Slow Cooker Chicken Adobo–an easy 6-ingredient recipe for the tastiest chicken ever! A Filipino recipe of tender chicken thighs braised in vinegar and soy sauce with lots of garlic.
Get the INSTANT POT chicken adobo recipe here
Slow Cooker Chicken Adobo
I can’t believe that I’ve never made chicken adobo before. To tell you the truth I didn’t even know what it was until yesterday. For some reason I imagined chicken adobo as chicken surrounded with chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. Turns out I was seriously wrong.
Chicken adobo is a Filipino dish of chicken pieces marinated in a sauce of vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, bay leaves and peppercorns. Believe me it’s much better than it sounds. The taste is tangy, salty and somewhat sweet. My husband had one bite of the chicken and said dramatically, “Oh. My. GOSH!” He was shocked at how much flavor it had. I was too. The main problem with this chicken is that there is never enough.
This version of chicken adobo is made in your trusty slow cooker. You don’t have to pre-marinate the chicken because the sauce just gets into the chicken thanks to the low and slow cooking method.
Chicken adobo is traditionally made with bone-in chicken. You can use bone-in chicken or boneless thighs, like I did. The thighs came out fall-apart tender. For this particular recipe I personally wouldn’t use chicken breasts. They just don’t come out as tender as the darker meats. But I know there will some of you that will still want to use chicken breasts so I’ll put the directions in the recipe below.
More Slow Cooker Chicken Recipes You’ll Love…
Slow Cooker Garlic Rice and Chicken
Slow Cooker Chicken and Dumplings
Slow Cooker Creamy Tuscan Chicken
What Slow Cooker Did You Use?
To make Slow Cooker Chicken Adobo I used my Ninja Auto-iQ 6 Quart Slow Cooker.* My favorite feature of this slow cooker is that it has a stove top function. This is perfect for sauteing or browning before you slow cook. This slow cooker has four manual cooking functions: slow cook, stove top sear/Saute, steam, and bake.
Slow Cooker Chicken Adobo
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 6 hours on low
- Total Time: 23 minute
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
Description
An easy 6-ingredient recipe for the tastiest chicken ever! A Filipino recipe of tender chicken thighs braised in vinegar and soy sauce with lots of garlic.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs (or 3 pounds bone-in chicken)
- 1/2 cup white distilled vinegar
- 1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
- 6 garlic cloves, crushed (smashed with the side of a knife and peeled)
- 1 tsp whole black peppercorns
- 3 bay leaves
Instructions
- Add vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, peppercorns and bay leaves into the slow cooker. Place the chicken into the slow cooker.
- Cover and cook on low for 6 hours.
- Remove the lid and place chicken on a platter.
- Reduce the sauce in the slow cooker. You can do this by pouring it into a saucepan and reducing on the stove for about 7 minutes on medium-high heat. Or if you have a stovetop setting on your slow cooker you can use that.
- Add chicken back in with the sauce and stir to coat the chicken in the sauce. Serve chicken with rice and sauce.
Notes
For this particular recipe I personally wouldn’t use chicken breasts. They just don’t come out as tender as the darker meats. But I know there will some of you that will still want to use chicken breasts. If you do only cook for 3-4 hours on low.
If using bone-in chicken you may want to remove the skin. If not you will probably want to broil the chicken a little to crisp up the skin.
To make gluten free: Use a gluten free soy sauce or tamari.
- Category: Chicken
- Method: Slow Cooker
- Cuisine: Filipino
*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.
I admit I was thrown by the title of Chicken Adobo, expecting to use Adobo seasoning so I’m puzzled where that recipe name came from, but my husband and I liked it. I’ll admit my chicken was cooking in crock for about 2+hours when I realized I should’ve looked at the reviews. I took someone’s suggestion and added 1T brown sugar and I decided to add some orange juice, approximately 1/8c. I cooked chicken 5 hours and that was more than enough (under 2lbs meat). We found this very tasty. We shredded the chicken, placed it over rice with some sauteed peppers and onions, and the thicken the sauce and it to be a nice meal.
★★★★
This recipe not worth trying unless it gets enhanced some way. Just tasted like vinegar and soy sauce. Not sure what it needs but needs something.
★
Try a pinch of sugar like 1/2 a tablespoon, it will chemically change the pH without being too sweet.
Use Datu Puti vinegar from the Asian Market. That is what vinegar the Filipino people use to make it and it tastes great using that type of vinegar.
Are there any vegetables that you could throw in the pot with the chicken? I plan on making this on Saturday and like one pot meals. I was thinking that baby carrots might be good.
Yes you could definitely throw carrots in there!
Can I use cider vinegar in this?
yes
Can I use rice vinegar with this? Also a touch of ginger & green onion?
★★★★★
I think all those ideas would work! I haven’t tried with rice vinegar but it hopefully will taste fine.