Honey Soy Chicken Marinade (for boneless thighs and breast)

This is a recipe for everybody’s favourite Honey Soy chicken marinade for boneless chicken thighs and breast. It does everything you expect from a marinade (tenderises, adds flavour), and gives it a lovely lacquered finish. But that’s not all! We’ve also got a glossy honey garlic sauce to smother the chicken and everything else on your plate.

For chicken wings, use the Honey Soy Wings recipe. For drumsticks and bone-in thighs, use the Honey Soy Baked Chicken recipe.

Honey Soy Chicken – marinade and sauce

This is a Honey Soy chicken marinade I’ve been using for most of my adult life which is direct copycat of the store bought bottled marinades.

Except unlike store bought where a quick inspection of the label reveals it contains a mere 0.5% of honey (I felt so indignant when I saw this!!), this is actually made with plenty of honey!!!

(In case you are wondering, most of the sweetness comes from cheap syrups like glucose or golden syrup)

This is my Rolls Royce of Honey Soy Chicken recipes. For midweek, I use my quick no-marinade stove and baked versions.

What you need for Honey Soy Chicken

Here’s what you need for this Honey Soy Chicken. I feel like there’s a good chance you already have all these ingredients!!

Chinese cooking wine (“shoaxing wine”) is the secret ingredient here. Without it, you will really notice that the flavour is a bit too one dimensional, especially the sauce. Used in practically all cooked Chinese recipes – such as stir fries and noodles.

Substitutes in order of preference (best first) – dry sherry, Mirin, cooking sake. Best non alcoholic substitute is chicken stock.

Some Recipe Trivia! You don’t need cooking wine when making Honey Soy Chicken on the stove or in the oven because you cook the chicken in the sauce and this gives the sauce greater depth of flavour. But when cooking on the BBQ, we don’t have that option so both the sauce and the marinade needs an extra dash of flavour which we get from the Chinese cooking wine.

Though this recipe particularly caters to grilled chicken, it’s still excellent for stovetop cooking when you want a premium version of the stove or oven version (this has more sauce and marinating adds flavour).

How to make Honey Soy Chicken

And here’s how it’s made –

• mix up a batch of the sauce

• save some for basting (so it’s not tainted by uncooked chicken)

• save some to make the sauce

• use the rest for marinating

Do not use residual marinade to make the sauce or for basting. For basting, we need clean sauce for hygiene purposes (because we do frequent basting in this recipe). For the Sauce, if you boil the used marinade the sauce comes out murky – just not pleasant.

What to serve with Honey Soy Chicken

The rice you spy in the photo above is Pineapple Fried Rice! is coming on Wednesday! It’s a dead set perfect match with this chicken. 🙂

But don’t fret! This is a chicken dish that’s highly versatile – it’s semi Asian but also totally Western, so it’s the sort of dish that will go with anything from Fried Rice to Macaroni Salad, the Greek Chickpea Salad I shared a couple of weeks go, or even an Asian Vermicelli Noodle Salad.

You get the drift – it will suit many many sides! Here are some ideas:

SIDE DISH SUGGESTIONS

Incredible BBQ Grilled Vegetables – marinated!

Fried Rice

Vermicelli Noodle Salad

Creamy Buttery Mashed Potato

Coconut Rice (fluffy, not gluey!)

Buttery Seasoned Rice – super economical, super tasty!

Noodle Salad with Sesame Peanut Dressing (Work lunch idea!)

Rice Side Dishes

Side Dishes

SIDE SALAD SUGGESTIONS

Asian Slaw – healthy, crunchy Asian Cabbage Salad

Corn Salad with Avocado

Coleslaw

Cucumber Salad with Herb Garlic Vinaigrette

Chinese Broccoli with Oyster Sauce (Gai Lan)

Greek Marinated Chickpea Salad

Potato Salad

Cowboy Bean Salad with Lime Dressing

Side Salads

Also, if you’re considering this recipe for a BBQ feast, you’ll find all my favourite things to grill right here in my BBQ Recipes collection.

Note: the batch depicted in the photos and video is a bit less than what the recipe calls for – I had to sacrifice some for Dozer 🐶 having forgotten to get food for HIS dinner. 😂 – Nagi x

Watch how to make it

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Honey Soy Chicken - Marinade and Sauce (excellent grilled!)

Author: Nagi

Prep: 10 mins

Cook: 20 mins

1 d

BBQ/Grilling, Mains

Asian-esque, Western

5 from 22 votes

Servings5 - 6

Tap or hover to scale

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• 5762

Recipe video above. This is my premium recipe for Honey Soy chicken, a step up from this quick Honey Garlic Chicken and easy Baked Honey Soy Chicken, neither of which call for marinating. One mixture is used as a marinade, for basting, and also to make a fabulous glossy sauce to drizzle over the chicken and everything on your plate. It's especially good for grilling! (More BBQ recipes here) Pictured with Pineapple Fried Rice.

Other chicken cuts - For wings, use the Honey Soy Wings recipe. For drumsticks and bone-in thighs, use the Honey Soy Baked Chicken recipe.

