Teriyaki Chicken

adapted from Blog Chef

Teriyaki is a Japanese cooking technique where food is served in a sweet soy marinade. Soaking the meat over night really brought out an intense flavor, and it turned out wonderfully.



3-4 chicken breasts (or thighs)
2/3 cup rice wine (or apple juice)
1 cup soy sauce
4 1/2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
1/3 cup white sugar
7 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp fresh ginger, minced
1 tsp red pepper flakes
black pepper (to taste)

In a sauce pan over high heat, add rice wine and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer for 10 minutes. Then add soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil and sugar. Season with garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes and black pepper and simmer for an additional 5 minutes. Allow sauce to cool completely.

Place the chicken in a bowl or ziplock bag and add marinade. Leave in marinade for 2-24 hours. The longer the chicken is in the marinade, the more time the meat has to soak up the flavor.

Remove chicken from marinade (reserve the liquid if you want to use it for sauce). Cook chicken by grilling, baking or cut into pieces and stir fry.

If you are using the marinade as a sauce, pour the reserved liquid into a sauce pan and boil for at least 1 minute. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 additional minutes. Taste before using, the water lost during boiling may make the sauce too salty, so you may need to add water to dilute.