Sticky Honey Soy Baked Chicken

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

Easy Baked Honey Soy Chicken

The best way to make Honey Soy Chicken is to marinate it for 24 – 48 hours, followed by constant basting while cooking on the stove or BBQ and serving 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 ever-so slightly adapted from this Baked Sticky Honey Soy Sesame Chicken by Claire from Sprinkles and Sprouts, a fellow Australian food blogger. The glaze is perfect. Strong in flavour, but there’s not an overwhelming amount 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:

What you need to make Baked Honey Soy Chicken

Here’s what you need to make this dish:

Chicken thighs – This recipe calls for bone-in, skin-on thighs so they can be in the oven for the 50 to 60 minutes required for the sauce to reduce down and caramelise. It can also be made with drumsticks and chicken marylands without altering the recipe.For boneless thighs and breasts, the chicken will be in the oven for substantially less time so I’d give the sauce a head start in the oven first to start reducing before adding the chicken.Red onion – This is cut into wedges and used as the bed on which the chicken is baked. The onion adds an extra element of flavour into the sauce, much like the way so many savoury recipes start by sautéing onion.Garlic – Flavour! We are a huge fan of garlic in (almost!) everything savoury!Honey – This is the sweetness in the sauce which makes it a glaze that coats the chicken.Soy sauce – This is the salt in the sauce. The recipe calls for all purpose soy sauce, but light soy sauce can be used too. DO NOT use dark soy sauce (flavour is far too intense) or sweet soy sauce like kecap manis (too sweet and too strong). See here for more on different soy sauces, and when you can interchange.Cider vinegar – Essential to balance out the sweet and savoury.Sesame oil – I adore sesame oil for the flavour it adds to anything it’s used in, whether a dressing (like this Asian Sesame Dressing) or into soups (like Hot & Sour Soup).

How to make Honey Soy Baked Chicken

Mix the sauce > pour over chicken > bake. It can also be made with drumsticks and chicken marylands without altering the recipe. For boneless thighs and breasts, the chicken will be in the oven for substantially less time so I’d give the sauce a head start in the oven first to start reducing before adding the chicken. Anything else you need to know?? 😂 (Just joking!!)

Then spread the onion out in the pan. The reason it’s hard to say whether your sauce will be perfectly syrupy straight of the the oven is due to varying factors such as pan size (more space around chicken = faster reduction), juiciness of chicken (juicier = leaches more water = thins sauce more), if the chicken was frozen (tends to drop more water) and how evenly head circulates in the oven.

What to serve with Baked Honey Soy Chicken

In the photo above, the chicken is pictured with plain rice. Even though there’s not a ton of sauce, what you do have has a fairly intense flavour so a little goes a long way when mixed through rice. Choose from: white rice, jasmine, basmati, brown rice or (just in case you’re doing the low carb thing) try cauliflower rice. Actually, this is a good one for cauliflower rice because the sauce flavour is quite strong so it will disguise any remnant of cauliflower flavour! If you want to raise the bar, try it with a side of flavoured rice! Here are some options: Love to know what you think if you try this chicken dish. And tell me what you served on the side! – Nagi x