One of my husband’s favorite Japanese meals that he always requests to eat when we are in Japan is Yakitori. Yakitori means “grill (yaki) chicken (tori)” in Japanese and Yakitori restaurants typically serves their delicacies on a wooden skewers.
With “chicken” in the name, you guessed right, the main ingredients are mostly from chickens. Typical chicken parts served on skewer include thighs, meatball, skin, hearts, wings, cartilage, and gizzards. Based on your preference and chicken parts, you pick seasonings – either shio (salt) or tare (yakitori sauce) – for each skewer. Other popular skewers besides chicken parts are bacon asparagus, shiitake mushrooms, fried tofu, bacon quail egg, and pork cheek meat.
When a Japanese Yakitori restaurant Kokko opened close to our home a few years ago, my husband requested to go on nearly every special occasion. One of our family’s favorite items on the menu is their Nagoya style chicken wings. These are sooooo good! One order is not really enough for our family.
These chicken wings are deep fried to perfection and then coated with sweet soy sauce. This style of deep fried chicken (we call it Karaage) with the sweet sauce is referred to as Nagoya style because they were originated from there (Nagoya is located in central part of Japan). Every time when these chicken wings are served, our family would need to divide the pieces into equal shares so our children wouldn’t fight over who had more or less pieces. Since my family loves this dish so much, I knew I had to come up with something similar, and finally I was able to come close to duplicating the flavor.
I hope you enjoy these finger-licking chicken wings. Have a great weekend!
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Yakitori means "grill (yaki) chicken (tori)" in Japanese and Yakitori restaurants typically serves their delicacies on a wooden skewers.
- 2 lb chicken wings (flats/drumettes) (we only used 5 wings/1 lb today)
- potato/corn starch
- neutral flavor oil (vegetable, canola, etc) (for deep frying)
- white sesame seeds (roasted/toasted)
- In a small saucepan, heat all the ingredients for Sauce to a boil. Then reduce the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the sauce thickens and reduced (the sauce will get thicker as the temperature cools down)
- Meanwhile, cut the wings at the joint. Rinse in cold water and pat dry with paper towel.
- Dredge the chicken wings in potato starch and remove the excess.
- Deep fry the wings at 320F (160C) until 80% cooked, about 10 minutes. Drain oil on wire rack or paper towel for 3-5 minutes.
- For the 2nd time, deep fry at 350F (180C) until the wings are crispy, about 5 minutes. The wings should be golden brown.
- Using a tong, coat the chicken wings in the sauce or serve the wings on a plate and pour the sauce over. Sprinkle white sesame seeds and 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.
I really didn’t know that yakitori means grilled chicken!!! I just thought that it meant anything grilled on a stick. How i wish i could visit that restaurant too but am sure your beautiful looking dish taste as good as if not better than theirs!
Mouth-watering from just looking at the photo!
my soon to be hubby loves nagoya chicken wings! 🙂
I’m so glad you shared this recipe! 🙂
I’m drooling, Nami! Thank you for sharing your perfected sauce recipe! This recipe is a definite “must try”!
Just looking at it already knew it must be delicious and more so with that added sauce in it. Slurp……..drooling now…..
This looks incredibly delicious Nami! I’m specially loving the sauce recipe.. This is definitely a must try!
Oh my, Nami! This is a great weekend treat and no wonder your kids love this. Mine already love your ginger pork and so this is a must. Do you think it would also go well with BBQ chicken? I love how you upped the ginger too. Finger-licking indeed!
Hmm, come to think of it, maybe you can grill the chicken first and dip in this sauce. Because the sauce is thick (and little syrupy), I’d suggest to grill the chicken first and coat with the sauce later, instead of marinading the chicken in the sauce first… 🙂
Those look wonderful, NAmi. I love chicken wings and yours look perfectly crisp.
Wow, this chicken looks amazing! I’d love to try it (never had fried chicken in my life) 🙂
Nami is t it wonderful when you can recreate a dish at home that your family loves? This sauce looks and sounds delicious. I wonder how it would taste if added to boneless, skinless chicken breasts and then baked in the oven or even to grilled chicken breasts? I may try have to try that. Thanks for sharing.
That looks delicious! I’d imagine if I just marinate the wings with the sauce and bake them they would also turn out nice (albeit makes a complete different dish I guess)
Oh btw I made the grilled lemongrass chicken you’ve recently posted. It was AMAZING!! Going to make that again soon as I always have some lemongrass around. Thanks so much!
yummy! have you tried furaibo? I think they have some shops in California also.
Yes, I’ve heard of Furaibo (風来坊） but I had never had a chance to eat there before. Yes, I think they are in LA? Do you like their chicken Kat?
