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Sticky Honey Soy Baked Chicken

By:Nagi
104 Comments
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Honey Soy Chicken is a sweet, salty, sticky chicken dinner that’s incredible quick to prepare. Mix up a simple honey soy sauce, pour over chicken and bake. You’ll be a rockstar when you serve up this incredible sticky Baked Chicken that kids and grown ups will go nuts over!

Quick baked chicken recipes like Balsamic Chicken, Honey Mustard Chicken and this sticky soy chicken are great back-pocket recipes because they’re made with pantry staples. Finger licking good!

Sticky Honey Soy Baked Chicken - No marinating required, just a handful of pantry essentials for a spectacular sticky chicken!

Honey Soy Chicken

The best way to make Honey Soy Chicken is to marinade it for 24 – 48 hours, then baste constantly while cooking on the stove or BBQ and serve it with a glossy honey soy garlic sauce. And here’s the recipe for how to make it that way – if you have the time!

This recipe is the baked version that’s effortless with completely hands off cooking. It’s every so slightly adapted from this Baked Sticky Honey Soy Sesame Chicken by Claire from Sprinkles and Sprouts, a fellow Australian food blogger.

The glaze was perfect. Strong flavour, but there’s not an overwhelming amout of it – just enough to coat the chicken which is all you need. And it’s because the glaze has such great flavour that you don’t even need to marinate the chicken.

Just throw a handful of ingredients in a pan, bake it, and this is what you get.

Made this the other night, finger licking good! A hit with everyone!

Sticky Honey Soy Baked Chicken - No marinating required, just a handful of pantry essentials for a spectacular sticky chicken!

One key tip that she emphasises that I made the mistake of ignoring the first time – line the baking dish with foil AND baking paper (parchment paper)! This is a jammy glaze we have here, and if you just use baking paper, you’ll be suffering through a serious scrubbing session like I did!

I learnt my lesson the hard way – never again! 🙂

Before I sign off, I want to share some of my favorites from Sprinkles & Sprouts. Claire’s food is very similar to mine – fuss free food with big flavours, everyday ingredients, with a focus on dinners. We both agree that potatoes are one of the greatest foods on this planet and are yet to come across a way with potatoes we don’t like. In fact, Claire is so obsessed with potatoes that she’s created an entire Potato recipe collection! (Psst! Her Smashed Crispy Potatoes are so good I included them in my latest feature in Super Food Ideas magazine!)

MY PICKS FROM SPRINKLES & SPROUTS

This sticky Honey Soy chicken tops the list.  🙂 – Nagi x

Sticky Honey Soy Baked Chicken - No marinating required, just a handful of pantry essentials for a spectacular sticky chicken!

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Sticky Honey Soy Baked Chicken - No marinating required, just a handful of pantry essentials for a spectacular sticky chicken!

Sticky Honey Soy Chicken - baked

Author: Nagi | RecipeTin Eats
Prep: 5 mins
Cook: 50 mins
Total: 55 mins
Chicken, Dinner
Asian influence
4.92 from 25 votes
Servings6
Tap or hover to scale
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This is the best, EASIEST sticky honey soy chicken recipe I have come across, ever. And I've tried many over the years! Marginally adapted from this recipe by Sprinkles and Sprouts. The sauce is very thin when you put it together and gets even thinner while baking, but miraculously, it suddenly thickens into an incredible glaze to squidge the chicken in. It's salty and sweet with a lovely hit of sesame.

Ingredients

  • 6 bone in , skin on chicken thighs, about 2 lb/1kg
  • 1 red onion , cut into wedges

Glaze

  • 3 cloves garlic , minced
  • 3 tbsp honey
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce (Note 1)
  • 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar or ordinary white vinegar
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1 tsp ground black pepper
  • 2 tsp sesame seeds (optional)

Garnish (optional)

  • Sesame seeds
  • Fresh coriander/cilantro leaves

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 180C/350F (fan forced) or 200C/390F for conventional.
  • Line a baking dish with foil then baking paper. The baking tray should fit the chicken comfortably, not too spaced apart (glaze will dry out), not too snug (glaze won't thicken enough). (Note 2)
  • Mix the Glaze ingredients together.
  • Place onion and chicken in the baking dish skin side down, then pour the Glaze over.
  • Bake for 25 minutes, then turn and bake for a further 25 to 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the glaze is sticky. If the glaze is not syrupy, remove the chicken onto a plate and put the pan back in for a few minutes.
  • Tilt baking dish and spoon out excess fat. Turn chicken skin side down and squidge around in the glaze to coat it.
  • Serve with rice and steamed greens, sprinkled with sesame seeds and fresh cilantro/coriander leaves.

