Teriyaki Chicken
This Teriyaki Chicken is done in 15 minutes! An easy chicken dinner with a sweet and savory homemade teriyaki sauce. Serve over rice with some broccoli.
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EASY TERIYAKI CHICKEN RECIPE
I’ve committed myself to adding more quick meals to my repertoire because life has gotten crazy. This easy dinner recipe couldn’t be any quicker and is the perfect weeknight dinner.
I’ve tried this with thighs, breasts, brown sugar, honey, apple cider vinegar, rice wine vinegar,…basically all versions of a classic chicken teriyaki stir fry. This is the one that won!
INGREDIENTS IN THE MARINADE
- BONELESS SKINLESS CHICKEN THIGHS OR CHICKEN BREASTS – Traditionally this is made with thighs but boneless skinless chicken breasts an be used.
- RICE VINEGAR – Gives the chicken a little bite.
- LOW-SODIUM SOY SAUCE – We like to control the sodium in the dish. You can also use coconut aminos.
- BROWN SUGAR – I’ve used honey as a substitute and it works great.
- GROUND GINGER – I like using dry ginger here because I always have it on hand but you can also use fresh ginger.
- GARLIC – a few cloves garlic add flavor!
- WATER
- SALT
- PEPPER
- SESAME OIL – not necessary but adds so much flavor like in this Egg Roll In a Bowl recipe.
Pour half of the sauce mixture on the chicken and save half of the marinade for the sauce. You can marinade this for 15 minutes or up to 24 hours.
We cook the chicken and the chicken cooks in the reserved marinade.
There are also two ways you can cook this. You can cut into bite size pieces before cooking or cook the chicken in whole pieces and slice up into strips after cooking.
If you have really thick chicken it’s easier to cut into cubes before cooking. You can also pound them thin to even out the cooking time.
The sliced whole chicken pieces are pretty for presentation but cubes are easier to cook evenly. If you’re looking for another way to cook this, try this Slow Cooker Teriyaki Chicken.
Dinner is done in 30 minutes! Garnish with green onions or sesame seeds.
Serve over white rice or brown rice. Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
OTHER CHICKEN RECIPES
- Sesame Ground Chicken
- Pesto Bruschetta Chicken
- Chicken Parmesan Meatballs
- One-Pan Chicken Enchilada Skillet
- Baked Chicken Chimichangas
- Chicken Pot Pie
- One-Pan Teriyaki Chicken Bowl
- Slow Cooker Cashew Chicken
- One-Pan Chicken Spaghetti
- Buffalo Chicken Chili
- Cheesy Salsa Bean Chicken
- Slow Cooker Chicken Parmesan
Teriyaki Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 ½ lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs (or breasts), whole or cut into 1-inch cubes, (see note)
- 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
- 1/4 cup brown sugar, (honey can be substituted)
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar, (apple cider vinegar can be substituted)
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil, (optional but gives it great flavor)
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- sliced green onions for serving
- cooked rice for serving
Instructions
- Trim the chicken thighs of any visible fat. Keep whole but pounded thin or cut into 1-inch cubes. See note.
- In a medium bowl, add the soy sauce, sugar, water, vinegar, garlic, sesame oil, salt, pepper, and ginger in a bowl. Whisk together. Transfer half of the mixture to a separate bowl for the sauce.
- Add the chicken to the remaining mixture and turn to coat. Marinade in the fridge for 15 minutes or up to 24 hours.
- In a large skillet, add the oil and heat over medium heat. Remove the chicken from the marinade, wiping off as much marinade as you can. Cook for 4-6 minutes per side over medium heat or until chicken has reached 165 degrees F and is no longer pink. If the marinade in the pan starts to get dark, add a little water to deglaze the pan so it does not burn, repeating if necessary.
- Add the reserved marinade to the pan and cook with the chicken for about 30 second to one minute until mixture thickens. Making sure not to heat to high or it will burn. It will get bubbly but should not cook until super thick.
- Add salt and pepper to taste. Slice chicken if left whole on a cutting board. Serve over rice and garnish with green onions. Store leftovers in an airtight container.
My husband wants to eat this once a week!
I doubled the teriyaki sauce for 2# of thighs. I used half brown sugar/honey. Also grilled the thighs on a gas grill for about 12 minutes total and let rest for a few minutes covered with foil.
Aw thank you!
The flavor was good, but mine came out a bit watery. Not a glaze like the picture. I think i’ll try adding a bit of cornstarch next time.
You try cooking it down more and it would get thicker.
Absolutely delicious! I feel that using boneless chicken thighs gives the meat more moisture and flavor without being overly dry. We sprinkled some chopped peanuts and cashews over the top. Thanks for the recipe!
Thx!!
All we can say is yuuuuuum… did throw it in the oven for a bit since I used chicken thighs… paired with white rice and Hawaiian macaroni salad 🫶🏼 thanks for the dinner idea.
Thanks Claudia!
