesame Oil: Sesame oile brings in that traditional Asian flavor. If you don’t have any on hand, you can use olive oil instead. It will just have less flavor in the dish!
- Sweet Orange Marmalade: In order to get that classic orange chicken flavor, this marmalade is a must!
- Brown Sugar: This adds a sweetness to the dish and brings all of the flavors together.
- Salt and Pepper: These will enhance all of the ingredients in the orange chicken!
How to Make Slow Cooker Orange Chicken
This recipe is a breeze to make, only uses a few simple ingredients, and is insanely delicious! I love how tender the chicken is on the inside. It’s cooked to perfection with a crispy outside edge that is drenched in the sauce!
- Make Sauce: In a small bowl, mix the rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, marmalade, brown sugar, salt, and pepper. Set aside.
- Coat and Brown the Chicken: In a ziplock bag, add the cornstarch and chicken. Shake to coat. Pour vegetable oil into the skillet and brown the sides of the covered chicken. The chicken doesn’t need to be fully cooked. It will finish cooking in the slow cooker.
- Add Chicken and Sauce to Crockpot: After the chicken is done cooking, add it to the crock pot. Then cover the chicken with the sauce mixture and give the pot a stir.
- Cook: Cook on low for 4-5 hours or high for 2-3 hours.
Pro Tips for Slow Cooker Orange Chicken
- Extra Sauce: If you have extra sauce in your slow cooker, then you can dish that out and add it to any veggies or rice and really soak in that deliciously tangy flavor!
- Easy Clean Up: To make clean-up a cinch, go ahead and use a slow cooker liner for cooking this in. Then, you can just remove it, and your cleanup is all done!
- Garnish: Garnish your finished dish by adding some sesame seeds and chopped green onions. It gives it a professional look!
How to Store Leftovers
This slow cooker orange chicken tastes great the next day for lunch or dinner! Heat it up and make yourself a rice bowl, add it to a stir fry or eat it plain!
- In the Refrigerator: Once your chicken has cooled, then you can store any leftovers in an airtight container. Place it in your fridge, and it will last for 4-5 days.
- To Reheat: You can reheat any leftover orange chicken on your stove or in the microwave!
More Asian Chicken Recipes
If you loved this orange chicken then you have got to try a few more of my Asian chicken recipes! There are so many varieties that have delicious sauces, crispy outsides and go with yummy fried rice!
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Slow Cooker Orange Chicken
Ingredients
- 3-4 boneless chicken breasts (cut into cubes)
- 3 Tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
- 3/4 cup orange marmalade
- 3 Tablespoon brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- pinch of pepper
Instructions
- In a bowl, mix the rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, marmalade, brown sugar, salt, and pepper. Set aside.
- In a ziplock bag, add the cornstarch and chicken. Shake to coat. Pour vegetable oil into the skillet and brown the sides of the covered chicken. The chicken doesn't need to be fully cooked since it is going in the crockpot.
- After the chicken is done cooking, pour the pieces into the crockpot. Then cover the chicken with the sauce mixture and give the pot a stir.
- Cook on low for 4-5 hours or high for 2-3 hours.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Made this tonight for dinner (cut in half because it was just for 2 people) and although it was cooked perfectly and pretty tasty, I felt like it was just kind of a one-note flavor: ORANGE. The concentrated juice, plus sweet ketchup, plus brown sugar, plus balsamic, just made it way too sweet for my liking. Although it was already done cooking, I ended up adding more salt, lots of pepper, some garlic powder, a little soy sauce, and some chopped green onions. The savory flavors did wonders to balance out all the sweetness and our leftovers were much tastier with the added spices. Just my experience with this one. The real value of this recipe is the cooking method – flouring, browning, and then finishing in the crockpot. Now I am excited to try this technique with other sauces! This technique, paired with any good asian flavored sauce, will be fantastic!
Just finished making it and it is delicious. I dont have crock put so put it in heavy dutch oven pan and cooked it for 2 hours on next to lowest setting on my stovetop just above warm and worked beautifully. Didnt boil just simmered. The takehome type is too spicy for me this was just perfect. Thanks
I tried and LOVED it!! I did add a chopped onion and a green bell pepper to the top of it in the crock pot. Also, about 30 minutes before it was done, I added three bags of 10 minute boil in a bag rice (out of the bag) and added about 2 cups of chicken broth. It made a great one scoop dinner without causing more dishes. My husband said that it had, “too much lemon” which was funny given that there is NO lemon. He continued to eat every. single. bite. Thank you for this recipe!!
Hi there! This looks great and I plan on trying it tomorrow.
2 things…do you think adding veggies would diminish the dish? Perhaps red bell peppers or carrots? And if I prepped it the night before, do you think the chicken will be ok after fried and cooled to be stored in the fridge?
Love your site 🙂 I tried this and it came out super orange-juicy, way too much for my families taste. Do you think the brand of concentrate might make a difference? It was just over powering, sadly 🙁 But its the only recipe that hasn’t been awesome that I’ve tried from here!
That is really strange because my sauce was pretty thick and the orange wasn’t over powering at all or I don’t think my family would have liked it including me… this is my pickiest favorite meal and asks me every week to make orange chicken. You might just want to half the orange juice concentrate if you make it another time… or if it is the orange in general then try my sesame or teryiaki chicken recipe! Those are amazing as well! Hope this helps! I hate when things don’t turn out as expected.
I don’t see orange concentrate in the ingredients……
I love the idea of your site! So often I find recipes that look pretty good, but could go horribly wrong (and some have….please don’t ask about the sauteed butternut squash recipe). This looks delish and I will definitely be back on a much more regular basis! Thanks!
Would love to try this!
Trying this one over the weekend, just got a new *larger* crock pot (yay!) and this looks amazing, thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much for this fantastic recipe! We LOVE chinese in our house, but I have not had much success making many of our favorite dishes at home. I do make a killer chicken fried rice though, LOL! I will be giving this a try very soon!
My husband goes crazy for orange chicken, I need to try this one!
I would love to have you share this (or any other recipes of yours) at Wednesday Extravaganza – my Foodie link party, and maybe win a lifetime feature on my Wall of Fame! Here is the link:
http://www.hungrylittlegirl.com/1/post/2012/10/october-31st-2012.html
I can’t wait to see you there!
Hi Alyssa! I am a new follower – thanks to your visit! I can hardly wait to ‘blog stalk’ your site. Your photos are FANTASTIC!
Hi Alyssa, Thanks for your comment on my candy corn cookies and for the follow! I’m following you back. Your food pix are gorgeous! I’ll be following you on fb and Pinterest too. =) Have a great evening! Let me know if you make the cookies. Today I used the same sugar cookies recipe to make pumpkin shaped cookies for my daughter’s first grade class. We’ll be decorating them tonight. 🙂
~ Catie
* Happy Halloween!!
I recently tried this recipe too! I did not have enough ketchup so I submitted with sweet and spicy BBQ. It gave it just a little extra kick. Was delicious!
Oh my gosh YUM!!! I will have to try that! Thanks!
Where do you put the ketchup and how much looks yummy I want to try this. Thanks
Am I nuts? Cos I don’t see ketchup in ingredients
Thanks for stopping by, following you back 🙂
Love orange chicken and love how easy this recipe looks. Thanks for sharing! http://whatchamakinnow.com
yum this looks so good AND easy! can’t wait to try- thanks!
Xo emi
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