Garlic Onion Chicken – Succulent pan-fried chicken smothered in a flavorful and robust garlic onion sauce, this is a weeknight winner! It’s quick and easy, and utterly satisfying. Since everything cooks in one pan, clean up is a breeze too.
Over the years, I’ve gathered enough recipes that are delicious yet simple enough to make any day of the week. These weeknight meals, my true heroes, nourish my family and allow us to have a special time together every night. I am thankful for them, and one of my recipe keepers is this one-pan Garlic Onion Chicken (鶏肉のガーリックオニオンソース). It’s our all-time favorite chicken dinner that boasts crispy skin, juicy meat, and an amazing sauce. I hope it will be your weeknight dinner superhero too!
Everyone’s Favorite: Quick, Easy, Delicious!
It’s quick! While the chicken marinates, you can make steamed rice or a quick side dish (I just tossed together a simple green salad with heirloom tomatoes). When everything else is ready, cook the chicken and serve.
It’s easy! This is one of the first dishes that I learned when I started cooking. With very basic ingredients and minimal approach, it doesn’t get much easier. So yes, you can make it too.
It’s delicious! The criteria for good weeknight recipes have to be more than just quick and easy. If the final dish is not satisfyingly tasty, there’s no reason to keep cooking it. That’s not the case with this Garlic Onion Chicken. It’s so good that I never cease making it for my family.
3 Tips to Make Perfect Garlic Onion Chicken
I believe small care and attention to detail make a difference in the food you make. And it reflects your love in the most delicious way. Here are 3 tips that I recommend for making perfect garlic onion chicken!
1. Prick Chicken Skin with Fork
For this dish, I recommend using skin-on chicken thighs for better flavor and juicy meat. If you live in the US, skin-on thighs typically include bone. You can always ask the butcher to remove it for you (they debone so fast!).
The skin, however, prevents the sauce from absorbing. So we help facilitate the marination by pricking the skin with a fork a few times.
2. Save the marinade for later
When I first started cooking on my own, I had a different assumption that the ingredient should be cooked together with the marinade so that it will become more flavorful. For some food, that may work, but not when you want to have a nicely seared meat.
If you add the sauce to the frying pan together with the chicken, it ends up simmering the meat in the liquid. The chicken will never get crispy brown or any grill marks on the skin. Therefore, remove the marinate the best you could, pan-fry until golden brown, and then add the sauce to simmer down.
3. Spoon the sauce over the chicken
It is a basic tip, yet so easy to overlook. As the sauce simmers down and thicken, spoon it over the chicken several times. This allows the meat to absorb all the wonderful flavors. Even if you’re just making dinner for yourself, put your heart and soul into making it. Small care makes a difference in the end!
The Luscious Garlic Onion Sauce
If you have never grated onion for your marinade, you might be surprised by the power of this allium. It not only gives a refreshing taste, but it adds natural sweetness to the sauce.
Here, I used four cloves of garlic, which may be a little unusual in Japanese recipes, but don’t be afraid to use them. Each chicken thigh gets one garlic clove, so it’s not too bad.
We only marinate for 20-30 minutes and you may wonder if that’s enough. Don’t worry. You will be using the marinade to simmer down later and coat the chicken with this delicious sauce. The chicken will get plenty of flavor from cooking in the sauce, so you don’t need to marinate overnight. Your chicken may end up too salty, so be careful.
Other Quick, Easy, and Delicious Chicken Recipes:
If you love Garlic Onion Chicken and want to try similar recipes, here are some of my recommendations. Enjoy!
Japanese Ingredient Substitution: If you want to look for substitutes for Japanese condiments and ingredients, click here.
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Garlic Onion Chicken - Succulent pan-fried chicken smothered in a flavorful and robust garlic onion sauce, this is a weeknight winner! It's quick and easy, and utterly satisfying. Since everything cooks in one pan, clean up is a breeze too.
- 4 boneless skin-on chicken thighs
- ½ tsp salt (kosher or sea salt; use half if using table salt)
- ½ tsp Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 Tbsp neutral flavor oil (vegetable, canola, etc)
- Gather all the ingredients.