Wanted to try a recipe for my chicken thighs. Came across this recipe. Looked good and pretty healthy vs fried chicken.
Looked at recipe and reviews and was convinced to try it out. Followed the cooking recipe. Chicken was tender, and sweet but not overly. Loved it! Whole family enjoyed it.
Will be making again.
Thank you.
AW thanks Bianca!
Made this tonight and it was delicious! The sauce isn’t too salty and just the right flavor for us. The only thing I did differently is I added some chopped celery, carrots, yellow pepper and mushrooms —I have to sneak in chopped veggies whenever I can!
Thanks Suze!
So good and easy! Marinated overnight for a delicious taste of teriyaki 😋
Yum!
This was very good! Our family all liked it and it will now be a regular dinner. Thanks for helping me find more dinners I can make at home!!
So happy to hear that
This was so good! I made it exactly as listed but doubled the sauce and added a bit of cornstarch slurry at the end. I kept the chicken thighs whole because I’m most comfortable cooking them that way. I chose to make this because I had a bag of stir fry veggies with a packaged teriyaki sauce. And I had rice on the side.
This sauce was so much better! Also, the tip of adding some water for burning marinade off the chicken was super helpful and did’t impact cooking the chicken.
ThX!
This was delicious! Definitely adding it to the rotation. Thanks 🙂
Thank you!
It was so delicious 😋
Family loved this and had seconds! This will be added to our dinner repertoire! THANK YOU!
Yay thank yoU!
this is so good! I made it one day for my family and they LOVED it!!
Thank you!
This is my go to teriyaki recipe, so easy and yummy! I guess I never read the instructions all the way through before (oops, haha), why do you suggest wiping off the marinade before cooking?
Since the chicken takes a while to cook the marinade can burn. We cook the reserved marinade later for the sauce.
The sauce did not thicken..Any tips?
Keep cooking. It takes time to thicken
Very good recipe but I had the same issue with sauce thickening but because the recipe says to cook for 30 seconds to a minute to let thicken and I was like uuh, this is no where near thick after 2 mins lol. It took more like 7mins for me. I did use double sauce too so that could be why. I kept heat at medium. Otherwise this is good. I added some peas and chopped carrots to mine. Delicious!
Thank you!
cornstarch
Great recipe, I used 2 cloves of garlic and about a tablespoon of fresh ginger 🫚 and it came out *chefs kiss* everyone loved it. Thanks for the recipe 🩷
AWw thank you!
Maam……This was soooo good. Not overly sweet, or overly soy sauced (and I did not use low sodium). I am a pretty good cook, always trying to keep things on that boarder of healthy-er, but still tastes great. This will be my forever-go-to teriyaki chicken recipe. Everyone absolutely loved it, and the left over chicken goes great on salad with mandarin oranges. The ONLY thing I changed, was to fry it in toasted sesame oil instead of olive. Thanks much!!!!!
Ooh thank you Kelly!
Can this dish be made in a crock pot?
I haven’t tried it!
Does this just burn if you try to grill it?
It carmelizes – if you have your heat not too high it should be fine
Question: will it work as well with chicken breast?
Yes totally!
Great flavor, need to work on my chicken cooking. I’ll be using this recipe going forward. Thank you.
Thank you!
This was so freaking good I’m so happy with it I thought it came out so well! I ate it so fast and am gonna make more soon:)
thank you!
My sauce didn’t get thick? What did I do wrong?
cook it longer!
This was delicious; a hit with my picky husband. I omitted salt simply because I didn’t have low-sodium soy sauce and just used reg soy sauce. Really yummy 😋
Thank you!
This recipe was so easy and very tasty even my pickiest eater had seconds I added some broccoli to our dish and it was the perfect dinner for our little family I will definitely make it again!
So glad you liked it!
Made this in a pinch a while back. We couldn’t believe how delicious it was for only marinating for 20 minutes.
I’m making it again tonight! This time, I made extra marinade for the sauce, we like a lot of sauce. I’m also steaming some broccoli to really balance everything out. *chefs kiss*
Thank you!
I enjoyed making this recipe because it’s quick and easy. I set a timer to marinate the chicken for 90 minutes while I did other things. The recipe got done in no time and was delicious. I especially liked that it did not require use of the oven. I served mine with 1 cup of cooked rice. The only thing I did differently was to and chunks of canned pineapple to the chicken while the sauce was reducing. And I only did that because I had an open can of pineapple in the refrigerator that was left over from another recipe.
Thank you!
This was so good! Better than the malls honestly, we have tried this recipe with and without the Sesame oil and both were scrumptious.
Thank you!
Made this the first time today and even though I couldn’t let it marinade long the recipe came out GREAT. Steamed garlic broccoli and jasmine rice f8nished the meal. Thanks for the recipe!
Yayyyyy
This is my new favorite recipe. I’ve made it once a week the last three weeks, and making it again tonight!!
Thank you!
Bustin
Thank you!