Ingredients

CupsMetric

• ▢ 1.25 - 1.5 kg/ 2.5 - 3 lb skinless boneless chicken thighs OR breast (Note 1)
• ▢ 1 tbsp vegetable oil , for cooking

Honey Soy Marinade Sauce:

• ▢ 1/2 cup soy sauce , all purpose or light (not dark, Note 2)
• ▢ 2/3 cup honey (sub maple syrup)
• ▢ 1/3 cup cider vinegar (or rice vinegar)
• ▢ 1/4 cup Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry (key ingredient, Note 3)
• ▢ 1 tbsp sesame oil , toasted (Note 4)
• ▢ 1 1/2 tbsp garlic , finely minced

Serving Sauce:

• ▢ 1/3 cup water
• ▢ 1 1/2 tsp cornflour/cornstarch

Garnishes (optional):

• ▢ Green onion , finely sliced
• ▢ Sesame seeds

Instructions

Marinade Sauce:

• Place ingredients in a jug and mix well until honey is completely dissolved.
• Reserve 1/4 cup for Basting, refrigerate. (Note 5)
• Reserve 2/3 cup for Serving Sauce, refrigerate.
• Marinade Chicken: Pour remaining marinade over chicken in a container. Coat chicken thoroughly. Cover, refrigerate 24 to 48 hours (minimum 3 hrs).

Serving Sauce (Makes 1 cup):

• Place reserved sauce in a small saucepan. Mix cornflour and water, then add into saucepan.
• Simmer over medium for 5 minutes, stirring regularly, until it thickens to a syrupy consistency. Set aside and keep warm. (If it gets too thick, just add a bit more water)

Cook:

• Brush BBQ plate or grills with oil and heat to medium high. Or heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.
• THIGHS: Place chicken on BBQ. Cook the first side for 2 minutes, then flip and dab with reserved Basting Sauce. Cook for 2 minutes, flip and baste. Then flip/baste every 1 minute for total cook time of ~ 10 minutes or until a thermometer reads 75°C/165°F.
• BREAST: Cook first side 2 minutes, flip, baste. Cook 2 minutes, then flip and baste every 45 sec or so for total cook time of ~8 minutes (internal temp 66°C / 151°F).
• REST: Transfer to serving plate, cover loosely with foil and rest for 5 minutes.
• SERVE chicken garnished with sesame seeds and green onion, with sauce on the side so people can help themselves.

Recipe Notes:

1. Chicken - boneless thigh and breast are my favourite cuts for cooking on the BBQ. Just easier than bone in which requires more attention. For bone in chicken thighs and drumsticks, use medium heat and cook for 20 minutes with the lid down, or until internal temp is 75°C/165°F. Wins take about 12 - 15 minutes.

2. Soy sauce - light or all purpose soy works here. DO NOT use "dark soy sauce" or "sweet soy sauce" - flavour is too intense.

3. Chinese cooking wine - this is the key ingredient that really elevates this marinade and sauce. Essential for sufficient depth of flavour, especially in the sauce. Costs a few dollars for a large bottle at Asian stores, lasts for years. Best sub (in order of preference) - dry sherry, Mirin, cooking sake, chicken stock/broth (use 1/2 cup of stock). Used in practically all cooked Chinese recipes - such as stir fries and noodles.

4. Toasted sesame oil is brown, untoasted is yellow. Toasted is the standard in Australia - stronger sesame flavour.

5. Hygiene note - both the basting and sauce is made using "clean" marinade mixture ie not tainted by raw chicken. For basting, I don't do this for all BBQ recipes, only where we do frequent basting because it doesn't have sufficient time to cook out raw chicken juices (1.5 minutes on BBQ after each baste).

For sauce, you can cook out the raw chicken juices by boiling the residual marinade but it comes out murky. It's just not nice.

6. Storing - excellent recipe to marinate then pop straight into the freezer. Thaw overnight in the fridge during which time it will marinate. Also a good way to divide the recipe up into smaller portions ie make up a big batch in the marinade then separate into smaller portions. 

Cook chicken will keep up to 5 days in the fridge. Best reheated in the microwave. Otherwise, covered in the oven at 180C/350F for just 7 minutes (sprinkle the base of the dish with a teeny bit of water to encourage a steamy environment), just until chicken is heated through.

Once sauce is cooked, it will keep 4 to 5 days in the fridge. It will freeze fine but will probably thin out (freezing sometimes does this to sauces thickened with cornflour).

7. Nutrition per serving, assuming all sauce is consumed. I made an educated guess about how much of the marinade is absorbed into the chicken.

Nutrition Information:

Calories: 353cal (18%)Carbohydrates: 16g (5%)Protein: 39g (78%)Fat: 14g (22%)Saturated Fat: 5g (31%)Cholesterol: 190mg (63%)Sodium: 569mg (25%)Potassium: 523mg (15%)Fiber: 1g (4%)Sugar: 14g (16%)Vitamin A: 48IU (1%)Vitamin C: 1mg (1%)Calcium: 22mg (2%)Iron: 2mg (11%)

Keywords: Grilled chicken, Honey Garlic Chicken, honey soy chicken

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Life of Dozer

Chilly nights + useless heating = using Dozer as my hot water bottle (he is very good at it, actually).