A Crock of Sweetness

There are many days I get to work in the morning and then visually kick myself in the ass for not loading up the crock pot before I left home.  My intentions are always great, but mornings are just too 'hectic' for me to remember to do all the prep work.  I really need to start doing that stuff at night.  Sigh.  I've been sitting on a couple crock pot recipes that I've been wanting to try, bought the ingredients for them and then just plain old forgot.  So I amended the directions so I could make it in my oven in under an hour.  Second best I suppose.

We eat an awful lot of chicken in my house so it's nice to have an array of recipes to choose from.  This particular recipe was a huge success with the boys and a big win for mama!  The first set of directions are for how I made it in the oven.  The second set is the directions for cooking it in the crock pot.  If you like sweet sauces then this recipe is for you.

Honey Sesame Chicken

Ingredients

• 2 lbs of boneless chicken breasts (skin removed, you could also use thighs if you prefer dark meat)
• salt and pepper
• 3/4 cup of honey
• 1/2 cup of soy sauce (low sodium if you are health conscious)
• 1/2 cup diced onion (or less if you aren't a huge fan or none if you hate it)
• 1/4 cup of ketchup
• 2 T of olive oil
• 2 T of minced garlic (or two/three cloves minced)
• 1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes
• 4 tsp of cornstarch dissolved in 6 T of water
• sesame seeds

Oven Directions

1. Season the chicken on both sides with salt and pepper and place into a baking dish.
2. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients minus the cornstarch mix and sesame seeds.Pour the mixture over the chicken, cover with a lid and place in the oven at 400F.
3. Cook for 40 minutes.  
4. Remove the chicken, mix in your cornstarch mix with the sauce, shred/cut up chicken and then return chicken to the sauce.  It should have thickened up considerably.   
5. Serve chicken over rice or mashed potatoes and sprinkle with sesame seeds (or don't - no one is watching). 

Crock Pot Directions

1. Follow the first two steps above except place the chicken and mix in a crock pot.  Cook on low for 4 hours.  
2. Remove chicken from pot and stir in cornstarch mixture to sauce and allow to thicken while you slice up the chicken.  
3. Top with sesame seeds and serve over rice or mashed potatoes.