- Slice the garlic and put it in a large container or bowl (I used an 8”x8” baking dish).
Peel the onion but don't cut off the root section as it's easier to grate when the layer is connected. Grate as much as you can, keeping the juice (I left 30% of it - it’s hard to grate everything).
Add the grated onion with juice, sake, and mirin.
- Add the soy sauce and mix it all together.
- If you use the skin-on chicken thighs, prick the skin with a fork. This will help absorb the marinade.
- Season the chicken with salt and freshly ground black pepper on the skin side.
- And season the other side with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
- Add the chicken and keep in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes to marinate.
- In a non-stick frying pan, heat 1 Tbsp oil on medium heat. When the pan is hot, add the chicken, skin side down. Make sure to leave the sauce behind; the sauce will burn quickly, so do not add at this time.
- Don’t forget to add all the garlic.
Pan-fry the chicken until the skin side is nicely golden brown, about 3 minutes. Do not flip until then.
After you flip over the chicken, lower the heat to medium-low. Put the lid on, leaving slightly ajar, and cook for 7 minutes.
Remove the lid and see if the chicken is cooked through (the internal temperature should be 165 ºF or 74 ºC). If the chicken is done, wipe off the excess oil with a paper towel. Then add the reserved sauce into the pan.
Simmer on medium-low heat for 2-3 minutes. Use a spoon to coat the chicken with sauce.
When the sauce has been reduced and thickens slightly, turn off the heat. Serve the chicken on a plate and pour the sauce over. Serve immediately.
Recipe by Namiko Chen of Just One Cookbook. All images and content on this site are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without my permission. If you’d like to share this recipe on your site, please re-write the recipe in your own words and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on May 2, 2011. The post has been updated with new images and content in November 2019.
This looks REALLY good..as a motheer of 2 kids too Itotally understand how busy your schedule is..but you are doing a wonderful job with the blog! keep it up
Hi Sawsan! Thank you so much. I thought I was already busy before blogging, and now I actually have time to blog? Doesn’t make sense… haha. Thanks for your visit Sawsan. 🙂
You know what they say, the more busy you are, the more things you do! I’ve noticed that I do least when I have plenty of time on my hands…
The chicken looks so good, though I think I would cry my eyes out grating onion…
Hahaha! You are funny. If you soak onion in water or put it in fridge for a while, onion won’t make you cry. 😀 I use sweet onion for this recipe (better than reg. onion), and usually they don’t make me cry for some reason. Do it fast! True, you are right about how we spend time when we have plenty of time. I complain when I don’t have anything to do, too! LOL.
Ah, thanks for tip! No matter how many onions I chop, my eyes just don’t seem get used to them (and I chop them almost every day) which means cry every day too. Heard it makes them more beautiful though (looking at the bright side here) 🙂
Really? That’s so funny… then we shall be beautiful! 😉
Love this Nami, fantastic flavours! Unluckily for me when I visited San Francisco in May last year when I was still in the US, it was raining almost all the time lol but it’s one of my fav places to visit still 🙂
Hi Jen! I remember our automatic heater went on in July. It was such a cold spring/summer and it was strange. Hope you get to visit here again. 🙂 Thanks for your visit Jen!
またお邪魔しま～す＾＾ I heart garlic!!! Can`t live without it! このチキンであれば、きっとご飯はいくらでも食べれますよ ＾＾。
Hi Arudhi! 週末はどうでしたか？これね、そうなの。ご飯モリモリお代わりも食べたくなる味。やっぱり日本で過ごしてると、こういう味には白いご飯が欲しくなるでしょう？はは（笑）。
Hi Nami, This is looking absolutely delightful. Loved the new combo of ingredients and the recipe is so nicely made and presented. Saving this recipe of urs and wud love to give ur version a try on the coming weekend. Have a great day….Sonia !!!
Hi Sonia! I hope you will like it. It’s easy and simple but you would end up eating more rice… Have a great day!
