5 Ingredient Slow Cooker Chicken Legs
on Oct 29, 2018, Updated Aug 21, 2024
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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
Equipment
- Slow Cooker The lock-on lid is great for taking food to a party. I've had mine for years!
Ingredients
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.
What do you think about using hot pepper jelly?
I would be AMAZING! I’m a huge fan of pepper jelly! I make a homemade hot pepper and peach jam and use it for this recipe often and it’s great. So a traditional hot pepper would be so good.
I have a family of 6 and for everyone to like it was sooooo awsome no making alternative dinners for toddlers or picky 9yos. But I didn’t have any jam whatsoever so I made applesauce and used that instead and turned out great thanks so much
Great idea! I’m so happy your family loved it.
Have you ever tried it with frozen drumsticks? Forgot to thaw mine yesterday! ?♀️
Just check them for doneness. They’ll take a bit longer!
So a cup of brown sugar instead of jam is this correct
I’d do a little less, maybe 1/2 to 3/4 cup since the sugar will be sweeter than jam is. It’ll work great!
Thank you so much. I love to cook for my big sister and mother. My sister called me from work and said it was the bomb. Lol!
Yay! Great to hear.
Should I remove the skin on the chicken legs before I start cooking?
I personally like to leave the skin on for more flavorful chicken.
This was tasty. I used grape jelly, ketchup, twice the garlic, and Worcestershire sauce (because my soy sauce hadn’t been opened yet). Six hours on low did the trick. They looked just like the ones in Melissa’s photo. Served over baby potatoes that were cooked in the microwave. Next time I may toss the taters right into the crock pot.
Looking forward to also serving it with rice. Seems like it would be great with the canned yams that are languishing in the back of the cupboard. Can of whole-berry cranberry sauce could be used up too. Thanks Melissa.
Yay for making it your own! That’s what I love about this recipe, it’s awesome for using what you have!
PS… Melissa’s recipe tastes just as good cold as it does hot. So put some in the fridge for a snack, picnic or football game.
Great tip! Thank you for that idea!
I used thighs, homemade peach jelly, Worcestershire instead of soy sauce, and shook in some chipotle hot sauce I saw in the cabinet. My wife was amazed, she loved it. Thanks.
Yesss! That’s what I love about this recipe, use what you have and it turns out every time!
Could honey be used in place of jelly? I only have strawberry jam? It seems like it would work to me…
Yes honey or even just brown sugar work fine!
While the flavor was very good my husband didn’t care for the chicken legs. I was wondering what your thoughts are on maybe using chicken breast instead.
I just don’t love chicken breast in the slow cooker, but that’s me. I think it’s totally worth trying if you like chicken breast because you’ll get a similar result. I’d check them for doneness with a thermometer few hours in and not over cook them though.
Made with red pepper jelly was awesome.
Thanks
Yesss that’s one of my favorites to use in this recipe!