Slow Cooker BBQ Chicken Thighs

I guess it really depends on what barbecue sauce you start with and the thickness of it, etc. My barbecue sauce started out slightly thin before I even added anything. Then when you put it in the crockpot and all the juice from the chicken comes out, it’s even runnier. Mine never actually glazed over like it should have. I’m sorry, but I did not like this recipe. First off, the chicken in the bag was not actually full thighs, it was just all pieces. Also, I believe all meat needs some kind of fat when you cook it to keep from drying out so bad and being stringy and tough as this did. Guess I will try to pull it more and try to make barbecue sandwiches out of it tomorrow.

I really think, as other cooks also commented, a jar of barbecue was enough for this recipe. I added all the ingredients to the sauce but the honey as my BBQ was sweet enough for our taste. I cooked the chicken for about 4 1/2 hours and it came out dry and the sauce was very soupy so I pour it in pan and reduced it until it was thick enough to glaze the chicken. As it is very dry I'm going to shred it and add more BBQ sauce and make sandwiches.

I agree with other reviewer's. While so easy to make, the extra ingredients added to the bbq sauce were unessasary. It would have been just as good with just the bbq sauce. The flavor was great, but the dish came out soupy and the meat was chewy. I drained the juices and reduced them on the stove to thicken it up which helped a lot, but it didn't change the texture of the meat. I admit I don't use the bags of frozen, uncooked chicken so it might just be that. I am going to make these again, this time, using bone- in chicken thighs from the refrigerator case. I have a feeling that the frozen pieces had too much water in them and that's what happened. It made a pretty picture; and like another reviewer, I warmed up some of the bbq sauce and poured it on top of it.

We thought these were delicious! So easy to put together and I didn't miss the grill taste at all. Do watch your time though. I know everyone's slow cooker cooks at different temps, but ours were just a little dry and falling apart at 5 hours. I would definitely start checking at 4 hours. Overall, a great, easy weeknight recipe!

I've never thought to make bbq chicken in a slow cooker before. I usually precook my skin on chicken in a stock pot on the stove and finish off on the bbq or broiler with bbq sauce. Using this method allows the flavor to permeate the meat leaving the bbq sauce taste more prevalent. I didn't add honey because the sauce I used, Sweet Baby Ray's, was plenty sweet on it's own. I also didn't have creole mustard so I just used some stone ground dijon. I used my Instant Pot on the slow cook function on low and set for 6 hours. Worked perfectly. When done the chicken is not pretty or very picture worthy but tasty nonetheless. I added some warmed up bbq sauce for a better presentation but for flavor it really wasn't necessary. This method would be worth repeating for a busy weeknight dinner.

While pretty simple to make, this recipe was more complicated than it needed to be. I have gotten better results with a regular bottle of barbecue sauce and a variety of "skin-on" chicken. I thought the skinless thighs came out dry and I cooked them for just under 5 hours on low. Next time, I will stick with a regular bottle of barbecue sauce, skin-on chicken and remove the skin before eating. This helps reduce a dry piece of chicken.

8.4.18 It’s important that you use a favorite BBQ sauce because that flavor will dominate. I have a BBQ sauce recipe that I clipped from the newspaper many years ago from a BBQ restaurant in Oklahoma City, and it just never lets me down. I cooked this in my Instant Pot® using the slow cooker feature, checked the meat temperature at just over two hours, and it already was done. I scaled the recipe down to three servings from eight, so there was less meat in the pot, but I still would recommend you watch your time. It just doesn’t get much easier than this to put a juicy, tender, flavorful chicken entree on the dinner table.