Easy Teriyaki Chicken
- PREP 30min
- COOK 20min
- TOTAL 50min
This easy homemade teriyaki chicken recipe rivals my favorite teriyaki restaurants. The chicken is best when marinated for a while, but you can get away with a shorter marinating period if you’re short on time.
In our recipe, we’ve shared the ingredients to make one batch of teriyaki sauce, perfect for 1 ½ pounds of chicken. We highly recommend making a larger batch of sauce (it’s that good). You can find the instructions for a larger batch in our teriyaki sauce recipe, which makes 2 cups and provides enough sauce for two batches of chicken.
You Will Need
1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1/2 cup (120ml) light soy sauce
1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
1/4 cup (60ml) sake, see tips
2 tablespoons (30ml) rice vinegar
2 teaspoons finely grated ginger, see tips
Directions
Marinate the Chicken
Combine the soy sauce, sugar, sake, vinegar, and ginger in a small bowl. Stir until the sugar completely dissolves. Transfer 6 tablespoons of the sauce to a resealable plastic bag or container and add the chicken. Marinate the chicken in the refrigerator, turning once, for at least 30 minutes and up to 12 hours.
Add the remaining sauce to a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring it to a simmer and cook until the sauce reduces slightly and looks shiny, 3 to 5 minutes. If it reduces too much, add a bit of water to bring it back to a pourable consistency. Cool, and then save this in the refrigerator to use as a sauce for the cooked chicken.
Cook the Chicken
Position an oven rack towards the top, about 6 inches from the broiler. Heat the broiler to high.
Line a baking sheet with foil, then arrange the chicken so that the side that would have had skin faces down. Spoon a bit of the marinade with the chicken on top and discard the rest. Broil for 5 minutes. Stay close to the oven to keep an eye on the chicken as it cooks.
Flip the chicken, and then spoon or brush juices or sauce pooling on the pan back onto the chicken. Doing this a few times during cooking helps to add a shiny, browned crust to the chicken. Alternatively, you can steal some of the sauce saved for serving to spoon or brush over the chicken.
Broil another 5 to 10 minutes or until the outside of the chicken looks brown and caramelized and the inside is cooked through.
Meanwhile, reheat the sauce from earlier, adding a bit of water if it seems too thick. (This is the sauce that has not touched raw chicken, not the sauce used to marinate.)
To serve, slice the chicken into strips, place onto plates, and drizzle with the warmed sauce. Leftover sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for a few weeks (I like drizzling it over rice and vegetables.)
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Storing: Keep chicken teriyaki in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
- Leftover sauce: The reduced teriyaki sauce (not sauce that’s sat with raw chicken) can be stored in the refrigerator for a few weeks. I like drizzling it over rice and vegetables.
- Broiling the chicken: Depending on your oven, broil times may differ. Keep an eye on the chicken. Move the sheet pan down a rack if it looks like or smells like it is burning. If the chicken is cooking slower than expected, continue to broil until cooked through.
- Ginger: We use a Microplane rasp grater, which helps the ginger to “melt” into the sauce. You can finely mince, but you will be left with bits of ginger in the sauce.
- Substitute for Sake: We love the delicate flavor of sake for teriyaki sauce, but if you cannot find it, there are some alternatives. Mirin is a sweeter version of sake. You can either swap it for the sake and leave the sugar amount as is or pull back on the amount of sugar slightly to accommodate the extra sweetness. Dry vermouth or dry sherry can also work as a substitute. As a last resort, you can leave it out altogether, but keep in mind that this will change the taste of the sauce dramatically (taste the sauce before using it as you may find that without sake/mirin, you will need to adjust with additional vinegar or sugar).
- Gluten-free: Check that all ingredients are certified gluten-free before using. Specifically, watch out for the soy sauce. You should look for gluten-free tamari.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. You will likely have leftover sauce, so the actual nutritional data may be less.