Best Teriyaki Chicken Wings Game Day Wings

Why This Recipe Works?

Braising the wings on the stove in teriyaki sauce avoids the need to marinate them first. Braising also tenderizes the chicken while rendering out most of the fat from the skin. This makes it easy to brown the skin in the oven while ensuring the inside is tender and flavorful. Blasting the chicken wings in a hot oven turns the skin a beautiful shade of mahogany. It also lets you prep the chicken up to this point in advance so you can reheat and brown them in the oven when you want to serve them. The braising liquid has absorbed the chicken’s flavor and extracted gelatin from the skin, which makes it thick and glossy when reduced.

Ingredients for Chicken Teriyaki Wings

Chicken Wings - I used a mixture of wingettes and drumettes for this, but if your wings still have the tips attached, you can cut them off at the joint or use them whole. Soy sauce - Teriyaki sauce has 3 main components, and the soy sauce brings salt and umami. Sugar - Sugar balances the salt of the soy sauce in teriyaki sauce. Sake - Sake is a beverage brewed from rice, and it is added to teriyaki sauce for flavor and umami. During the fermentation process, the protein in rice breaks down into its constituent amino acids, and many of these produce the taste of umami. The alcohol boils off during cooking, so the resulting sauce will not be alcoholic. You can learn more about what sake is and why it’s used for cooking in this video. Aromatics - I like to add aromatics such as fresh ginger and garlic to give the chicken a bit more flavor. It’s best to add aromatics in whole so their flavor can be extracted during braising, but you don’t end up with particles muddling the sauce. Garnish - For ingredients like sesame seeds and scallions, it’s best to save them to garnish the chicken at the end. By sprinkling them on after the teriyaki wings are done, you can add a nice texture and flavor without clouding the sauce.

How to Make Teriyaki Chicken Wings

To braise the chicken wings, you want to add the ginger and garlic into a saucepan and then place the wings in it, minimizing the amount of space between the pieces of chicken. This ensures that the liquids cover most of the wings when we add them in. Pour the sugar, soy sauce, and sake onto the chicken, and then put the pan over high heat to bring the liquid to a boil. Cover the pot with a lid and turn down the heat to maintain a steady simmer. You want to let this braise for 15 minutes for the sauce to soak into the chicken and for the fat in the chicken to render out. While the chicken is braising, preheat the oven to 430 degrees F (220 C) and prepare a baking sheet by placing a metal cooling rack on top. When the timer is up, transfer the wings to the rack and let the surface of the chicken dry out for a few minutes. When there’s no longer liquid on the surface of the chicken, put the baking sheet in the oven and bake them until the skin is a rich brown color. This took about 10 minutes in my oven, but it may take a little less or a little more time, so keep a close eye on your teriyaki wings to ensure they don’t burn. To finish the teriyaki glaze, strain the braising liquid into another saucepan and skim off the excess fat using a spoon. Boil the braising liquid to reduce it until the bubbles are big and shiny and it’s relatively thick. The gelatin from the chicken will cause the sauce to get thicker as it cools, eliminating the need for thickeners like cornstarch. It doesn’t need to be super thick at this point. Once your chicken teriyaki wings are done browning, remove them from the oven and brush or spoon on the teriyaki sauce.

Tableware

The plate pictured above was sent over by Musubi Kiln. They have a fantastic selection of both classic and modern Japanese ceramics and tableware and they ship around the world. Get 5% off your purchases by using coupon code “NORECIPES” at checkout.