Easy Teriyaki Chicken Recipe

We’re confident that this recipe guarantees some of the best teriyaki chicken you’ll ever make at home!

Our family used to live in Seattle next to some amazing teriyaki restaurants. We wanted to recreate that authentic flavor using simple, readily available ingredients.

We use our favorite homemade teriyaki sauce for this dish. It’s made with five simple ingredients and lasts weeks in the fridge. I love serving this over rice with cucumbers tossed in vinegar, but our cilantro lime rice or coconut rice would also be excellent.

Key Ingredients

• Chicken: I love boneless, skinless chicken thighs for this recipe since they stay tender but cook quickly. They also soak up the teriyaki flavor beautifully! Skin-on chicken thighs would also be great if you prefer. Chicken breasts are also fine, but as with many of our chicken recipes, I love thighs!
• Low-Sodium Soy Sauce: I use low-sodium soy sauce as the base of my sauce. It might seem salty at first, but trust me. It’ll blend beautifully with the other ingredients to create a perfectly balanced teriyaki flavor. You can substitute with light tamari with no changes.
• Sugar: Granulated sugar balances the soy sauce and makes the teriyaki sauce thick and glossy when cooked. Feel free to experiment with brown sugar, coconut sugar, or even honey, but remember that these might make the sauce taste sweeter. If you love honey, you may enjoy this honey teriyaki chicken!
• Sake: Don’t stress about buying expensive sake for teriyaki sauce! Use something you’d enjoy drinking. If you can’t find sake, mirin (a sweeter rice wine) works well too. You can swap it in directly or slightly reduce the sugar in the recipe.
• Rice Vinegar: This adds a little zing to the sauce. You can usually find it near other vinegars at the grocery store. For substitutes, try white wine vinegar or plain white vinegar. Don’t worry if the sauce seems a bit strong after adding the vinegar, the flavors will mellow as it cooks.
• Fresh Ginger (optional): I like to grate fresh ginger finely so it melts into the sauce. Ginger adds a bright, spicy note that complements the other flavors beautifully.

Find the full recipe with measurements below.

How to Make the Best Teriyaki Chicken

Tip 1: Use our homemade sauce. The first step to making chicken teriyaki is making our homemade teriyaki sauce. Then, use some of it to marinate the chicken and reduce the rest until it is thick and glossy, which you spoon over as a glaze later. Marinate your chicken for as long as possible (up to 12 hours). Thirty minutes will do, but longer is always better.

Tip 2: Broil your chicken. Teriyaki chicken is often cooked on a grill, imparting a smoky char. While you could certainly use an outdoor grill for this recipe, we wanted to make it possible to achieve delicious results indoors. So we use our oven’s broiler! Think of it as an upside-down grill, providing intense heat from above.

1. Position an oven rack towards the top of your oven, about six inches from the burner.
2. Put the marinated chicken on a baking sheet and place it under the broiler.
3. Broil the chicken until it is beautifully browned and starting to firm up, then flip and continue broiling until cooked through.
4. Stay close to make sure the chicken isn’t burning or smoking too much. You can also spoon or brush extra sauce over the chicken as it cooks, transforming the sauce into a shiny glaze.

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