Authentic Chicken Teriyaki Recipe Japanese

Ingredients for Teriyaki Chicken

Authentic Teriyaki Sauce

Like most Japanese sauces, teriyaki sauce is a simple concoction and includes just three ingredients. That’s why I’m always a little baffled when people pay a premium to buy teriyaki sauce when it’s so easy to make at home. So here it is, the only teriyaki recipe you’ll ever need, that includes equal parts of the following three ingredients: I know there are probably a few of you asking “What about mirin?”. Mirin is a sweet alcoholic beverage made in a similar fashion to sake and then aged. It’s traditionally added to teriyaki sauce to boost the umami and shine in the sauce. The problem is that real mirin is hard to find, even in Japan. Most “mirin” is just grain alcohol with corn syrup, colorings, and flavorings. That’s why I prefer making the sauce with real brewed sake and sugar.

Don’t use these in Teriyaki Sauce

Most teriyaki sauce recipes include a lot more than 3 ingredients. Here are a few examples and why I don’t recommend using them.

Garlic, Ginger, Scallions - All of these things add particulate matter to your sauce. If you must embellish your teriyaki sauce with an aromatic, you can grate and strain these ingredients through a sieve to extract their juice. This will allow you to add the flavor without blunting the sheen of the sauce. Another idea is to simply garnish your finished chicken teriyaki with grated ginger or chopped scallions (green onions). Sesame seeds or oil - You’re welcome to garnish your teriyaki with toasted sesame seeds at the end, but adding sesame oil to teriyaki sauce makes it a different dish. Vinegar - recently I’ve seen some recipes suggesting you can replace the sake in teriyaki sauce with vinegar. While rice vinegar can be made from sake (just as red wine vinegar can be made from wine), it undergoes chemical changes in the fermentation process, and the two taste nothing alike. If you really want to add rice vinegar to your sauce, there’s a delicious Filipino dish called Chicken Adobo. Starch - Teriyaki sauce gets its thickness from the sugars in the sauce being reduced and caramelized. If you’re getting the proper level of caramelization in your sauce, there’s no need to add a thickener like a cornstarch slurry. Juices - I occasionally see a teriyaki recipe that includes pineapple or apple juice. I’m not sure if this is due to some misguided notion that fruit juice is healthier than sugar or if the creator enjoys the taste of the fruit in the sauce, but teriyaki sauce does not traditionally include juice. That being said, as long as the juice is filtered and doesn’t include any pulp, you can still get a good teri from your sauce by adding juice. Another idea is that you can also just cut up some fresh fruit and toss it in at the end as you caramelize the sauce.

Bottled Teriyaki Sauce

I usually mix the ingredients for the sauce straight into the pan, but if you want to save even more time, you can premix a large quantity of soy sauce, sugar, and sake in equal parts in a bowl and stir it until the sugar is dissolved (heat it if need be). Then you can pour your homemade teriyaki sauce in a glass bottle and store it in the fridge where it will keep for months.

Cut of Chicken for Teriyaki

The traditional cut of chicken for teriyaki is boneless skin-on chicken legs (both the thigh and the drumstick. Click the link to learn how to debone them yourself). If you can’t find whole legs where you are, skin-on chicken thighs will work just fine. When made properly, the fat renders out and the skin crisps, while keeping the meat tender and moist. If you really hate having skin on your chicken, you can remove it after you’ve browned the chicken, but before you add the sauce. As for chicken breasts, it’s worth mentioning that teriyaki chicken is not traditionally made with white meat. That being said, if you prefer it, then there’s nothing wrong with using it. Just be aware that breast meat is much leaner than thigh meat, which makes it susceptible to drying out. My recommendation would be to pan-fry it until it’s just barely cooked through and then transfer it to a plate while you caramelize the sauce. Once the sauce is nice and thick, you can add the breast back in to glaze it.

How to Make Chicken Teriyaki

Salt the Chicken

To get the most flavor into your teriyaki chicken, it’s important to get it nice and brown on the outside. In order to do this, you have to get rid of the moisture on the surface of the chicken before it will brown. Normally this would involve frying the chicken until the surface moisture has evaporated, but doing this will render the meat overcooked and dry. To get around this, I like to lightly salt the chicken, before pan-frying it. This coaxes out any excess moisture from the surface, and then you can use paper towels to remove the liquid, along with the salt before frying it.

Grilled vs Pan-Fried Teriyaki

Yaki is usually translated as “grilled”, but it can also mean pan-fried (like on a griddle). I prefer making teriyaki in a pan as it gives more consistent results and is less work than grilling. The method is simple; once the chicken is salted and patted dry, it’s placed skin-side down into a cold non-stick pan. There’s no need to add any oil since the skin will render out plenty of fat. The chicken is cooked slowly over medium heat until the skin side is crisp and browned. Then it’s flipped over to cook the meat through. Once the meat is cooked, you just need to drain off the fat and wipe out the pan before adding the ingredients for the sauce. Then the chicken is flipped over repeatedly to build up a nice shiny glaze. By the time it’s done, most of the sauce should be on the chicken, and anything remaining in the pan should be about the thickness of honey. If you do decide to grill your teriyaki chicken, here are a few tips. Combine the ingredients for the teriyaki sauce in a small pan and simmer until thick and bubbly. For the chicken, follow the salting step and pat the chicken dry. Brush some neutral oil onto the chicken; this will help prevent the chicken from sticking to the grill. Grill the chicken until it’s almost completely cooked through and then brush the reduced teriyaki glaze on the chicken. You can flip the chicken over and re-glaze a few times to get a beautiful glossy finish.

Beef, Pork, Salmon and Tofu Teriyaki

As you may have guessed, you can use this teriyaki sauce recipe and method to make anything from Steak Teriyaki to Salmon Teriyaki to Teriyaki Tofu. You’ll need to adjust cooking times depending on the type and thickness of the protein you choose. Just cook it until it’s a little shy of your desired doneness. Then you just add the ingredients for the sauce and caramelize them around the food, flipping it until it’s glazed in a shiny layer of sauce.