I do like their chicken Nami, I used to ask my husband to bring some home for me whenever he went to Nagoya. Now I found a place in my shotengai that makes something similar 🙂
I am not sure if I should show or hid this recipe from my husband. It definitely looks delicious. Restaurant perfection right in the home.
So delicious, it’s easy to see why your husband loves these so much Nami.
🙂 Mandy
that looks really yummy, Nami. nothing beats crispy chicken, and this looks like yet another winner. Thanks!
My brother adores fried chicken wings – this looks fantastic 😀
Thanks my friend!
Cheers
CCU
Nami, this looks beyond great! I’m putting this on the menu list for the new garden “baptizing” party 😉
Lip smacking! I want them now.
I can imagine how delicious the overall dish, it can tell from the looks and it sauce ingredients just rock!
I am making these this weekend. If my son comes for dinner I will need at least 5 lbs for all of us. We love wings. Thanks Nami!!!
These wings look mighty tasty! Love the glaze.
Totemo Oiishi desu! Finger licking good. I also would need to make at least 5 pounds of wings for my hungry teenage boys. On second thought maybe 10… Ja Mata, BAM
It’s not often that you write about something that I’ve eaten and enjoy. 🙂 Love this stuff! What a great job you did!
Every time I see the name Nagoya I feel like I should be skiing.
I’m not a deep frying person but these wings look just perfect Nami! Easy and devilish recipe!
Nami, thanks for sharing another mouth watering dish. Once I come back from Osaka trip, I must make this for bento lunch for my kids .
I’ve just found your blog and I love it, I’ll visit it often for sure, as my hubby loves Japanese food.
Your chicken wings look delicious Nami, I can’t imagine them being better at any restaurant;-) Pinned!
I can’t believe how easy it is to make these chicken wings! I can just taste the crispy wings right now! Thanks for sharing this recipe, Nami! I love it!
They look mighty scrumptious! Irresistible.
Cheers,
Rosa
These look scrumptious Nami! =)
One of my weaknesses is chicken wings–it’s my favorite part of the chicken. When I received my new issue of Saveur mag this week with chicken wings on the cover, I decided I should make some, too. Now your version is making my mouth water at 8 a.m.! Yum, I think chicken wings are in my very near future. I have all the ingredients for your yummy version. And…I need to check that place out by your house!
Have a great day, Nami!
My mouth IMMEDIATELY began watering as soon as I saw that photo.
Omg Nami I love chicken wings and these are seasoned to my liking! Only part I am thankful is that I am not there to eat them because I have been told I eat wings like a savage. So at least I am not embarrassing you haha.
Thanks to one of my close friends who is Japanese, I’ve been introduced to Karage and enjoyed it thoroughly .. though I have mostly had the Pork ones. The sauce was on the side mostly. It’s helpful to get to know the background on all the terminology of Japanese food and its origins. Helps to understand Japanese food and culture better. Thanks 🙂
Finger licking good is right… it looks absolutely delicious!! I wish I could lick the screen. 🙂 I can see why this is your hubby’s favorite. Really fantastic dish… have a great weekend Nami! 🙂
Those do look finger-licking good! I had wonderful yakitori skewers at a place in Portland last year, but these look even more delectable.
Fun twist on wings! I didn’t know that yaki means chicken!
Cassie, yaki means grill, and tori means chicken. 🙂
These wings look gorgeous! I am not surprised your family fought over them 😉 Crunchy and with a sticky flavourful glaze… It sounds like teriyaki glaze, but with a garlic and ginger kick. I am keeping the idea and will certainly use it very soon (I must remember to buy chicken wings).
You are so talented to reproduce a restaurant dish! Congratulations!
Oh, so you fry the wing twice, that is very interesting.
The sauce looks delicious, and this is to with the fingers…!!!
Yum, these look mouthwatering Nami! I can see why your family loves them :).
I’ve done a chicken Yakatori on my blog and we love it but it’s totally different than this – your’s looks amazing! I love that there can be so many variations of the same dish, just like every artist would paint a totally different picture of the same scene!
I can’t wait to try your recipe Nami. It looks so good and yes, I am crazy about yakitori!
I am thawing a 12 pound turkey right now and intend to cut the legs and wings off and then roast the breast/carcass do different things to the wings and legs. I would LOVE to try this method on the 2 turkey wings I have but don’t think I have the time to make the sauce etc when I have to do the rest of the turkey, make giblet stuffing, butter tarts for dessert etc. But I will DEFINITELY save this recipe for the future and a batch of chicken wings. 🙂
Im with your hubby 🙂 yakitori is my fave too
we are big wing fans and these look great!! ^
melt in your mouth! Chicken wings are great as is but this version- girl seriously out of this world!
