Japanese Teriyaki Chicken Recipe

This is an authentic Japanese Teriyaki Chicken Recipe prepared with boneless chicken thighs and a handful of pantry ingredients.

This recipe is without cornstarch and ginger.

Momoko, our Japanese food expert, joined the team a little while back.

She has been helping me film her heritage food and I'm translating her knowledge into useful recipe posts.

We have been sharing authentic Japanese recipes such as a simple miso soup and Japanese mayonnaise ever since.

Jump to:

• 📕 What's Chicken Teriyaki?
• 🔪 How to make it?
• 🥣 Serving up and Uses
• 📜 Variations
• 🍱 Storing
• 💭 FAQs
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

📕 What's Chicken Teriyaki?

Chicken Teriyaki is a modern Japanese dish. It got popular in the west where it was eventually modified to adapt to the local palate.

The Japanese version calls for boneless chicken tighs. The chicken is cooked in a pan first.

Then a teriyaki sauce is prepared and the chicken is taken back to the pan to be cooked in the sauce.

Teri means shiny and yaki to stir fry. The Japanese sauce is made of soy sauce, sugar and sake.

🔪 How to make it?

This dish comes together really quickly and easily and there is zero marination time!

You can prepare and cook your own Japanese style teriyaki within 20 minutes.

I have roughly outlined the process in 3 steps, find the detailed recipe with ingredient quantities in the recipe card further below.

Step 1

Season Chicken with Salt

Heat up a pan with oil and wait for it to get super hot.

Shallow fry chicken on all sides until it shows color.

Step 2

Take chicken from the pan and pat dry with clean kitchen towel to get rid of excess oils.

Wash pan and dry well.

Step 3

Place teriyaki sauce ingredients into the pan and heat up.

Place chicken into pan, cover and cook in sauce on both sides.

Cut chicken into slices, pour remaining sauce over and serve up hot.

🥣 Serving up and Uses

Momoko our Japanese food fairy, said that they usually serve chicken teriyaki cut in slices over lettuce or with a bowl of sushi rice as a donburi lunch meal.

It's a popular takeaway choice!

For meal prepping champs, teriyaki chicken is a common bento lunch box addition.

You can also have it with onigiri rice balls. It's common in Japan to have it that way!

Besides, modern sushi variations use teriyaki chicken pieces too. So, you can also roll the cooked chicken in.

I personally love my chicken teriyaki as an addition to my green salad with a tangy vinaigrette dressing.

Or how about a teriyaki sandwich or wrap? You can use burrito wraps, middle eastern flatbread, Chinese bao buns and you can make lettuce wraps too.

Cooked and sliced teriyaki flavored chicken can also be added to fried noodles such as chow mein, yakisoba or udon.

Also adding it to fried rice dishes is common. I like to serve my chicken teriyaki with stir-fried vegetables too such as bok choy or Asian green beans.

📜 Variations

You can try to use other chicken cuts such as boneless breast, wings or drumsticks.

But keep in mind that boneless leg meat is preferred because it has got more flavor and because it can be cooked on skewers over the grill.

If you want to grill your meat, you will have to marinate the chicken with the combined sauce ingredients.

To make it spicy, add some red chili pepper flakes to the sauce ingredients in the pan.

You can add freshly chopped ginger too and garlic.

🍱 Storing

You can store your cooked teriyaki chicken in an airtight container in your fridge for up to 2-3 days.

Reheat it for a short time in a skillet. Avoid reheating in the microwave or oven because the meat will dry out.

Freezing isn't a great option because the chicken will be completely cooked in the sauce and thawing and warming it up again would just decrease the meat quality.

💭 FAQs

📖 Recipe