Recipe Notes:

1. This recipe requires ordinary, all purpose soy sauce. Not light or dark or sweet soy sauce (check the label, if it has any of these words on it, it's not suited to this recipe!). I use Kikkoman soy sauce.
2. I've made this recipe quite a number of times using various cuts of chicken and using different baking dishes. Using a baking tray didn't work because the glaze dried out too much because there is too much space between the chicken. Using a very small baking dish where I had to squeeze the chicken in didn't work either because there was not enough space between the chicken to allow the Glaze to reduce and thicken.
It is safer to make this in a smaller rather than large pan, then if the Glaze hasn't reduced enough at the end, take the chicken out and put the pan back in the oven, it should thicken very quickly. Then return the chicken to the pan and roll in the Glaze.
This works very well with skinless boneless chicken thigh fillets, though I like my glaze really thick so I took the chicken out at about 40 minutes then returned the dish to the oven for 5 or so minutes to reduce the glaze.
It doesn't work as well with drumsticks because the shape of them restricts the ability to coat into the Glaze, and also they aren't as juicy as thigh so the glaze dried out too much.
3. This recipe doesn't make stacks of sauce, which is the way it is supposed to be because it is quite strong in flavour. It reduce to a jammy sticky glaze, enough to coat the chicken. That's all you need!

Nutrition Information:

Serving: 207gCalories: 415cal (21%)
Keywords: Baked chicken, honey soy chicken
Did you make this recipe?I love hearing how you went with my recipes! Tag me on Instagram at @RecipeTinEats.

 

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Hi, I'm Nagi!

I believe you can make great food with everyday ingredients even if you’re short on time and cost conscious. You just need to cook clever and get creative!

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104 Comments

  1. Melissa says

    Aaarrgghh! I didn’t supervise the deli guy when I asked for 6 chicken thigh cutlets. He has given me chicken thighs. No bone no skin. Gotta go through with it now. I’ll report back after dinner. 🙁

    Reply

  2. Annabelle says

    5 stars
    Made this but the sauce didnvt thicken, maybe because there was so much excess fat. But still tasted great! Will try the grilled version next 😊 thank you for this great recipe! Keep em coming! 😍

    Reply

  4. Jane says

    5 stars
    I tried this recipe for supper. It was delicious. I paired it with your Chinese fried rice. Yum. Thank you.

    Reply

  7. Dawn says

    Soo tasty! Sauce didn’t reduce to sticky but I added 1 extra of everything for the glaze then finely sliced chilli and shredded spring onion to the mix pre baking….a massive hit in this house. Will definitely make again..and again!!

    Reply

  8. King J says

    Hi, just wondering if you knew that Official Australian tablespoons are (weirdly) 20ml, while the rest of the world uses 15ml, so if you’ve taken this recipe from an Australian cook, the tbsp volumes might be off.

    Reply

  9. Tony Jae says

    4 stars
    Another hit, Nagi, that makes it 3 for 3! Our California chickens must be on steroids bc I had to double the sauce for my 6 thighs. The smell coming from the oven was so aromatic and mouth-watering. After removing them from the oven they looked very ordinary. But don’t be fooled, the taste is extraordinary! I couldn’t get a sticky texture, but I didn’t want to leave them in the oven to overcook. When I returned the sauce itself to the oven, it still did not caramelize. Nonetheless, very tasty.

    Reply

    • Nagi says

      If you doubled the sauce it could be the reason as to why it didn’t reduce and caramelise in time (you could always do this in a saucepan while the chicken it out of the oven). I’m so glad you loved it anyway! – N x

      Reply

  10. Georgia says

    5 stars
    Yum, yum and yum! Loving all your recipes since discovering your site. Nagi, I wish you could convince the major supermarkets to stock parchment lined foil. Every time my husband goes to the UK, he brings me back this stuff and it’s brilliant! So popular there, so convenient, and fantastic for anything sticky and messy.

    Reply

  11. SandraM says

    5 stars
    Pretty darn yummy! 😁 Had a huge red onion waiting to be put to good use.
    This was so good with some brown rice and broccoli.
    Will definitely be making this again.

    Reply
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