This is a recipe for everybody’s favourite Honey Soy chicken marinade for boneless chicken thighs and breast. It does everything you expect from a marinade (tenderises, adds flavour), and gives it a lovely lacquered finish. But that’s not all! We’ve also got a glossy honey garlic sauce to smother the chicken and everything else on your plate.
For chicken wings, use the Honey Soy Wings recipe. For drumsticks and bone-in thighs, use the Honey Soy Baked Chicken recipe.
Honey Soy Chicken – marinade and sauce
This is a Honey Soy chicken marinade I’ve been using for most of my adult life which is direct copycat of the store bought bottled marinades.
Except unlike store bought where a quick inspection of the label reveals it contains a mere 0.5% of honey (I felt so indignant when I saw this!!), this is actually made with plenty of honey!!!
(In case you are wondering, most of the sweetness comes from cheap syrups like glucose or golden syrup)
This is my Rolls Royce of Honey Soy Chicken recipes. For midweek, I use my quick no-marinade stove and baked versions.
What you need for Honey Soy Chicken
Here’s what you need for this Honey Soy Chicken. I feel like there’s a good chance you already have all these ingredients!!
Chinese cooking wine (“shoaxing wine”) is the secret ingredient here. Without it, you will really notice that the flavour is a bit too one dimensional, especially the sauce. Used in practically all cooked Chinese recipes – such as stir fries and noodles.
Substitutes in order of preference (best first) – dry sherry, Mirin, cooking sake. Best non alcoholic substitute is chicken stock.
Some Recipe Trivia! You don’t need cooking wine when making Honey Soy Chicken on the stove or in the oven because you cook the chicken in the sauce and this gives the sauce greater depth of flavour. But when cooking on the BBQ, we don’t have that option so both the sauce and the marinade needs an extra dash of flavour which we get from the Chinese cooking wine.
Though this recipe particularly caters to grilled chicken, it’s still excellent for stovetop cooking when you want a premium version of the stove or oven version (this has more sauce and marinating adds flavour).
How to make Honey Soy Chicken
And here’s how it’s made –
-
mix up a batch of the sauce
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save some for basting (so it’s not tainted by uncooked chicken)
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save some to make the sauce
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use the rest for marinating
Do not use residual marinade to make the sauce or for basting. For basting, we need clean sauce for hygiene purposes (because we do frequent basting in this recipe). For the Sauce, if you boil the used marinade the sauce comes out murky – just not pleasant.
What to serve with Honey Soy Chicken
The rice you spy in the photo above is Pineapple Fried Rice! is coming on Wednesday! It’s a dead set perfect match with this chicken. 🙂
But don’t fret! This is a chicken dish that’s highly versatile – it’s semi Asian but also totally Western, so it’s the sort of dish that will go with anything from Fried Rice to Macaroni Salad, the Greek Chickpea Salad I shared a couple of weeks go, or even an Asian Vermicelli Noodle Salad.
You get the drift – it will suit many many sides! Here are some ideas:
SIDE DISH SUGGESTIONS
SIDE SALAD SUGGESTIONS
Also, if you’re considering this recipe for a BBQ feast, you’ll find all my favourite things to grill right here in my BBQ Recipes collection.
Note: the batch depicted in the photos and video is a bit less than what the recipe calls for – I had to sacrifice some for Dozer 🐶 having forgotten to get food for HIS dinner. 😂 – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Honey Soy Chicken - Marinade and Sauce (excellent grilled!)
Ingredients
- 1.25 - 1.5 kg/ 2.5 - 3 lb skinless boneless chicken thighs OR breast (Note 1)
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil , for cooking
Honey Soy Marinade Sauce:
- 1/2 cup soy sauce , all purpose or light (not dark, Note 2)
- 2/3 cup honey (sub maple syrup)
- 1/3 cup cider vinegar (or rice vinegar)
- 1/4 cup Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry (key ingredient, Note 3)
- 1 tbsp sesame oil , toasted (Note 4)
- 1 1/2 tbsp garlic , finely minced
Serving Sauce:
- 1/3 cup water
- 1 1/2 tsp cornflour/cornstarch
Garnishes (optional):
- Green onion , finely sliced
- Sesame seeds
Instructions
Marinade Sauce:
- Place ingredients in a jug and mix well until honey is completely dissolved.
- Reserve 1/4 cup for Basting, refrigerate. (Note 5)
- Reserve 2/3 cup for Serving Sauce, refrigerate.
- Marinade Chicken: Pour remaining marinade over chicken in a container. Coat chicken thoroughly. Cover, refrigerate 24 to 48 hours (minimum 3 hrs).
Serving Sauce (Makes 1 cup):
- Place reserved sauce in a small saucepan. Mix cornflour and water, then add into saucepan.
- Simmer over medium for 5 minutes, stirring regularly, until it thickens to a syrupy consistency. Set aside and keep warm. (If it gets too thick, just add a bit more water)
Cook:
- Brush BBQ plate or grills with oil and heat to medium high. Or heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.
