Slow Cooker Hawaiian Chicken
Easy slow cooker Hawaiian chicken recipe, homemade with simple ingredients. Tender chicken pieces are coated in a sweet and spicy pineapple sauce. Also known as pineapple chicken or Aloha chicken.
This meal is bound to tantalize your tastebuds. Best of all, it gets a big thumbs up from both, kids and adults. There is minimal prep work but it’s still big on flavor.
How to make crockpot Hawaiian chicken recipe from scratch?
- Add majority of ingredients in slow cooker– Dump the chicken, pineapples, pineapple juice, honey, salt, pepper, ginger paste, garlic paste, Sriracha sauce and mix.
- Cover and cook– On high heat.
- Add peppers, onions– And mix.
- Cover and cook– On high heat.
- Thicken sauce- With cornstarch slurry.
- Cover and cook– On high heat.
- Enjoy– Garnish with cilantro and dig in!
What sides to serve with pineapple chicken?
It’s best served over rice. Steamed jasmine or basmati rice or fried rice both work well. A healthier alternative would be quinoa.
You can also serve it over pasta. Regular or whole wheat pasta are both fine. Some healthier options would be zoodles (zucchini noodles) or even spaghetti squash.
A simple green salad or roasted vegetables are always a hit with my family.
You can even use this as a filling in stuffed potatoes, stuffed sweet potatoes, zucchini boats.
Variations
Hawaiian BBQ chicken- Mix in 1/4 cup bbq sauce.
Add teriyaki sauce– Mix in 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce for another layer of flavor.
Hawaiian chicken marinade- Mix together all the ingredients, except the cornstarch, onions, peppers. Marinate meat for at least 1 hour.
Grill or Bake it- Once chicken is marinated, you can bake or grill it until cooked through, along with veggies of your choice to make a filling meal.
Shred it- Use whole chicken breasts and prior to serving, use 2 forks to shred the meat.
Storage
Refrigerate- In a sealed container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Freeze– In a sealed container in the freezer for up to 1 month.
Reheat- In the microwave.
Tips and Techniques
How to thicken sauce? Mix in dissolved cornstarch.
How to make sauce thinner? Add some broth or water.
What to do with leftovers? Use them as a pizza topping or in sandwiches, wraps or even mix them in fried rice.
Don’t use frozen chicken- That’s because it releases more water and the sauce will be very “runny.”
What cut of chicken to use? Whole or diced chicken breasts, thighs or drumsticks all work well.
Use dissolved cornstarch– Because if you just sprinkle the cornstarch powder in the crockpot, it will create clumps in the sauce.
Adjust flavor– Use more or less of honey, salt, pepper, vinegar, sriracha, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, red chili flakes.
Fresh pineapple juice vs. Store-bought juice– Either can be used. Use unsweetened juice to prevent this meal from becoming too sweet.
Fresh pineapples or Canned pineapples- Either can be used. If you are using canned, don’t use anything in heavy syrup.
Slow Cooker Hawaiian Chicken (Pineapple Chicken)
Ingredients
- 2 pounds Chicken breast, Cut into small cubes.
- 1 cup Pineapple chunks
- 1 clove Garlic, Finely minced
- 1 tsp Ginger powder
- 1/4 tsp Red chili flakes, Optional
- Salt, To taste
- Pepper, To taste
- 1 tbsp Sriracha sauce
- 1 tbsp Soy sauce, Low sodium
- 1 tbsp Vinegar
- 1/4 cup Honey
- 1/3 cup Pineapple juice
- 1.5 cups Mixture of onions, red, yellow, green peppers , Cut into 1 inch pieces
- 2 tbsp Cornstarch
- 1 tbsp Cilantro, Fresh, Finely chopped, For garnish
Instructions
- In a 6 quart slow cooker, add chicken, pineapple chunks, ginger, garlic, red chili flakes, salt, pepper, Sriracha sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, honey, pineapple juice. Mix everything together until combined.
- Cover and cook for on "High" heat for 1.5 hours.
- Add all the peppers and onions and mix.
- Cover and cook again on "High" heat for 30 minutes.
- In a small mixing bowl, add cornstarch and 1/3 liquid from the slow cooker. Mix it together until the cornstarch is fully dissolved. Add this cornstarch slurry in the slow cooker. Mix everything.
- Cover and cook on "High" heat for 30 minutes.
- Garnish with fresh cilantro. Enjoy!
Notes
- Read all my tips above.
- Leftovers can be stored in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
I loved this recipe! I just made a couple of changes. I did not add the ginger because I didn’t have any, and I didn’t add the red pepper flakes because I wasn’t sure how spicy it would be with the sriracha already in it, and I still thought it was delicious…I love spicy, but my kids were eating this too. The amount of sriracha in the recipe made for a “gentle” heat that was more of a little kick in the aftertaste; very subtle.
I added the veggies at about the 1 hour mark because I was afraid they wouldn’t cook enough, and I don’t like them too crunchy. They were perfect; firm but not too crunchy, and definitely not mushy.
One thing I’d definitely do is to double the sauce. When I was adding the veggies after 1 hour, there was very little liquid left. There wouldn’t have been much to thicken at the end. Maybe my slow cooker runs a little hotter, but this was just what I noticed when I made this recipe. So I added another “batch” of the sauce when I added the veggies, and because of that, I doubled the amount of corn starch at the end.
And the cilantro as a garnish was the perfect finishing touch. The whole thing came out perfectly. I will be making this again, probably in a few days because we loved it and there wasn’t much left over.
I am so happy to hear you enjoyed it and thanks for your detailed notes too. It will definitely be helpful for others too.
When you doubled the sauce where did you start? Did you just double the PA juice or did you double other ingredients like soy sauce,vinegar etc.? Thanks.
Any time I double a recipe, I double ALL the ingredients.