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
-
save some for basting (so it’s not tainted by uncooked chicken)
-
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).
Andrea says
Omg! Love it!
Debra says
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.
Grace says
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!
Lucy moulton says
Would this work with a whole chicken in the oven?
Nagi says
Unfortunately not Lucy, the time it takes to cook the whole chicken would mean that the marinade would burn. N x
Bill Bartl says
I was trying to reverse engineer a recipe from a restaurant. I sliced the chicken breasts 1/2 thick and added 4 table spoons of ginger paste from a tube.
I toasted walnuts then added the sauce to thicken for the glaze.
It turned out great!!
Jenny says
Made this tonight and it was awesome. The char from the grill makes it taste like take out! I didn’t have Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry so I used a dry Chardonnay.I will be perusing Asian markets for the wine for the future 🙂
Tracey says
This is a 10/10 dinner choice. The whole family loved it. Extra marinade was fab!
Nagi says
That’s awesome Tracey, thanks so much for the feedback! N x
Tony Politi says
I made this tonight, delicious!! Might be my new favorite chicken recipe, Thanks!!!!
Nobby says
Nagi
Hi
Can I make this using chicken thighs with bone in?
Many thanks.
Nobby
Nagi says
Hi Nobby, I talk about this in the recipe notes. Enjoy! N x
Maddi says
Nagi,
If I am only cooking 500g of thighs – should I halve the marinate amount?
Maddi
Nagi says
Hi Maddi, yes – click the servings and scale down – all the ingredients will scale down for you. N x
Andi says
This was SO, SO GOOD! I doubled the sauce, didn’t have honey so I used maple syrup, had lots of wings and drums, marinated overnight and baked today.
Oh boy, house smelled good, it was tasty and just marvelous! I’m so happy that after many recipes I bought Shaoxing wine because it will put your meal over the top!
Thank you, Nagi for the great meals.
Nobby Clarke says
Lovely meal as usual Nagi.
The print instructions version gives some strange quantities though.
All the best from the UK
Nagi says
Hi Nobbu, when you click print, the printable version is exactly as the website – not sure what’s happening from your end?! N x
Peter Jowett says
Thanks Nagi! This chicken dish is so tasty. The basting makes the chicken juicy and the sauce tops it off nicely. Many thanks for all your recipes!
Jazmin says
Lovely recipe. We used white vinegar in the recipe and worked out fine. Good balance of sweet and salty. Loved by both adults and kids!
Sophie says
Hi Nagi! Could this recipe be baked as opposed to bbq’d? I need to cook quite a bit of chicken thighs and think it would be more efficient to do in the oven in a big roasting dish, if possible.
Love all of your recipes! Thank you!
Nagi says
Hi Sophie, try this recipe instead 🙂 https://www.recipetineats.com/sticky-honey-soy-baked-chicken/ N x
Carl Smith says
I was looking for a marinade recipe along these lines and this is absolutely perfect! Have you ever tried it with fish, and if so how did it turn out?
Nagi says
Hi Carl – I’m so glad you enjoyed it! You might like this recipe too: https://www.recipetineats.com/marinated-grilled-salmon/ N x
Carl Smith says
That’sexactly what I was looking for! Thank you very much!
Antonia says
I am thinking about this marinade for some pork tenderloin tonight. Have you tried that?
Nagi says
It will be great Antonia! Or you could try this one: https://www.recipetineats.com/pork-tenderloin-with-honey-garlic-sauce/ N x
Antonia says
I think about the marinade for some port tenderloin tonight. Have you tried that?
Antonia says
Sorry about all those typos! 🤦♀️
Sue Dalitz says
Apologies. I was cursing because the serving sauce fizzed and didn’t thicken. Just realized why – a week later – I was using carb soda instead of cornflour. Rookie error!! I’ll try again!
Nagi says
Oh no!!!! (Sorry I laughed….)
Debra Palmer says
I grilled this for dinner tonight. It was delicious! Thanks, Nagi! And my Goldens send their best to Dozer. I think my girls have a crush. 💕