- THIGHS: Place chicken on BBQ. Cook the first side for 2 minutes, then flip and dab with reserved Basting Sauce. Cook for 2 minutes, flip and baste. Then flip/baste every 1 minute for total cook time of ~ 10 minutes or until a thermometer reads 75°C/165°F.
- BREAST: Cook first side 2 minutes, flip, baste. Cook 2 minutes, then flip and baste every 45 sec or so for total cook time of ~8 minutes (internal temp 66°C / 151°F).
- REST: Transfer to serving plate, cover loosely with foil and rest for 5 minutes.
- SERVE chicken garnished with sesame seeds and green onion, with sauce on the side so people can help themselves.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Life of Dozer
Chilly nights + useless heating = using Dozer as my hot water bottle (he is very good at it, actually).
Hi Nagi,
Could I make these into chicken sticks instead of bbqing the whole thighs?
Hey Nagi!
I hope you’re well, I religiously use your recipes!
Just wondering if this can be used as a stirfry sauce? I read over the recipe but wasn’t sure how I would go about achieving that (do I add the serving sauce to do that?)
Thanks again for all your awesome recipes.
Every single recipe I’ve tried turns out amazing. Absolutely delicious. Thank you
Nagi, you are my Numero Uno go to cooking recipes.
Cooked this last night and it is so yummy!
Tried a lot of your recipes and so has my daughter, NEVER FAILS to please our palettes.
Thank you so much for doing all the testing, cooking and giving it to us.
I like your recipes and always scroll down to check on Dozer first
I like your honey soy chicken recipe
Hi Nagi,
I can only get the chicken boneless but with skin. Will there be any variation in the recipe?
The marinade is delicious, marinate with pork spar ribs overnight in the fridge. The only change, substitute apple cider vinegar with apple juice and add one tablespoon apple cider vinegar and everything else exactly the same. It is so so good !!! Definitely will use this marinade for other food.
Thanks for those tips, Helen! N x
Best recipe ever!!
Tasty, easy to make, and so much better than store bought marinades!
Thanks Nagi! This was soo delicious. This will become a staple in our house 🙂
I made the same quantity of chicken but doubled the recipe to have extra sauce leftover. Great recipe, easy to make and super tasty. I ended pairing this marinade/sauce chicken with cabbage and crispy bacon over rice in a pseudo stir fry kind of bowl. So delicious.
Made this last night, amazing recipe, family loved it, served the chicken with pineapple fried rice and the two are perfect together. Will most definitely be making on a regular basis this summer, yummo.
Absolutely delicious! I cooked this last night for my Son and served it with the Pineapple Fried Rice….so glad to have found these simple and easy to prepare recipes. Thank you Nagi x
Looks delicious. I’m a little confused though when you say you don’t need the fish sauce if cooking on the stove b/c you will be cooking in the sauce does that mean you don’t reserve any sauce on the side just cook it all in the reserved sauce and not bother basting? I am excited to try this but I don’t have a grill, Thanks for your help!
Hi Nagi, can the honey soya marinade be kept in a bottle in the fridge or cupboard? Considering all the ingredients are usually stored in the cupboard. tsk Debbie
Hi Nagi, I am a Community Support Worker and I work for Residential Rehabilitation Unit for people with mental health.
I supported a resident last night in making the ‘Emergency Dump ‘n’ Baked Fried Rice last night and I was told by a few of the residents that it was “The best fried rice they’ve ever had”.
Because of its success another resident wants to make both your ‘Emergency Dump ‘n’ Baked Fried Rice accompanied by Honey Soy Chicken Wings, as she loved the rice and has always wanted to make Honey Soy and Garlic Chicken Wings.
Instead of breasts or thighs cooked on the BBQ or stove-top am I able to support the client with marinating the chicken wings in the Honey Soy Marinade and then baking them in a baking tray?
I was thinking of combining your ‘Sticky Baked Chinese Chicken Wings’ recipe, but using the Honey Soy Marinade instead the Asian marinade. Is that possible?
I am going to organise that she cooks the meal next Thursday; 2nd September 2021 which will allow me to support her with making the marinade on Tuesday 31st August 2021. Then she can marinade the chicken wings overnight on Wednesday 30th August. What do you think? Is that possible? If it is, how long will we cook the wings and on what oven temperature?
Omg! Love it!
Used this recipe for bone in skinless chicken thighs on the grill for 12 guests. I could not have been more pleased with the outcome- perfectly balanced flavors and lots of raves, even from the picky eaters! Made the sauce but didn’t even need, flavorful enough without it.
This is a keeper. Thanks for sharing this, Nagi.
I used this marinade for some honey soy tofu and it was such a hit tonight. I made the sauce and let it marinate for 3 hours with the tofu. I pan fried the tofu till brown and added the cornflour slurry to the reserved sauce and added it into the pan. I simmered till it was thick and sticky. Served it with steamed greens and rice. Thanks for another great recipe!
Would this work with a whole chicken in the oven?
Unfortunately not Lucy, the time it takes to cook the whole chicken would mean that the marinade would burn. N x