Slow Cooker Harissa Honey Garlic Chicken Recipe

For a meal that practically cooks itself but feels like an exotic sojourn to another part of the globe, try this slow cooker harissa honey garlic chicken. Sweet, spicy, and filled with surprising textures and just a touch of zest, it might be one of the best meals to come out of your crockpot this year.

For this recipe, Ksenia Prints of At the Immigrant's Table took inspiration from the North African/Middle Eastern tagines of Morocco. Moroccan cuisine is known for its heavy use of spices, its perfectly balanced but surprising combinations of sweet and savory flavors, and the variety of textures in every bite. This dish takes all that and adapts it to bone-in chicken thighs made in the slow cooker.

Our recipe combines green olives and dried figs, harissa and honey, and yogurt and homemade za'atar-tinged oil. With just a minimal amount of work outside the machine, you end up with a restaurant-quality dish that reveals subtle depths of flavor with each taste. And it keeps wonderfully for leftovers, so you've got your weeknight meals sorted!

To create this Moroccan-inspired dish, you'll need bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs as your protein base. We also love using whole chicken quarters, with the leg and thigh still attached, to create a variety of textures, but you can even use boneless thighs as an alternative. For our seasoning, we turn to salt, pepper, olive oil, honey, fresh garlic, and harissa paste for that signature Moroccan sweet and pungent flavor. You'll also need red wine, bay leaves, and fresh thyme to build depth, along with briny green olives, sweet dried figs, and caper berries for acidity. We will make an oil with extra virgin olive oil and za'atar seasoning for aroma, and Greek yogurt diluted with water for a drizzle of creaminess. Finally, we'll finish off the dish with a sprinkle of sliced almonds and fresh cilantro. You can serve the chicken thighs over optional rice or couscous for soaking up all those flavors and sauce.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

Preheat a large pan, and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

Add the chicken to the skillet skin-side down and sear until golden, 5 minutes.

Transfer the chicken to a slow cooker.

In a small bowl, whisk the honey, ¼ cup olive oil, garlic, harissa, red wine, bay leaves, and thyme, and pour the sauce over the chicken.

Cook on low for 3 ½ hours.

Add the olives, figs, and caper berries.

Cook on high for 30 minutes more.

Mix the remaining olive oil and za'atar to drizzle.

Drizzle the honey garlic chicken thighs with za'atar oil and yogurt, and top with almonds and cilantro.

Serve the chicken over couscous or rice, if desired.

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If you don't own a slow cooker, you can make this Moroccan-inspired chicken recipe in the oven or in a traditional tagine. Each will bring its own flavor and nuance to the dish, so try them all and choose your favorite.

For the most traditional preparation, use a tagine pot to make the dish. Tagines are broad, flat-bottomed pots with a tall chimney-like top, and can be made from clay, ceramics, and even cast iron. They conduct heat similarly to a Dutch oven, but with a vent. To cook this dish in a tagine, after sauteeing the chicken, add everything to a tagine and place it on the stovetop over low heat for 2-3 hours, checking occasionally to ensure the liquid hasn't evaporated, and adding more wine and water if needed.

To bake this in a Dutch oven, preheat the oven to 325 F, and sear the chicken in the same pot you're going to use for the whole process. Once seared, add the sauce ingredients, cover tightly, and braise for 2 hours before adding the olives, figs, and capers for the final 30 minutes. This will leave you with a flavorful chicken dish that has a bit less sauce than the slow cooker.

Za'atar is a Middle Eastern spice blend that combines dried herbs with sesame seeds for a mix that is earthy, nutty, and citrusy all at once. Traditional za'atar contains dried thyme, oregano, and marjoram mixed with toasted sesame seeds, ground sumac, and salt, though the entire Middle East has a variety of regional variations on this blend.

Za'atar is easy to make at home. Our favorite recipe combines equal amounts of marjoram, oregano, thyme, and sesame seeds, and adds 1 ½ times more of sumac and a teaspoon of salt. It can be stored in a jar or bag, or gifted to friends.

To use za'atar in your cooking, we love mixing it with olive oil for a flavored drizzle on finished dishes, like in this recipe. It's also great on all meats or anything you're going to grill, or sprinkled on pita or naan bread that you can quickly pan-fry. You can also sprinkle za'atar on finished dishes like salad, shakshuka, or rice and lentils, and it will amp up their flavors considerably. Za'atar also works beautifully as a finishing salt for roasted chickpeas, popcorn, or even French fries, and can be mixed into butter for an amazing compound butter.

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