You know it, you love it. Sweet, sticky, savoury, and just the thing to have over a steaming bowl of rice.

Time: 3/5
Batch size is limited by pan surface area for meal prepping, but if making for one or two it’s actually pretty quick

Effort: 3/5
Dusting chicken thighs with starch and fiddling with a kitchen torch makes this recipe an inherently more involved process

Smokey sticky goodness

Chicken teriyaki! You know it, you love it. Sweet, sticky, savoury, and just the thing to have over a steaming bowl of rice. Of course it would also be good with noodles or on a salad, but hey: look at my name. Go to servedwithsalad.com if you want chicken teriyaki on greens.

Just kidding, we’re still friends (:

Once you have the sauce and the basic technique down, you’ll be teriyaki-ing your way through vast culinary possibilities. Beef? No problem. Fish? Wonderful – I’ve done it with mackerel and salmon, and it was amazing. Tofu? Bring it on. With a bottle of home-made teriyaki sauce in your fridge, you’re at most an hour away from a comfy rice bowl.

Yaki means “to grill” in Japanese. Usually this refers to a charcoal fire over which the glaze is seared on, which gives it a great smokey flavour. A much more simple alternative is to use a kitchen torch as I have, to use a broiler, or simply leave out the searing process and let the glaze act more like a sauce. If it’s grilling season and you have a charcoal or gas grill, this is of course a great recipe for that too.

If you do go down the kitchen torch or the broiler method, please make sure to add any garnishes you intend to use after the sear. Don’t be an idiot like I was and torch the sesame seeds along with the glaze.

If all this seems like too much effort, don’t worry. I’ve got you covered with more hands-off chicken and rice recipes like these Miso Honey Chicken Thighs, these tangy and garlicky roast thighs that harness the power of yogurt, or continue the Japanese theme with a Yakitori-inspired chicken and rice mean prep.

Dramatis Personae

Chicken – 100-200g pax

Thighs are much more juicy and rich. Their succulent texture stands up better to teriyaki than white meat in my opinion. The way that nooks and crannies on the skin hold on to the glaze also makes skin-on pretty non-negotiable for me. The best cut to use is thus skin-on, boneless chicken thighs. Chicken wings, being relatively fattier and covered by skin, and whole chicken legs for the same reason, would also work well.

Teriyaki sauce

A mix of soy sauce, mirin and sugar. Adjust the proportions to your liking. I like it quite sweet. Make a big batch and keep it in the fridge. You’ll find yourself coming back to it often. You could reinforce its flavour with additions like garlic or ginger, but I tend to keep these out of the base sauce so I can adjust the flavour profile to suit whatever I am teriyaki-ing.

Of course, there is no shame at all in store-bought sauce. Busy people have busy lives. Just remember that you always have the freedom to adjust the sauce to your liking.

Aromatics and garnish

As mentioned above, some ginger and garlic can really enhance a teriyaki sauce. A flourish of sesame seeds, or a sprinkling of finely chopped scallion greens add pops of colour and vibrancy to the finished dish.

Vegetables – 100-200g pax

Always eat your vegetables! On the menu today is cabbage and carrots, both relatively hearty vegetables that can stand up to the stronger flavours of teriyaki.

Executive Summary

1. Optionally, marinate chicken thighs with salt the day before.
2. Get rice cooking. Wash and chop vegetables.
3. Stir-fry carrots in garlic while shredding cabbage with knife. Cabbage follows carrots.
4. Once the veggies are done (or in another pan in parallel), sear chicken thighs until brown and crispy. Reserve.
5. Teriyaki sauce in pan, let it reduce. Reserve extra if you’re making more for later.
6. Toss chicken in sauce. Sear the skin side with a kitchen torch or the broiler until very slightly charred
7. Serve with rice and optionally garnish with sesame seeds and thinly sliced spring onions

Play by play

Chicken thighs. Defrosted, cleaned and ideally salted the night before. Just before cooking, dust the surface with some corn starch or flour to help it crisp up when you sear them later.

Beginning with the veg. The carrots take longer to cook than cabbage, so give them a head start. They go in the pan with some garlic.

Cabbage always struck me as a vegetable that goes well with these rice bowl Don-style meals. Shred with a knife while the carrots are cooking, and toss them in with the rest. Salt lightly and stir.

Searing the chicken after reserving the vegetables. I’m using the same pan because I only have this one big pan, but if you have the utensils and the stovetop space you could absolutely multi-task the chicken and the vegetables.

Check out the nice crisp skin, which would be harder to achieve without the starch coating. This is what will hold on to the teriyaki sauce. While the chicken will cook a bit longer in the sauce later, it’s hard to judge doneness by the colour after everything is stained by the soy sauce, so aim to have the thighs more or less cooked through before that. So don’t go too crazy with the heat, or you’d burn the outside before the insides get a chance to cook.

Sauteeing finely minced garlic in the chicken drippings, to reinforce the sauce.

Letting the teriyaki sauce simmer with the garlic and reducing by a bit. If you don’t already have teriyaki sauce on hand, you could absolutely make it right in the pan by combining soy sauce, sugar and mirin. Begin with a 1:1:1 ratio, and adjust to taste from there.

Once the sauce is pretty thick, toss the chicken to coat. Do as I say, not as I do: do not add sesame seeds at this point if you will torch or broil them later. Here’s the point where I put down my camera and brought out the torch. Gently pass its glorious flame over the skin side of the thighs.

Compare the chicken in this picture to the previous one. After having gone over them with a kitchen torch, the glaze has thickened and sort of fused together with the chicken, leaving little liquid behind. If you omit this step the sauce will retain its gooey liquid consistency, allowing it to run down into the rice more.

Dinner is served, with a pork bone broth and dashi daikon radishes on the side.

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