Oooh, this looks so good…and simple enough for a crazy week night! YUM. Yeah, I hear ya about the blogging…at least my kids are older, but I’m having trouble finding the time to visit my friends’ blogs with my chaotic schedule this week 🙂
Hi Lizzy! Yes, it’s very easy to cook for weekday night (just like your shrimp dish!). I think once kids are little bit older, they won’t need me as much, right? They are 3 and almost 5 years old…so they still need a lot of attention from me. 🙂
Gotta love hair cuts! Your son will be riding a bike all alone before you know it 😉 I would LOVE to see/live in San Fransisco. Pittsburgh is very rainy!
Thanks Allie! I know I hope so! He’s interested in riding but he seems frustrated that he can’t ride so fast. I mean he’s so fast WITH training wheels… Come to San Francisco one day! I’ll give you a tour! 😉
I love this type of 1 dish combo meal where u get to eat meat, veggie and rice all in one. I can almost smell the “Garlic Onion Sauce” over here…yum yum
Hi Ellena! Yep we are moms! Meat + Veggies + Rice = great meal! 😉
We will be having this one for this week! Looks very good. Remember to just relax, Nami. Oh you need to get ready for kid’s party, I guess you will have zero time to just relax ; )
Mika-san, I hope you will like it! I know… I keep forgetting which date was my kids’ birthday party. >_< It'll be in 2 weeks. I gotta prepare~~~.
Wow, this looks so easy and sounds delicious! I know exactly what you mean about being very busy with kids and wife duties. I lose myself in my duties all of the time. It difficult finding time to blog and visit other bloggers and “network”. It’s almost a full-time job in itself! I don’t know how some people do it. I have always been very impressed with the way you keep up though! Every time I visit a blog, you have already been there and commented, LOL! You’re always one step ahead of me 🙂
Hi Dee! Oh yeah, I feel like I have 2 jobs. Really, do I? I feel like I always see someone before me too. LOL. So funny. I’m trying to visit people as I respond to comments…and facebook has been helpful to let me know when a blogger posted something new so I can visit then. But sometimes that is overwhelming too. I wanna see your new door color! 😉
I love this recipe Nami, it’s so quick, easy and economical. Saves me money to buy baking supplies. HA!!!!!
Hi Sandra! Haha you are always thinking about baking something. You are a true baker! I need some of your talent. I really don’t know where to start in terms of baking. Though I know it’s safe if I don’t bake looking at my figure… 😀
Looks like I am missing the perfect weather here! :O I like the simple fragrant sauce of garlic and onion.
Hi Tigerfish! I hope the weather will last by the time you come back here… this week is 70Fs! Today was 72F around where I live. You are missing out! Are you having a good time and eating well?
なみさん、
美味しそうですね。
今晩作ってみます。
梓ちゃん、元気？今日のレシピ、どうだった？簡単だったかな？家族で美味しく食べてもらえた事を願ってます♪
Nami, this chicken looks delicious with the marinate…so tasty. Love how easy and yet so tasty. Thank you for the wonderful recipe! Have a great week ahead Nami 🙂
Hi Juliana! Yes I love this marinade… 🙂 Thanks for your comments. You too, have a great day. It’s still Tuesday…ugh.
I’m glad you had a good weekend, Nami. I love this recipe. Thank you for posting this. This is just the sort of dish I would cook on a weekday. Fast and easy and very tasty.
Thank you Adora’s Box! Thank you for your kind note. I hope you enjoy this delicious chicken. Make sure you have enough rice. 🙂
忙しい中にもたくさんの人々に囲まれたNamiさんの幸せそうな週末がうかがえました♪
たまねぎソースたっぷりの鶏肉、ほくほくでおいしそうですね！ソースがグツグツいっている最後の写真なんかもうたまんな～いっ。今週もお互い頑張っていこうね＾＾。
のりこさん、嬉しいコメントありがとう！あはは、たくさんの人々と美味しいものにはかないません（笑）。私は日本食くらいしか作れないので、のりこさんからはたくさん学べる事があります。色々教えて下さいね～！
garlic & onion-2 of my favorites. This chicken looks delicious!