No napkins allowed! With that wonderful sauce you must lick your fingers! I love chicken wings and don’t make them near enough! Frying a whole chicken is such a pain, but these wings would be perfect! I could make Bobby really happy with a plate of these. 🙂
Have loved yakitori since my first trip to Japan. Yours look scrumptious 🙂 ! At the same time I agree with Vicki Bensinger and quite a few others: haven’t really deep fried anything for many years – baking would of course affect flavour, but this would be my way to go too. Normally I take every skerrick of fatty skin off chicken pieces; with wings it is simply too labour-intensive – so have to lose and not gain fat 🙂 !!!!!
What a wonderful recipe! This sauce sounds simply divine and my mouth is simply watering right now. I will be pinning to make soon. Delish!!!
Looks delicious!
Whenever we order Japanese, I always order Yakitori. It’s a favourite of mine too. I just love the look of these wings. They must have sensational flavour. Love the colour on the skin xx
I can eat chicken wings everyday.. that’s how much I love it. Looking at the picture, I can say it must taste delicious!
These wings look very crunchy-delicious and the glazing from the sauce is just perfect. I am afraid that when I start eating these wings, I won’t be able to stop. Looks so good, Nami. I’m sure my family would love them too.
Yay Nami, I think this chicken wing recipe might be very close to the ones we LOVE at Thai Cottage, I know they serve Thai food, but the sauce over their “Wings of Paradise” is sweet with a hint of spiciness, it’s also soysauce based. I am going to have to try this very soon!
You know what’s funny I’ve actually been craving chicken wings 🙂 these look sooooo yummy ~ I bet Mr Bao will like them! I’m gonna try making them soon hehe thanks Nami 😀
Dear Nami,
I’m never a fan of deep frying stuff at home but if I have to make an exception, fried chicken would be it! But as far as wings go, I find that baking renders the fat off and the skin becomes so crispy that I am always reluctant to try another style of cooking wing.
http://chopinandmysaucepan.com/slow-baked-turmeric-chicken
I adore chicken wings! And these sound like a delicious version of them Nami! Definitely finger licking delicious 😀
That really looks very good. I keep planning to make these delicious yummy looking chicken dishes from your blog for my hubby but nerve do 🙁
Huh, I didn’t know tori meant chicken either – I thought it meant “what you like” or something, though maybe I’m thinking of (yaki)niku?
I’m not a big fan of chicken, but you’d sure done a good job of making these look amazingly appetising to me… I could probably be tempted to have a wing or 10 😀
Oh wow Nami, these look absolutely incredible!! I wish this is what was on the menu tonight at my house!
Oooh….that sauce looks superb on those crispy chicken wings! Hope I get to try this soon (I’ve got a backlog of must-try-Nami’s-recipes…)
Yummyyy!!!! I remembered watching ケンミンショー (my favorite show here) where it showed how most people in Nagoya can suck the meat from the chicken wing leaving the bone completely clean in a blink of an eye! Amazing!
I bet the family is fighting over these as well! At least since you can make it at home you can double the portion! Good to see you kept the wing tip…I love to nibble on those.
Hope you’ll have some great plans for this weekend!
I love wings, especially fried one..:)) So addictive! Even though I am trying so hard to stay away from fried food, sometimes it’s really impossible! 🙂
Your recipe is amazing, Nami! Great pics..I want that plateful!:))
Wow these look amazing and mouth watering, finger licking good! I may give these a try. Thanks for sharing!
Oh man, just look how crisp these babies are! Jason is a wing fanatic so he is going to be over the moon when I make this for him!
wow..lovely post…:)
Tasty Appetite
I would eat myself silly on these fried little wonders!
Oh my god! Deep fried wonder. I can definitely eat such delicious foods once a way. Chuck the diet, here I come Nami.
I am so not used to frying this scares me a bit lol, but the wings look amazing and the flavors outstanding. I would love to try some.
those look fantastic Nami! i wish i had a giant bowl of these in front of me 🙂
I can tell just by looking at this lusciousness that I would have to make a triple batch. My boys would be all over these! Totally YUM Nami!
Yum!! These look crispy and flavorful.
Oh, the double-fry technique! Genius! It’s what makes for the best french fries, too.
Picture says it all…must have been truly delicious:) Looks crispy and yummmm:)
These look very good Nami. I have no doubt that my son would enjoy them immensely. He’s all about soy sauce with chicken. Your presentation is beautiful and the chicken just looks gorgeous. Incidentally we found some eel and are planning to make your eel udon this week! 🙂
Oh my these are delicious. No one is home this weekend. I could make a batch myself, polish it off and no one would be the wiser. One of my favorite chicken wings.
yes! double fried chicken! this is my husband’s dream meal!!! i’m sure this is the dish he’d want me to cook on the last day of the world! LOL!
