5 Ingredient Slow Cooker Chicken Legs
on Jan 30, 2023
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This 5 Ingredient Slow Cooker Chicken Legs recipe is flavor-packed and easy to prepare with a few simple ingredients. These chicken legs, made with soy sauce, require almost no effort – dinner is done in 10 minutes!
Easy 5 Ingredient Crockpot Chicken Legs Recipe
This meal is super simple and a major crowd pleaser, and it all comes together with 10 minutes of prep time, 5 ingredients, and a slow cooker. Slow cooker chicken drumsticks are going to be a super easy kid friendly meal that makes it onto your meal rotation in no time!
Ingredients:
- Chicken legs or drumsticks: I love using this cut of meat, it’s inexpensive and easy to fine, plus it’s fun to eat! You can always use chicken thighs too.
- Jam or jelly: I like something without seeds like a peach, apricot, apple or other light jam
- Ketchup: this adds a tomato base to the sauce
- Soy sauce: this adds so much great salt and flavor to the dish
- Minced garlic or garlic powder: this is the flavor of the dish
How to Make Slow Cooker Chicken Legs
- This is so easy! Just pop the chicken in the slow cooker.
- Mix all your sauce ingredients together and pour it over the chicken.
- Let it cook! Serve and Enjoy.
- Don’t waste the sauce, serve it over rice and cooked veggies. It’s very flavorful and good to eat!
Tips and Tricks for Making Slow Cooker Chicken Legs
- You can add so many things to these crock pot chicken legs! Add a tablespoon or three of Siracha or other favorite hot sauce for some spice, add a teaspoon of Montreal Steak Seasoning for a little bit of smokiness, or throw in some favorite spices like onion powder, cumin, or ginger. It’s very flexible and very versatile.
- You can use all kinds of jams and jellies for this recipe. My favorites are grape, apple, apricot, or peach. They have a nice flavor and sweetness without being too fruity. I normally avoid jams with seeds such as blackberry.
- The sauce that the cooking chicken creates is delicious. Feel free to serve it over rice. Add a side of steamed veggies and you have yourself a complete meal.
- I normally plan on two chicken legs per person as a serving size. This is a great recipe for a crowd and scales up and down really nicely.
- If you like your chicken legs a little crispy on the outside, you can remove them from the slow cooker after they’re finished cooking and put them on a rimmed baking sheet. Brush them with additional sauce left in the slow cooker. Broil them in the oven for around 5 minutes until you reach your desired crispiness.
Frequently Asked Questions
This recipe to make chicken legs in the slow cooker is a joy because you only need FIVE ingredients: 3-or-so pounds of chicken legs or drumsticks, 1 cup of jam or jelly, 1/2 cup of ketchup, 1/3 cup of soy sauce, and 2 teaspoons minced garlic.
If you have leftover chicken legs, store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. You can cut the leftover chicken from the bone and use it in a stir fry and a salad to remix the meal. Store leftover sauce separately in an airtight container for up to 5 days, as well.
There are PLENTY of ways to make this recipe your own! You can use all kinds of jams and jellies in the recipe, but I particularly like grape, apple, apricot, and peach. They add a really nice flavor without being too fruity or seedy (I usually avoid seedy ones, like blackberry or strawberry).
You can also add a couple tablespoons of Sriracha or another favorite hot sauce to amp up the spice levels, or throw in some smoky seasonings to make it even richer. It’s super versatile, so add whatever flavors you love!
You can pair this with just about any sides that you like! It’s pretty rich and so very delicious, so even a nice and simple side salad would go well, or some steamed, rice, or mashed potatoes to soak up that yummy sauce with steamed veggies.
Storing Leftovers
Store leftovers in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. These reheat well in the air-fryer or the microwave.
More chicken recipes:
- The Best Baked Chicken Leg Quarters
- Chicken Kabobs
- The Best Baked Chicken Legs
- One Pot Coconut Chicken and Rice
If you’ve tried this Slow Cooker Chicken Leg Recipe or any other recipe on Bless this Mess, then don’t forget to rate the recipe and leave me a comment below! I would love to hear about your experience making it. And if you snapped some pictures of it, share it with me on Instagram so I can repost on my stories.
Other Chicken Leg Recipes You’ll Love
- Lemon Garlic Baked Chicken Legs
- 4-Ingredient Honey Mustard Baked Chicken Legs
- Crispy Panko-Crusted Baked Chicken Legs
- The Best Baked Chicken Legs
- 8 Must-Make Recipes for Chicken Legs
- The Best Oven Baked Chicken Leg Quarters
A few more recipes you’ll love:
- Slow cooker pork tenderloin: if you like using your slow cooker, you’ll love this recipe!
