My simple and delicious Honey Soy Chicken is a failproof recipe that works every time. This savory and sweet dish requires minimal prep and just a few pantry ingredients for an easy weeknight dinner. Make extra and pack the leftovers in tomorrow‘s bento lunch!
On the busiest nights, we all need some reliable chicken recipes to save the day. This is my fail-proof, super easy Honey Soy Chicken that works every time.
Savory and sticky sweet, my family never seem to have enough of these chicken whenever I cook up a batch. I hope the recipe will come in handy on your busy days too!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe:
- So delicious!
- Requires minimal, pantry-friendly ingredients.
- Simple prep work.
- Highly flexible – I used drumettes for its tender dark meat and quick cooking time, but you can use any other cuts of chicken like breasts, thighs, drumsticks, or wings. If you like to fire up the grill or smoker, this recipe works great too.
3 Ingredients Marinade for Honey Soy Chicken
The tasty marinade requires only 3 ingredients:
- Soy sauce
- Sake
- Honey
The savoriness from the soy sauce and the slight sweetness from the honey not only imparts a wonderful flavor to the chicken but also a shiny golden glaze on the surface. The sake or Japanese rice wine tenderizes the meat and helps remove any odor. If you couldn’t find sake, you can substitute it with dry sherry.
All you need is to combine the mixture in a large ziplock bag. Add in the chicken, make sure each piece is well coated, and let it marinade. When ready to cook, pop them into the oven and bake for 30 minutes until golden. The results are tender, juicy drumettes that everyone will love.
Pack Your Chicken Leftovers in the Bento!
If you cook up a big batch for leftover, you can remove the meat from the wings and shred it into pieces and pack it into a bento lunch box with tamagoyaki (Japanese Rolled Omelette), cherry tomatoes, sauteed cabbage, fruits, and onigiri (rice balls).
What to Serve with Honey Soy Chicken
When the chicken is baking in the oven, I would prepare steamed rice, a simple salad, and miso soup. In no time, a delicious, healthy dinner is ready for the family!
This Honey Soy Chicken makes an ideal candidate for a weeknight dinner. Because they are so fun to eat, my family also enjoys them on movie nights.
More Delicious Japanese Chicken Recipes
- Teba Shio (Salted Chicken Wings)
- Spicy Miso Chicken
- Karaage (Japanese Fried Chicken)
- Chicken Teriyaki
- Baked Chicken Katsu
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Honey Soy Chicken
Ingredients
- 1½ lb chicken drumettes (12 pieces; or other chicken parts; if you use drumsticks, marinate overnight for more flavor)
- Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Before You Start…Please note that this recipe requires 30+ minutes of marinating time. Gather all the ingredients.
- Pat dry 1½ lb chicken drumettes with a paper towel to remove the moisture.
- Combine 4 Tbsp honey, 4 Tbsp soy sauce, and 2 Tbsp sake in a Ziploc bag.
- Prick the drumettes all over with a fork. Season with Diamond Crystal kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.
- Add the drumettes to the Ziploc bag, squeeze the air out, and seal the bag. Rub the drumettes through the bag to coat them with the marinade. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 30–60 minutes or up to overnight. If you use large chicken parts, increase the marinating time.
To Bake
- Preheat the oven to 425ºF (220ºC). For a convection oven, reduce the cooking temperature by 25ºF (15ºC). Place the drumettes in a baking pan skin side up in a single layer. Make sure the drumettes do not overlap each other. Pour the marinade liquid on top. Bake for 30 minutes.
- Baste the drumettes a couple of times during baking. If the chicken is browning too fast, cover with a sheet of aluminum foil to keep it from burning. On the other hand, if the drumettes are cooked but the top is not browned, you can switch to the broil setting for a few minutes until the top is nicely browned. Serve immediately.
Nutrition
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on April 9, 2013. It’s been edited and republished in May 2020.
Nami, this is so easy and tasty. If you could post more recipes like this, marinate and stick in the oven type recipes, I would be so grateful!!!
Thank you!
Hi Annie! Thank you for trying this recipe and happy to hear you enjoyed it! Yes, I’m a big fan of easy recipes too, and hope to share more recipes like this. Meanwhile I hope you check out others easy recipes that are already posted on my blog. Thank you very much for your kind feedback!
Hi,
Is it possible to use Mirin instead? I do not often cook with recipes calling for Sake and just wondered if the taste would be highly different?
Appreciate your response. Thanks! 🙂
Hi Alessa! Mirin already has sake in it, but it’s sweetened; therefore reduce a little bit of honey and it should work. 🙂 Hope you enjoy this recipe!
I love your website. The instructions are easy to follow, and the photos inspire me. Keep up the good work.
Thank you Sally! I’m glad to hear you enjoy my blog, and thank you for your kind compliment! xo 🙂
HI! I just discovered your blog and this delicious looking chicken! YUM! I unfortunately did not have sake. Can you recommend where to get it??
Hi Angie! Welcome to my blog!
If you click “sake” in the ingredient list, there is a little more explanation about it such as brand I use, etc.
