Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken
45 Comments Jan 01, 2022
Updated Jul 28, 2024
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Forget the wings and make a big batch of shredded crockpot buffalo chicken. Pile on hamburger buns for an easy dinner or game day feast.
We LOVE using buffalo sauce (Frank’s Red Hot Sauce) in our crockpot for recipes such as our Buffalo 15 Bean Soup, Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Pasta, and our game day favorite slow cooker buffalo chicken dip.
Table of Contents
What Kind of Hot Sauce to Use
- You will want to find a buffalo sauce, Frank’s Hot Sauce is the preffered choice for most.
- Frank’s Red Hot Sauce is a cayenne pepper sauce that is used in
“buffalo” flavored recipes. - This sauce does have a spicy kick to it, adding butter in the mix and ranch or blue cheese dressing topped on the final dish can cool the heat.
Recipe Ingredients
- Chicken – Boneless chicken breasts or thighs work the best for shredded chicken though bone-in breasts, thighs or drumsticks will work in this recipe.
- Ranch Dressing Mix – You can use the salad dressing mix or the dip packet, both work the same in this type of recipe.
- Frank’s Red Hot Sauce – Look for the original sauce NOT the premade buffalo wing sauce, for we are adding the butter and seasonings ourselves.
- Butter – I use an entire stick of salted butter in this recipe
Step-by-Step Directions
Step One: Add the chicken to the slow cooker. Sprinkle over the ranch seasoning. Pour over the buffalo sauce. Place the stick of butter on top.
Step Two: Cook on LOW for 6-8 hours or on HIGH for 4 hours.
Step Three: Shred the chicken with two forks and serve!
How to serve buffalo chicken:
Shred the chicken with two forks then serve one of these ways:
- Serve on hamburger buns or slider buns with chips or carrot and celery sticks on the side.
- Over slow cooker baked potatoes or slow cooker mashed potatoes.
- Great over Slow Cooker Baked Sweet Potatoes
- Over steamed rice.
- Toss with cooked pasta.
Recipe FAQs and Substitutions
The butter not only adds flavor it helps tone down the vinegar flavor and the spiciness.
Serve alone with celery sticks and ranch. Pile on lettuce wraps or low-carb tortilla wraps.
You can make buffalo chicken into a meal prep freezer meal! Place the entire recipe before cooking into a freezer bag. Freeze for up to three months. When ready to cook, thaw and follow the recipe as written.
If you want a creamy buffalo chicken, you can add one eight ounce package of cream cheese at the beginning of the cooking time. If you add cream cheese the buffalo chicken is great as a dip.
Yes, any cut of chicken can be used such as boneless chicken thighs, or bone-in thighs, drumsticks or breasts.
On a scale of one to ten, buffalo chicken is about a 7. Serving with ranch cools it down a bit.
Place in airtight containers or ziplock bags. It will last in the fridge for five days or in the freezer for three months.
I recommend thawing your chicken before adding it to the slow cooker. Some studies suggest that frozen meat will stay in the danger zone too long.
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Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 12 oz. Frank's Red Hot original sauce, (look for the original sauce, not the one labeled wings)
- 1 oz. ranch dressing packet, dip mix works too!
- 1/2 cup salted butter, (1 stick)
For Serving:
- hamburger buns (or slider buns), toasted
- ranch or blue cheese dressing
Instructions
- Add the chicken breasts to the slow cooker.
- Sprinkle over the ranch dressing (or dip) mix.
- Pour over the Frank's Red Hot Sauce.
- Add the cube of butter on top.
- Place the lid of the slow cooker. Cook on LOW for 6-8 hours or on high for 4 hours.
- When the cooking time is up, take two forks and shred the chicken.
- Serve over buns and top with ranch or blue cheese dressing. (see my notes below for other serving ideas)
How to Video
Sarah’s Notes
- Serve on rice, mashed potatoes or on a baked potato.
- Toss with pasta.
- To make this lower in carbs serve with celery and ranch on the side or serve in lettuce or low carb tortillas.
Nutrition
Nutrition info is auto-generated. This information is an estimate; if you are on a special diet, please use your own calculations.
Ate this plain by itself a week or 2 ago and both my boyfriend and I didn’t care for it. When it was pretty much done, I taste tested it, and even though I knew better, I added more Frank’s Hot Sauce. Well, of course, then my boyfriend struggled to eat it. Breaking down into a sweat rolling down from his forehead. I, however, could literally eat something on fire and be perfectly fine. I didn’t like it being bland without the lesser amount of heat he liked, and he didn’t like it with the more amount of heat I liked. So just be careful I guess.
I really like this recipe, my only addition is that I tossed in a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, I feel like it brings things together
You mention that the butter cuts down on the vinegar flavor, but I don’t see any vinegar in the recipe. Where does the vinegar flavor come from?
Buffalo sauce is mostly vinegar.
Can you use ranch dressing instead of the ranch seasoning packet?
You can, but with how long this recipe cooks it may separate a bit.
Unless I am missing it, I don’t see anywhere how many people this will feed? Only 2 chicken breasts has me concerned it will be a small amount (?)
2 pounds of chicken will feed about 8 (8 sandwiches).
Just made this in the crockpot. Is the sauce supposed to be liquidy or have some body to it? Should I thicken it up with corn starch?
It’s supposed to be liquidly, you can definitely thicken it up though.
I used this in a baked pasta dish – tossed with egg noodles and added blue cheese and mozzerella, baked in the oven for 20 minutes so the cheese got nice and melty. Delicious!