- How to cook asparagus on the stove top: goes great as a side for the chicken!
- Deli-Style Broccoli Salad
So many great chicken and slow cooker recipes! I hope you have time to make this one because it’s a keeper. You’ll love making crock pot chicken drumsticks because they are so easy to make and your whole family will love them too.
Slow Cooker Chicken Legs
Ingredients
- 3 to 3.5 pound chicken legs or drumsticks
- 1 cup jam or jelly, (see notes)
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1/3 cup soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic, (or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder)
Instructions
- Place the chicken legs in the bottom of the slow cooker.
- In a small bowl add the jam or jelly, ketchup, soy sauce, and garlic. Mix to combine well.
- Pour the sauce over the chicken legs.
- Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 5-6 or until the chicken is cooked through.
- Enjoy the chicken hot.
Notes
- You can use all kinds of jams and jellies for this recipe. My favorites are grape, apple, apricot, or peach. They have a nice flavor and sweetness without being too fruity. I normally avoid jams with seeds such as blackberry.
- You can add so many things to these chicken legs! Add a tablespoon or three of Siracha or other favorite hot sauce for some spice, add a teaspoon of Montreal Steak Seasoning for a little bit of smokiness, or throw in some favorite spices like onion powder, cumin, or ginger. It’s very flexible and very versatile.
- The sauce that the cooking chicken creates is delicious. Feel free to serve it over rice. Add a side of steamed veggies and you have yourself a complete meal.
This recipe was the bomb I used a spicy ketchup instead of regular had just the right amount of heat
Where have I been living, under a rock?! I didn’t even know they made spicy ketchup! Sounds amazing!!
I made this for my husband and I so I cut everything to a 1/4 of the recipe except I did use a lb of chicken. It seems like it might get too dry in the crockpot, do you have any suggestions?
I think it all depends on the SIZE of your slow cooker! If you have a smaller slow cooker, it should work great. I do think it might get dry if you have one that’s like a 6 quart, 3 quart might be better. That being said, you can back this in a 9×9 dish for maybe 1 hour to 1.5 hours and it’ll work the same. ENJOY!
I’m going to make this and serve it with rice. But I only have 1 1/2 pounds of chicken legs. How much sauce will it make? I’m curious if I should halve the recipe or leave it as is?
It’ll be fine as is with that much chicken or you can reduce the sauce a bit if needed. I normally don’t adjust it much for the slow cooker as it’s not too fussy!
Looking forward to making this tomorrow
Just finished putting it in
the Crock-Pot, can’t wait!!!!
Made this the first time with black raspberry. Yummy! Trying it tonight with grape! Great recipe and so versatile!
Ohhhh that raspberry sounds so good! I do it a ton with apricot too (since my kids didn’t love the jam I made last year!) so it’s nice to have a flexible recipe that can accommodate things that might other wise get tossed. Thank you for leaving a review too, I really appreciate that.
Yay, I can see it now!!! Trying it out tonight..thanks!!
Thank you again for saying something! That really helped us get that figured out!
It was totally an error on my end! Thank you for letting me know so that I could fix it! It’s all showing up again and ready for you.
No, it was totally an error on my end. All fixed, thank you for leaving a comment so that I knew something was up or we never would have found the issue! I really appreciate that!
Yay, I can see it now!!! Trying it out tonight..thanks!!
Would using strawberry jam be a bad idea?
I probably would not use it, I think it’ll be too fruity. It’s worth a try though! If you do will you let us know?!
I used strawberry jam because it was all I had the first time I tried this recipe and it came out delicious! It wasn’t fruity at all. Very savory and tender. Now I am looking at the comments to see if thighs would work this time around.
A friend just texted me a picture of her making thighs with it! She said it worked great and her 4 teens LOVED it!
That’s super odd. I can see it on mobile and desktop. Do you mind telling me what you are on and what browser you are using? That will help me trouble shoot, I’ve never had this issue before.
So Iāve got a small crockpot. (Iām new to the crockpot game) How high do you fill the pot with chicken legs? Like halfway?
It’ll be fine all the way full too. I bet that many chicken legs will fill it most of the way up!
I did this last night and it was beautiful. I used Sweet chili sauce instead of jam and a tea spoon of green curry paste with a bit of Worchester Sauce. Served it over rice with steamed veges and everyone loved it.
Sweet chili sauce is such a great idea!!! Thank you for sharing!