Awesome Sauce Chicken–an easy Instant Pot or Crockpot recipe for tender chicken tenderloins in a unique sauce with honey, mustard, soy sauce and more.
Awesome Sauce Chicken
This chicken recipe is super fast and easy. It’s a dump and go recipe, which you know I love! With only a handful of ingredients and the fact that you don’t have to thaw the chicken it comes together so fast. The sauce is the star, it’s slightly sweet, slightly spicy and has some tang from the vinegar. You can easily double this recipe and use the leftover chicken on top of a salad or in a sandwich wrap.
Ingredients/Substitution Ideas
- Water
- Chicken tenderloins–frozen is fine. You can also use boneless thighs, cut into cubes.
- Low sodium soy sauce–or tamari
- Brown sugar
- Ground ginger
- Garlic powder
- Sriracha
- Dijon mustard
- Honey
- Vinegar–I used white vinegar
- Cornstarch
Steps
Pour water into Instant Pot. Place chicken evenly in the bottom of the pot.
In a small bowl stir together the soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, garlic powder, sriracha, mustard, honey and vinegar. Pour the mixture over the chicken.
Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 4 minutes. When time is up let pot sit for 10 minutes and then move valve to venting. Remove the lid.
In a small bowl stir together cornstarch with 2 Tbsp of cold water until smooth. Turn Instant Pot to saute setting. Stir the slurry into the pot to thicken the sauce. Once thickened, turn off the Instant Pot.
Serve chicken and sauce with mashed potatoes or rice.
Notes/Tips
- Serve chicken and sauce with mashed potatoes or rice. Serve alongside a side of roasted cauliflower or broccoli.
- To make pot-in-pot mashed potatoes at the same time: After step 1 place a tall trivet* into the pot around the chicken. In a pot-in-pot dish* add cubed potatoes that are mostly covered with water. (I used 6 red potatoes). Place the dish on top of the trivet. The potatoes will be perfectly cooked once the chicken is finished. Drain the potatoes and then mash them and stir in butter, milk, salt and pepper to taste. You can also use this method to make rice. Use white rice (long grain, converted, jasmine, basmati). And use a 1 cup rice to 1.25 cups water ratio.
- This recipe can be gluten free if you use gluten-free soy sauce. This recipe is dairy free.
- I used my 6 quart Instant Pot*. You can also make this in a 3 or 8 quart pot.
- Store leftovers in an airtight container* in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- Other recipes you can make with sriracha are Instant Pot Firecracker Chicken and Instant Pot Dragon Noodles.
Did you know you can filter the recipes on my website to search by meat type, IP or Crockpot, low carb, gluten free, etc.? Use the filter to find exactly what you are looking for.
Awesome Sauce Chicken
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 4 minutes (plus 10 minute NPR)
- Total Time: 24 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
Description
An easy Instant Pot or Crockpot recipe for tender chicken tenderloins in a unique sauce with honey, mustard, soy sauce and more.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 1/2 pounds chicken tenderloins or boneless thighs cut into cubes
- 2 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp sriracha
- 1 Tbsp dijon mustard
- 1 tsp honey
- 1 Tbsp vinegar
- 1 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
Instructions
Instant Pot Instructions:
- Pour water into Instant Pot. Place chicken evenly in the bottom of the pot. In a small bowl stir together the soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, garlic powder, sriracha, mustard, honey and vinegar. Pour the mixture over the chicken.
- Cover Instant Pot and secure the lid. Make sure valve is set to sealing. Set the manual/pressure cook button to 4 minutes. When time is up let pot sit for 10 minutes and then move valve to venting. Remove the lid.
- In a small bowl stir together cornstarch with 2 Tbsp of cold water until smooth. Turn Instant Pot to saute setting. Stir the slurry into the pot to thicken the sauce. Once thickened, turn off the Instant Pot.
- Serve chicken and sauce with mashed potatoes or rice.
Slow Cooker Instructions:
- Pour water into slow cooker. Place chicken evenly in the bottom of the slow cooker. In a small bowl whisk together the soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, garlic powder, sriracha, mustard, honey, vinegar and cornstarch. Pour the mixture over the chicken.
- Cover and cook on low for 2-3 hours.
- Serve chicken and sauce with mashed potatoes or rice.
Notes
To make pot-in-pot mashed potatoes at the same time: After step 1 place a tall trivet* into the pot around the chicken. In a pot-in-pot dish* add cubed potatoes that are mostly covered with water. (I used 6 red potatoes). Place the dish on top of the trivet. The potatoes will be perfectly cooked once the chicken is finished. Drain the potatoes and then mash them and stir in butter, milk, salt and pepper to taste.
- Category: Chicken
- Method: Instant Pot or Slow Cooker
More Chicken Recipes…
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With a secret ingredient that your family won’t be able to guess and only a handful of total ingredients this sweet and sour chicken is delicious to eat, easy to make and quick to clean up after dinner is done. A perfect weeknight recipe! Can be made in your Instant Pot or slow cooker.
Anthony’s Chicken
Instant Pot chicken and pasta with a sweet and savory barbecue-mustard sauce, monterey jack cheese and bacon crumbles.
Disappearing Chicken
Flavorful, creamy, cheesy chicken with green chiles that will vanish in seconds.
*Karen Petersen is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
Excellent flavor and so easy! We all loved it! I doubled the sauce because my husband always wants extra and it was perfect. Thank you, we really enjoy your recipes!
Thank you so much! I’m so glad you all loved it. Doubling the sauce sounds like a great idea
If I do this in the crockpot, can I still use frozen chicken?
yes!
Why does the recipe read cut into cubes if the photo shows strips?
it’s either chicken tenderloins (the strips) or you can cut chicken into pieces. So it’s up to you on what you want to do.
I have a question. If I use the chicken thighs instead of the tenderloins, do I have to adjust the cooking time?
Definitely awesome! Glad I followed Chris’ advice and doubled the sauce. So wish I’d doubled the chicken too 😫. My pound + 11oz of chicken breasts cut into tender sized strips yielded 4 “weight loss, portion control” servings 🤔. Karen, you might want to tweak that so it’s not munchkin size servings.
Paired well with skin on mashed russet potatoes and steamed baby bok choy & carrots.
Will DEFINITELY make this chicken again 😋 I
Oh shoot! I will look at adjusting the amounts. Thanks for the review and rating Jennie!
Unless I just have a house of 3 greedy guts 😉. Less embarrassing to say portion size is small. Or blame the overwhelming deliciousness of recipe for how fast the pot cleared 😁?
great recipe, and very easy! my 14 year old daughter requests this recipe at least once a week. I cube the chicken, use chicken stock vs water just for more flavor, add blanched broccoli to sauce and serve over mashed potatoes. sooo good! love this recipe!
mmmm! Sounds so perfect to me Jessica!
delicious, easy recipe to follow. Made it with boneless thighs. Will try it with the chicken tenderloins next time. Served over riced cauliflower for a low carb dish.
Thanks for the review Rick! So glad you like it 🙂
This was excellent! I doubled the sauce because we like gravy. The Sriracha put this recipe over the top. Just the right amount of heat. It’s in the rotation.
Nice! And yes to your thoughts on the sriracha!