This slow cooker orange chicken is breaded chunks of chicken tossed in a sweet and savory Asian sauce and cooked in the crock pot. A take out copycat that’s perfect for a busy weeknight!
Love Panda Express? You can make Panda Express style orange chicken at home right in your slow cooker.
Orange chicken is one of those dishes that is universally loved, there’s just something about that breaded chicken coated in orange sauce! This slow cooker orange chicken tastes a lot like the fast food favorite, but it’s made at home in your slow cooker with less oil. It’s sure to become a family favorite!
How to make orange chicken
I know that the premise of most slow cooker recipes is to toss everything in and go, but in this case, we’re going to start by breading and browning the chicken. It’s an extra step, but it’s the best way to replicate the coating you get on restaurant style orange chicken. If you’re really pressed for time, you can absolutely skip this step and instead just put cut up raw chicken in the crock pot with the sauce. It will still be delicious, although not as close of a match to the Panda Express version.
After your chicken chunks are in the slow cooker, it’s time to make the sauce out of orange marmalade, soy sauce and sesame oil. The sauce gets tossed with the chicken and the whole thing cooks for a few hours on low.
The cornstarch in the chicken coating means that this sauce will thicken as it cooks. If you prefer a lot of extra sauce to serve with your orange chicken, you can double the sauce ingredient amounts before you place them in the slow cooker.
The end result is an amazing dinner that tastes a lot like the Chinese restaurant classic! Slow cooker orange chicken is best served over a bowl of steamed rice.
My kids request this meal all the time and I’m happy to oblige. Yes, it’s an extra step to pre-cook the chicken in its coating, but I really think this is totally worth the extra effort!
More Asian food favorites
- Homemade Egg Rolls
- Cream Cheese Wontons
- Firecracker Chicken
- Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry
- Mongolian Beef
Slow Cooker Orange Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into 1 inch chunks
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 3/4 cup orange marmalade
- 1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
- cooking spray
- 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
- 2 tablespoons sliced green onions
Instructions
- Place the chicken pieces in a bowl. Add the cornstarch and salt and pepper. Toss to coat the chicken in the cornstarch mixture.
- Heat the oil in a large pan over medium high heat. Add the chicken in a single layer and cook for 3-4 minutes on each side until browned. You may need to work in batches.
- Coat a slow cooker with cooking spray and add the chicken to the slow cooker.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the orange marmalade, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil and garlic.
- Pour the sauce over the chicken and gently stir to coat.
- Cook on LOW for 2-3 hours.
- Sprinkle with sesame seeds and green onions, then serve.
I have special dietary needs and couldn’t find an orange marmalade that was compliant with what I can eat(they all had added sugars, corn syrup, or artificial sweeteners). Instead, I cut up an orange and chopped the flesh up into smaller pieces and added orange juice to it. I also added some honey to the sauce to make sure the sweetness was there, and I substituted the soy sauce for coconut aminos. It is in the crockpot right now, I think it will turn out delicious!
Can’t wait to try this. Will stove top be a different recipe than the slow-cooker recipe? Thanks!
Here is the stove top recipe: https://www.dinneratthezoo.com/orange-chicken/
The original flavor of the sauce was perfect but after cooking it seemed to be a lot milder. Is there any way to make the flavor more intense? Thanks.
You could make a larger batch of the sauce, and leave some of it out of the slow cooker and stir it in at the very end right before serving.
I havent made this, but want to try it…I dont have orange Marmalade, but I do have Red Currant Jelly from the Farmers Market that I use as a sauce ingredient for Pork Tenderloin. The sauce ingredients in this orange chicken recipe are Identical except for the orange marmalade. I will post the outcome. 🙂
Thrilled to find this amazing recipe! I love crook pot meals after a day at work.
I’ve made this twice now, once in the crock pot and once on the stove. It got rave reviews from my family both times. I think I’m going to try adding a 1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes next time to give it a little kick to offset the sweetness a bit.
If you had to choose between your slow cooker orange chicken recipe or your non-slow cooker one, which one would you choose?
The stove top one tastes like Panda Express style orange chicken. The slow cooker one the flavor is a little different and the chicken coating doesn’t stay as crispy since it’s cooked in a crock pot. They’re both good choices but the regular one has that restaurant taste that’s harder to replicate in a slow cooker.
Love this recipe! I made it quick on one skillet. After cooking the chicken I added the sauce, and cooked on low for 20 minutes. Delicious! Don’t need to go out and take out anymore. Yay!
Haven’t made it yet.. maybe for dinner tomorrow. Would it be weird to add brown sugar to this recipe?
That should work fine!
Thank you for the recipe! It was delicious and a big hit!
Made this tonight for tomorrows dinner. I doubled the sauce and it is very thin. Could I thicken it up with a cornstarch slurry. Really taste good thin sauce and all. Thanks
Yes you can add a cornstarch slurry during the last 30 minutes of the cooking time!
I don’t normally leave reviews but this recipe was awesome. I made it last night and served it with a side of steamed broccoli and jasmine rice. I will definitely be making it again. We were hungry so I didn’t want to wait for it to cook in the slow cooker so I just cooked it all on the stove instead but I will try it in the slow cooker next time. Thank you!
I made this 2 weeks ago for my Daughter’s Birthday Dinner. My family is used to my “substitutions” whenever I cook pretty much anything, so when I didn’t have Orange Marmalade on hand, I pureed a small can of Mandarin Oranges and added that plus .25 cup of granulated sugar to the sauce mixture (I missed having the rind, but no one else seemed to notice it was missing, lol). Sprinkling the final presentation with Sesame Seeds is a MUST! IMHO, that simple addition “made” the Dinner. (I served Jasmine Rice and a stove-top Garlicky Bok Choy dish as sides). Very definitely a “keeper” recipe. And one that’s easy enough to prepare that it can be served up anytime and not just for special occasions. 5 Stars.
Easy and delicious! I was asked to double it for next time!
My family looooooved this! Doubled the recipe and it turned out fantastic!
could I leave out the rice vinegar and the sesame oil? Or do I need to make a trip to the grocery store? Lol
I haven’t tried it this way, my best guess would be that you can omit the sesame oil but use a different vinegar for the rice vinegar, such as 2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar.
I just made this taste good but I got it to thick what can I do?
You can add a little water or chicken broth to thin the sauce!
I made this meal, it was delicious! Wondering if it is gluten free and if not what could I substitute to make it GF?
You would need to swap out the soy sauce for something else such as a gluten free tamari sauce!
There are several gluten free soy sauce. La Choy is a good one
What about Bragg’s amino acids? My gf’s allergic to soy & uses those instead
I believe that should be ok!
You could also use coconut aminos instead of soy sauce!