Hi Maris! Thank you for stopping by! 🙂
I was 100% sure that I left a comment this morning on this post..
Great post as always Nami, I love your instructions and your meal looks wonderful!
Have a beautiful evening!!!
Hi Sandra – I wonder if it was yours (I am pretty sure it was someone new) but I accidentally deleted someone’s message that was in a spam. Oops! I completely deleted that I couldn’t retrieve… sorry if it was yours. I didn’t meant it… Thanks for your comment (again) Sandra!
Boneless chickless chicken breast are so under rated, I love that this recipe uses them. I feel like this would be great on the grill too! Glad you had a fun weekend doing the girly thing- I love afternoon tea.
Hi Lindsey! I actually use chicken thighs… I know it’s a lot healthier to eat breasts but we are so used to juicy thighs than tend-to-be-dry breasts… Me too, I love tea house and I can drink tea all day long while eating some nice little sweet treats!
LOL I am getting old, I meant to say Chicken THIGHS! Hahaha I love chicken thighs.
love your recipe and your photos are great … I know exactly what you mean about stretching yourself to do this and that … and then once you sit down to write and visit your friends sites … it all takes up time but when I think of it I would never have met all these wonderful people and read all of these wonderful inspiring recipes and stories if it weren’t for my blog. I think as the great weather returns, we should enjoy the outdoors first and then blog later 🙂
Hi Chris! Thanks for writing because now I know that everyone is in the same situation. And you are TOTALLY right about meeting these wonderful people… it’s really amazing! I’ve learned so much about different kinds of recipes in the past 1.5 months that I’m with Foodbuzz. It’s such an amazing experience. My to do list for making all the recipes I collected is growing. I don’t know how and when I get to cook all those. Thank you so much Chris!
You certainly had a busy and fun weekend. Always special when you can spend time with family.
Kudos to you for being able to fit so much into your busy schedule – I am grateful that you find time to blog and share your wonderful recipes.
Your chicken with garlic onions sauce looks fabulous and I love the idea of a meal being served in individual dishes.
🙂 Mandy
Hi Mandy and thank you for your sweet words. 🙂 Haha, individual plates make you feel special, but it’s a lot of washing to do after meals. 😀 Thanks for coming by Mandy!
This dish would have a nice Japanese flavour to it. I love using Mirin as it’s pretty flexible.
Thanks C & MSP! Yes, I like mirin and it’s my one of essential cooking condiments!
Mmmmm, love everything about it!
btw, where did u buy the bowl to contain the salad? Looks like the one i saw at Swensens in Singapore!
Papacheong
http://home-cook-dishes-for-family.blogspot.com/
Hi Papa Cheong! Thanks! Oh those bowls… I forgot where I bought them, but I’m pretty sure I bought them since I came here. I bought them for creme caramel…. They are from some cooking supply store, I guess?
Hi Aipi! Haha you also had a haircut? We’ve skipped one time so our hair was in horrible situation. Even just a little bit, I like getting haircut…feel pampered. 🙂
Yummy! I love chicken with onions… I make something similar, but I do not add garlic. I think it would make it even better! I will try and put it next time!! 🙂
Hi Manu! I love garlic + soy sauce + mirin/sugar taste, and grated onion gives nice texture to the sauce. Hungry thinking about this food again…
I don’t even have kids and I find it so hard to manage my time too. I don’t even want to think about how limited my time will be once kids are involved! =)
As always, this dish looks delicious Nami! Sounds like a perfect dinner to me!
Hi Peggy! Haha but you socialize with friends and that makes you busy. See, when you become a mom (and no babysitter & no family around), you can’t socialize as much…so you sort of have more time…but feel like not having enough time… what am I talking about? Anyway, either way our life is always busy!
What a lovely meal. I will be making your chicken this evening. It really sounds delicious. I hope you have a great day. Blessings…Mary
Hi Mary! Thanks! I hope you have a great day…SF is another beautiful day to enjoy (besides allergy)!
