If you have been looking for an easy comfort food for busy weeknight dinners, look no further! These BBQ chicken sliders are super easy to make, yet full of delicious flavors. Starting with soft dinner rolls, these sliders are topped with generous amounts of BBQ pulled chicken, as well as crunchy, sour coleslaw and pickles.

The slow-cooked BBQ chicken is fall-apart tender and soaked in a sweet, tangy, and umami homemade BBQ sauce. To simplify things, you could always use your favorite store-bought BBQ sauce. But if you can, I highly recommend going the extra mile and making the BBQ sauce from scratch! You can make it the night before, and it’s not as hard as it sounds. The BBQ sauce in this recipe is made with dark brown sugar and soy sauce, which gives the sauce an amazing caramel-y umami flavor.

What makes this meal perfect for a weeknight dinner is that you can prepare most of the ingredients ahead of time. Naturally, the sauce and coleslaw can be made the night before. Additionally, you can fully prepare the BBQ chicken the night before, so you only need to turn on the slow cooker in the morning and have perfectly cooked chicken for sliders by dinnertime.

Scroll down to see how you can make these sliders!

Ingredients

1 lb Chicken breasts
12 Dinner rolls
Pickles (optional)

BBQ sauce (Makes approx. 1 cup)

1/2 cup Ketchup
1/3 cup Dark brown sugar
4 tsp Soy sauce
1 Tbsp Apple cider vinegar
2 tsp Garlic powder
1/2 tsp Paprika
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper

Coleslaw

8 cups or 14oz Shredded cabbage
1/2 cup Mayonnaise
1/4 cup Lemon juice
2 Tbsp Sugar
1/4 tsp Salt

Instructions

First, make the BBQ sauce. Put ketchup, dark brown sugar, soy sauce, and apple cider vinegar into a bowl. Add garlic powder, paprika, salt, and pepper to the bowl. Stir all the ingredients together.

Add chicken breasts into the slow cooker and completely cover them with the BBQ sauce. If you are using store-bought BBQ sauce, add 1 cup of the sauce to the slow cooker and coat the chicken. Turn the slow-cooker on. Cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 6–8 hours until the chicken is fall-apart tender.

Once the BBQ chicken is cooked, there will be lots of liquid from the chicken in the pot. With forks (or bear claws, if you have them), pull the chicken apart into shreds. Stir the chicken in the liquid until the shredded chicken reabsorbs all the liquid.

Next, prepare the coleslaw. Mix shredded cabbage with mayo, sugar, salt, and lemon juice.

Prepare the dinner rolls by either baking the dough per the package instructions, or reheating pre-made dinner rolls in a 350°F oven for 5 minutes.

slow-cooker barbecue chicken sliders recipe

Optionally, you can make another batch of the BBQ sauce if you would like to top your BBQ chicken sliders with extra BBQ sauce for maximum sweetness and tanginess. To make the BBQ sauce, put all the BBQ sauce ingredients into a sauce pan. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes until the sauce is bubbly and all the sugar is melted, mixing the sauce as it cooks.

Assemble the BBQ chicken sliders. Cut the dinner rolls crosswise. Top them with BBQ pulled chicken, extra BBQ sauce, pickles, and coleslaw.

If you like this recipe, you may also like other recipes, such as Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Nachos or Mushroom Swiss Burger. Also, subscribe via email or follow on Instagram if you wish to receive updates on all my latest recipes!

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