Most of Asian grocery stores carry sake, but if you cannot find it, then you can always substitute with dry sherry. Not exactly the same, but close enough. Hope that helps! 🙂
My family finally got tired of eating curry and asked for something different, so I made this chicken. I used skinless drumsticks instead because my dad thinks drumettes are only ‘snacks’ and eats them like they’re peanuts (he’s a big meat-eater). I accidentally marinated them for two days, but they turned out fantastic anyway!
Hi Noora! Haha, I remember you wrote a comment on curry post! 😀 Since you used drumsticks (thicker), it was actually nice that they got nicely marinaded for a long time (drumettes could have been a little salty). So happy you enjoyed this dish! 🙂
Thank you for the simplicity of this recipe. I made this tonight for dinner and everyone cleaned their plates. Thank you, thank you!
Hi Tamara! Thank you so much for writing your feedback! SO happy to hear your family enjoyed it. I love easy and delicious recipes! Thanks again for taking your time to write here. 🙂
Great! Thanks for the share! I’m glad that we finally got those pesky permissions issues on Facebook sorted!
I cut up one whole chicken and marinated the whole thing in the baking pan overnight. Ironically, the one part I didn’t include were the wings! I plan to try this with all wings like you did, and maybe experiment with an uncut bird.
Do you think this marinade might work with pork? Thinking a pork tenderloin might match nicely.
Hi David! Your chicken looked so good and thank you for sharing – your post was viewed by many people (you don’t see the stats from the public but I can see. :)). Thanks for sending that pictures and encouraging other people to try this recipe!
I think the pork will work too, as long as you keep it moist. 🙂
Hi Nami,
I’m a French gal living in Spain , with an Italian husband and 2 kids, and I just wanted to say, although I discovered it recently, I’m crazy about your website, so far I’ve tried 2 of your recipes, including this one tonight, and it was absolutely delicious, so good in fact, that it almost started a family war over the last drumstick…My 2 years old had the last word! I really recommend it to anyone, can’t wait to make some more.I imagine this is not the right place, but I’m not sure where to ask, I’ve seen some of your recipes contain shiso, which is hard to come by over here in Europe, can you or anyone advice between Basil and Mint, which would be the closest subsitute? Thanks and Congrats again for an amazing website!
Hi Aurelia! Welcome to my blog and I’m so happy you enjoy reading it! Thanks for asking about shiso leaves. It’s something that I can’t think of substituting because it has an unique flavor and none of suggestion I find online would be correct. I also want to suggest that Korean cuisine uses shiso leaves (Korean has different name), and Korean stores carries them. Look for “perilla” (English name). My friend in Switzerland can easily get shiso leaves, which really surprised me because I would think it’s a hard ingredient to find outside of Japan. If you still cannot find it, a lot of them you can just omit…or try with basil and mint and let me know? 🙂
Thank you for your kind words and support!
Hi,
As I told you before I was thinking to make this and I did on Saturday evening… both me and my husband loved it, I have some left for my lunch box!
Ciao.
Yay! So happy you made it! Thank you so much for your update and feedback. Ciao!
Hi Nami:
I just tried this recipe tonight and used the regular drum sticks from Trader’s Joe (that’s all they had). I bought two packages which totaled close to 3 pounds so I doubled your recipe for the marinade. Although I followed your recipe very carefully and basted every five minutes, I will admit that using a drumette for this recipe is the best. The drum stick is way too much meat and even though I poked it with a fork and seasoned with salt and pepper, it is too thick for the juices to penetrate. I’ll try it again with the drumettes from Safeway. Very easy recipe to follow; thank you for the post.
Hi Mae! Yeah drumsticks might be hard to get enough flavor in such a short marinade time. I’ll update my recipe and mention that drumsticks will need overnight marinade. Thank you so much for your wonderful feedback!
Hi Nami!
Tried your Honey Soy Sauce marinate recipe tonight for our dinner with whole chicken thighs and baked them for 40 minutes. Came out perfectly cooked and succulent. My fiancé said the flavour was very very good enjoyed the chicken dinner very much! Thank you! 🙂
Hi Marguerite! Thank you so much for your feedback. I’m so glad you and your fiance enjoyed this recipe! 🙂
I love that you noted that we could use any parts we like for the chicken to marinade. I like sticking with boneless for the munchkins so I am looking forward to giving this one a whirl. My son really likes honey and soy so I think I will split my chicken in half today and make a half batch of this and half batch of chicken and cuke chili oil salad. Little hot, little cold, all tasty.
Hi CK! Enjoy making both chicken dishes! I hope your son will like this honey soy sauce chicken. 🙂
Yum! This looks simple and delicious! I love the sweetness from honey–much different from brown sugar or any other type of sweetener. This recipe looks like a winner!
Yeah, I always love honey & soy sauce combination. Thanks so much Donna!
Nami, Another of my all time favorites! I should have known it was this simple. My mouth is watering and it’s time for bed. I think I will have to prepare this for tomorrow nights supper but I will use chicken thigh as that is what is in the freezer. So yummy!!
Hi Beth! I hope you enjoyed this recipe. Thank you so much for your kind comment! 🙂
Looks delicious! Congrats on making it to te babble list.
Thank you so much for your support all the time! xo 🙂