I m always looking for new chicken recipes.This sound super for a brunch! I love the beautiful sauce that you ve created!
Hi Tanvi! Me too! Kids love chicken so I need more various recipes as well. Thank you for visiting my site!
This chicken looks super yummy! I love it!
Glad you had a fun weekend. We were fortunate enough to have sunny weekend as well and a busy one LOL
Blogging sure takes lots of work, you’ll get more of a schedule as the time goes by 😉 it’s always hard in the beginning 🙂
Hi Suzana! Yeah you’re an expert in this field so I’m listening. I’m usually not patient and want to try to figure things out. This is only natural adjustment I think. Hopefully I feel better about my time management a few months later! Thanks Suzana. 🙂
What a busy weekend!!! I dont have children yet, but its always nice to spend some girl time with your friends! Also, even though blogging is so much work, its also therapeutic and meeting all these like minded people with the same passion is just wonderful. This like all your recipes looks amazing! What a yummy sauce, so simple and delicious.
Hi Beth! Thank you. Yes, I agree. Even though it’s a lot of dedication needed to keep your own blog and to socialize with foodie friends, it’s very rewarding to me too. I was just a mom…and now I have created a blog that I can say “I did it”. 🙂 Oh yes, you must enjoy your kid-less time! It’s wonderful to have children, and I never regret and kids are the best thing happened to me. Yet, you lose so much of “your own” time…. just natural that way. So enjoy traveling Beth! Keep traveling and telling us all about it!
I’m loving so many of your recipes! I’m always on the lookout for new recipes and I’m so happy I found your site. =) I can’t wait to try some of them out.
Oh and I noticed you have two #3’s in your directions. hehe Not a big deal just made me smile. =)
Thank you Stacey for pointing it out about #3. I fixed it. =) I’m glad you enjoy my site! 🙂 Thank you for finding it.
Wonderful recipe! I just made it (now that I finally have Mirin) – yum! So delicious and the chicken is so tender! I cheated a little and used Magic Bullet to grind the onion and mix it with the other marinade ingredients, so it was even faster :-). Thanks, Nami, and I am only starting with your recipe collection 😉
Thank you so much for trying this recipe! I’m happy you liked this recipe. 🙂 With mirin, you can now make homemade teriyaki sauce. 🙂 Enjoy!
I’m totally making this tonight! I will let you know how it goes. ^_^
By the way, I can totally relate to not having enough time to do everything that you want to do. I work full-time and decided to go back to school to further my career. On top of that, I cook and do house chores. (No yard work though thankfully.) I agree that it’s hard to catch up with social media and blog consistently.
Hang in there though! You’re doing great!!
This turned out great! Thanks Nami!!
Hi Stephanie! Thanks for trying this recipe and I’m glad you enjoyed it! Wow full-time and going back to school is tough. Good luck with everything! Thanks for your encouraging words. 🙂
I can’t wait to make this recipe! Thank you! 🙂
Hi Amanda! Hope you will like it! 🙂
Hi Nami, this dish looks so delicious and I would like to know how did you make the side salad dish.. I will try this next weekend for sure! Dinah
Hi Dinah! The side dish is called Asian Coleslaw and the recipe is below. I hope you enjoy both dishes! 🙂
https://www.justonecookbook.com/recipes/asian-coleslaw/
Hi Nami Thank you so much for responding..I tried this dish and the whole family loved it! I started making veggie salads for every dinner as well and they are all your recipes. Once again thank you for sharing. God bless!
Hi Dinah! Thank you for trying my recipes! Glad you like them. 🙂
I don’t often grate onions and it was a bit annoying when the shells separated while grating. I keep the onions in the fridge as well, but I think I heated the onion while grating – I did get some tears in my eyes 😉 After finishing grating I actually thought it was kind of fun doing it (I sometimes think it is unusual what I think is funny after doing it, but this perspective makes things seem positive).
