Slow Cooker Spicy Honey Lime Chicken

by Sabrina Snyder

Last Update:

29 Comments

5 from 3 votes
5 Servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 4 hours
Total Time 4 hours 10 minutes
Jump to Recipe
Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy.

Slow Cooker Spicy Honey Lime Chicken is a low effort recipe made with just five ingredients. Perfect as a main dish or turn it into Carnitas!

I love Slow Cooker chicken recipes including the most popular recipe on the site, Slow Cooker Brown Sugar Garlic Chicken and Slow Cooker Thai Peanut Chicken.

Sabrina’s Slow Cooker Spicy Honey Lime Chicken Recipe

I love cooking with my slow cooker all year long because in the fall and winter I’m busy with the kids in school and in the summers I don’t want to heat up the kitchen. This recipe is actually one of my favorites for the summer.

Recipe Card

Dinner, then Dessert

Slow Cooker Spicy Honey Lime Chicken Recipe

Slow Cooker Spicy Honey Lime Chicken is a low effort recipe made with just five ingredients. Perfect as a main dish or turn it into Carnitas!
Yield 5 Servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 4 hours
Total Time 4 hours 10 minutes
Course Main Course
Cuisine American/Mexican
Author Sabrina Snyder
chicken on a bed of rice with some jalapeno slices and a lime
PrintRate

Ingredients
 

  • 1/4 cup  honey
  • 1 jalapeno , sliced thinly
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1 lime , zested and juiced
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
  • 5 chicken thighs , bone in and skin on

Instructions

  • Add all the ingredients (except the chicken) together in small bowl and whisk.
  • Add the chicken to the slow cooker skin-side up.
  • Pour over the mixture and cook on low heat for 7-8 hours or high heat for 3-4 hours.
  • If you want the chicken to be even crispier put it 8 inches below the broiler in the oven on high heat for 2-3 minutes.

Nutrition

Calories: 359kcal | Carbohydrates: 12g | Protein: 24g | Fat: 24g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 10g | Trans Fat: 0.1g | Cholesterol: 142mg | Sodium: 351mg | Potassium: 332mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 10g | Vitamin A: 269IU | Vitamin C: 7mg | Calcium: 19mg | Iron: 1mg

Want to save this recipe? Create a free account to easily save your favorite recipes

Pin this recipe now to remember it later

Pin Recipe

Table of Contents

Back to Table of Contents

About this Recipe

The best part about this recipe is that it’s just five ingredients, making it one of the my favorite easy chicken recipes. The flavors are perfectly balanced with honey, chili powder, lime, and jalapeños. Plus, the cost of the recipe is super low.

Recipe Tips & Tricks

  • To make sure you have crispy chicken make sure you do NOT add additional liquids to the slow cooker.
  • Brown the chicken before putting it into the slow cooker.
  • Make sure the chicken is not crowded in the slow cooker (make sure liquids do not come up to the level of the skin on the chicken).
  • Turn on the broiler in your oven and simply broil the chicken for 2-3 minutes before serving for extra crispy skin.

What to Pair With

We love serving this dish over Cilantro Lime Rice or Garlic Butter Roasted Potatoes. Additionally, the chicken can be shredded and added to other recipes like tacos, burritos, and salads.

Ideas to Serve: Chicken Carnitas

  • Once cooked I shred the chicken and put it under the broiler or in a skillet to crisp it up.
  • Serve this chicken carnitas with some cilantro and diced onions in a tortilla.
  • Top with some salsa, guacamole, and a pinch of lime.

Oven-Baked Technique

  • Want to make something similar in the oven? I’ve got you covered! Head on over to Baked Honey Lime Chicken and just add in some chili powder and sliced jalapeños.

More Slow Cooker Chicken Recipes

Crock Pot Chicken Carnitas Pin image

Photo used in previous post:

Crockpot Spicy Honey Lime Chicken

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

See more posts by Sabrina

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

Categories

Leave a comment & rating

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Maximum file size: 10 MB.
Allowed formats: JPG, JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF. Drop images here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Comments

  1. Carnitas’s – braised or roasted PORK that is shredded. By definition carnitas is pork. This is a shredded/pulled chicken recipe, the word carnitas has no place in the write up or recipe

    Reply

  2. could this be used as a freezer dump dinner, i.e., all the ingredients put in a bag, put in the freezer and then added to the slow cooker? There aren’t many ingredients but doing stuff ahead helps save me some time.

    Reply

    1. I don’t suggest adding these ingredients frozen into the slow cooker. It will thaw as it cooks and release too much liquid and make it soupy. Sorry.

      Reply

  3. I am slowly working my way through this collection of recipes; we are great slow cooker fans in our family and these all work well and are delicious; thanks so much for making these available!

    Reply

  4. Do you add a small amount of water to the mixture or is it only thoes ingredients? Im asking because in the pic it looks like a nice amount of liquids.

    Reply

    1. The chicken will release liquid as it’s cooked so that’s what you’re seeing. I only included the ingredients in the recipe card into the slow cooker. I hope you enjoy it!

      Reply

  5. Made this twice! The flavor is so light and delicious. Second time I made it, I added a corn starch slurry to thicken up the pan liquids and it made a HUGE difference to the texture and boldness of the flavor / how coated the chicken stays.

    Reply

    1. You’ll want to remove the thin layer of the rind of the lime by using a microplane grater for the zest portion. Then squeeze the juice out of the lime. Hope this helps clear up any confusion.

      Reply

    1. I usually don’t recommend breasts in a slow cooker because they tend to dry out but I have seen comments on some of my other slow cooker recipes stating they have used breasts with no issue. If you decide to try, I’d love to know how it turned out.

      Reply