Learn an easy 3 ingredient, 5 minute, recipe for Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken.
Don’t you love recipes that are low on preparation time, but result in lots of delicious food? This crock pot buffalo chicken recipe is one of those recipes. A bit of magic happens when you combine chicken, ranch seasoning, and buffalo sauce in a crockpot. After 4-6 hours you will have tender, juicy, spicy chicken that shreds easily.
I recommend cooking a mix of boneless chicken breasts and boneless chicken thighs. The thighs have dark meat, more fat, and more flavor. Plus, they are less expensive than chicken breasts.
I like to completely submerge my chicken in buffalo sauce when I make this recipe. This makes it extra tender – but you don’t need to worry about making the chicken too spicy. You can easily customize the heat level of your buffalo chicken. Just remove the chicken breasts and thighs from the crock pot and place them in a bowl to shred them, instead of shredding them in the sauce. This way, the chicken will just have a little bit of the buffalo sauce and will have a mild sauce. Then you can add in more of the sauce left in the crock pot until the chicken reaches your preferred spice level.
The best part about this crock pot buffalo chicken recipe is that there are so many different ways to eat it!
How to Serve Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken:
The options are endless, but here are my favorite ways to serve and eat crock pot buffalo chicken.
Joe’s Style Buffalo Chicken Dip:
This delicious cheesy and spicy dip is like a queso with buffalo chicken.
Buffalo Chicken Calzones:
Fold pizza dough around buffalo chicken, broccoli, and mozzarella to make calzones. Dip in ranch.
Buffalo Chicken Macaroni and Cheese:
You can add buffalo chicken to your favorite boxed mac and cheese, or you can make this buffalo chicken mac and cheese from scratch.
Buffalo Chicken Pizza:
This pizza is topped with buffalo chicken, tomatoes, spinach, mozzarella, and avocado. I like to eat it with some ranch dressing – such a Midwest thing to do.
Buffalo Chicken Salad:
The healthiest option is to add buffalo chicken to a salad. This one has greens, quinoa, steamed broccoli, tomatoes, celery, carrots, and blue cheese.
The Difference between Buffalo Sauce and Red Hot Sauce:
Before we get to the recipe, I wanted to explain the difference between Frank’s Red Hot and Frank’s Buffalo Sauce. Red Hot is a hot sauce. Buffalo sauce is made with hot sauce, but has additional ingredients and is not as spicy. You want to use buffalo sauce for this recipe, not Red Hot.
How to Make Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken:
Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken
Ingredients
- 2-3 pounds Chicken Thighs or Breasts
- 2-3 cups of Franks Buffalo Sauce or similar
- 1 packet dry Ranch Dressing Mix
Instructions
- Pour the hot sauce and the ranch dressing into the crock pot. Whisk together.
- Add the chicken and submerge it in the buffalo sauce.
- Cook on low for 4-6 hours.
- Transfer the chicken to a large bowl and shred it using two forks. This will be very easy because the chicken will be very tender. Once the chicken is shredded, stir in extra buffalo sauce from the crock pot until the chicken reaches your desired level of spiciness.
Recipe Notes
Before we get to the recipe, I wanted to explain the difference between Frank's Red Hot and Frank's Buffalo Sauce. Red Hot is a hot sauce. Buffalo sauce is made with hot sauce, but has additional ingredients and is not as spicy. You want to use buffalo sauce for this recipe, not Red Hot.
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