The sauce/marinated was fantastic: It gave the chicken a really juicy and intrinsic flavor. After having made it tonight, I put this under my recipe list under “very fast” recipe; when the onion grating and marinating time is over, the rest of the cooking, including making the side dishes (I used udon noodles and chopped fresh vegetables with a bit of spiced lemon juice to accompany your chicken recipe) just happens so fast. From the story that you gave to this recipe, I’m now not surprised that you managed to cook this with the rice and salad within a tight time gap. I’m very impressed by you. 🙂
Just like other recipes I have tried from you I will rate it again as 5 stars. I guess that I repeat this rating over and over, but I think it’s important to declare how satisfied one is with each individual recipe. So I think it’s worth repeating myself on that: 5 stars.
Furthermore, your cookery is teaching me Japanese-style cuisine in a professional and joyful way, which adds to my enthusiasm about Japan and extending my cooking hobby. Personally, I see you as a high-class cook (and travel advisor as well; I like reading your current Japan tour) who shares her passions tremendously and such that everyone can share that enthusiasm with you.
I’m interested to hear about your new kitchen once it’s finished. My brother and his wife also recently began replacing their kitchen in their home, but they too got delayed because the plumbs from the 70s are in a severe condition. I’ll be excited to see their new kitchen once complete in August when I visit them, and perhaps get the chance to cook for them in the kitchen. The kitchen is the heart of the house and therefore should be the best part of home! At least that’s how I see it 🙂
Sorry if this respond seems a bit long, but while writing my opinion about the delicious recipe, I felt like sharing a few more comments (the kitchen topic more relevant to your recent newsletter).
ありがとうございます！
Hi Leo! I truly enjoyed your comment, and thanks so much for writing! I’m happy to hear you enjoyed this recipe and you gave me 5 stars! Thank you!!! I’m just a housewife and home cook…not professionally trained, but I am happy to share what I know with everyone who’s interested in Japanese cooking. 🙂
The kitchen remodel is going well, but still delayed. I’m a bit worried that our video shooting will be delayed and we have to borrow our friends’ kitchen (that means all the camera and light equipments we have to move… ahhh!). I’ll keep you posted in the newsletter.
Thank you again!!
LOVE this, will definitely make it again! Do you have any tips for handling the onion? Grating it made my eyes water like crazy (totally worth it, but I’d still like to try to avoid this in future).
Greetings, Nami! Love your blog and learned new Japanese recipes I’ ve never encountered before 🙂 I’m not sure if it’s been addressed already but I don’t seem to read when to add the onion sauce and assumed it to be on step 3? In any case, this recipe seems delicious! I’ll try it this weekend 🙂 Thank you for being generous in sharing wondeeful Japanese recipes!
Hi Gigi! You would grate the onion in the bowl (make sure to use a bowl that is large enough for chicken), and add season in the same bowl. So when you put the chicken you’re actually marinading in the onion + seasoning sauce. Hope this makes sense. 🙂
Can I use normal brown onion instead of sweet onion?
Hi Poon! Yes you can. 🙂 Hope you enjoy!
My enquiry is about braised herb chicken with Shio Koji – I want to cook it for four people – do I just double everything please
Hi Kathleen! The recipe uses 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (1 lb). It depends on how much each person eats. If they eat one thigh per person, then this recipe is enough for 4 people. You could make a bit more just in case anyone wants more. If so, please double (or 1.5 x) the recipe.
I made this today. My husband was raving about how delicious this was! He said it’s the best chicken recipe I’ve ever used and wants me to do it again soon😄
Thank you for sharing it. I love the way you give step by step instructions with photos. May I ask if your e-cookbook contains the same detailed instructions? I’m not a great cook, but with the photos and clear step by step instructions, even I can succeed!
Hi Eefong! I’m so happy to hear your husband really enjoyed this recipe! Thank you so much for your kind feedback. 🙂 My e-Book offers the popular recipes from the website, and although there is recipe instruction, it does not offer the step by step inside the ebook.
However, all the recipes in the book are posted on the website, you can use the site instead of ebook. The ebook is meant for people who don’t know where to start as I have 800 recipes on my site… 🙂