Beautiful chicken wings. My husband will love these, he like the sweet soy flavor in wings. Funny I was just talking about my favorite food in Epcot…the yakitori in Japan. So I guess if you call it chicken yakitori it’s redundent 🙂
Double-frying the chicken. I would have never thought of that. The sauce sounds absolutely delicious.
Perfection is the word…these wings are amazing…
My hubby loves deep-fried chicken wings too. But, I’m the opposite. So, he seldom gets a chance to eat them at homemade. Maybe I should give this dish a try as a surprise treat for him. 😉
I dont know much about Japanese food, but these look simple and really delicious
I love yakitoris as well, they match well with beer. I love the gizzard and heart but in Philippines we have the intestine yakitori, not sure if there is in Japan, they taste great too
Yum!! I love a good chicken wing and love that you shared this Japanese version with us!
Thank you, once again these look very good!
I just got a wok for my birthday, I might have to give these wings a try, they look awesome.
Looks delicious!!! I love the sauce with the Negoya wings!
These look so so crispy.And that sauce sounds heavenly. I have never made fried chicken at home. We usually buy it or order from restaurants. Maybe I should try sometime!
Wow! These look finger-liking-awesome good!
I also love these Nagoya-style wings, so I will be making these wings. They look delicious. My hubby travels to Nagoya often for work and he loves the food in that region… in particular their red miso soup. 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
I had no idea that yakitori meant grilled chicken. You have managed to adapt that so well. These chicken wings look to die for.
Nami – Hugs from London! Looks like I’ve missed out quite a few mouth-watering treats which you prepared for the past week while we are traveling. I get a few minutes here to check in & my appetite has immediately come back after the heavy, carb-loaded meals we have had for one week. Oh, how I miss Asian food!! Your fabulous wings are calling out for me. Absolutely love the idea of the sauce. Will definitely try it out when we settle in. Ahh…I need to have my own kitchen soon!
A lot of good stuff going on in this recipe – really nice looking sauce, frying the chicken twice. I’ll bet that sauce goes with a lot of things – I’ll have to think how to use it! (Other than with chicken wings, of course!) Terrific stuff. And a terrific post – thanks.
I thought I had commented here already…but then I am always confused 😉
These are so wonderful, and my boys would go crazy for them! And for me, this sauce is AMAZING, I could use this with so many dishes 🙂
Lovely and informative post, as always!
This is perfect Nami! My family and I love chicken wings. Come to think of it, I have never really blog on savoury dishes. Love the sauce and that it’s thick and syrupy makes is perfect for coating. I bet it will go well with pork ribs too.. Delish!! Finger licking good ;).
My husband also really, really loves Yakitori. There was a great Japanese restaurant in Paris we used to go to often for them. But they never had any of the gizzard or organ meat ones, probably to appeal to westerners. We both love chicken wings and these look so so good. My mouth is watering and I just ate lunch:) Thanks for sharing Nami.
That looks like very good finger licking food! I love good chicken wings in any form or taste but your recipe has really got me mouth watering! I wish there was a yakitori restaurant near where I live. 🙁 We’ve had to make our own, not that it’s not good. 🙂
Thank you Nami, for a good chicken recipe! I never can do step by step photos, it is so hard to cook and photograph at the same time. You are very talented.
We eat tons of chicken wings, so I’m always looking for a new recipe to change it up a bit. Yours sounds fantastic!!! I hope you are having a great week!
These chicken wings look so good Nami, I love learning about your foods and what the names mean in English. Great post.
love this recipe..soo simple & perfect recipe
Tasty Appetite
i love how you teach us a little bit of Japaneses in almost every post.
The wings look so tempting!
Hi Nami
My husband and my kid don’t like chicken wings but I DO. I always bought these Nagoya fried chicken wings from supermarkets and ate them alone. They were so good even when they were cold. I never know they are so easy to make. Thanks for the recipe.
I made these before and the family looooooooved them. Making them today.
Hi Michelle! I hope you enjoyed these wings! Thank you for writing! 🙂
Recently discovered this recipe site. Last night I tried this recipe for my family. Everyone loved it! Especially my picky 3 yr old! I chose to use potato starch, it came out really delicious. I think the double frying is a must… it really makes the outside crunchy… without so much oil taste since you are draining it after the initial fry. love it, can’t wait to try more of your recipes. thank you so much for sharing.
Hi Shawna! Thank you for trying this recipe and I am so happy you and your family liked it! Thank you so much for hour feedback! I love potato starch for deep frying! Hope you find some recipes you like to try from my site! 🙂
Tried making these today… It was a hit with both adults and children! Thanks so much for sharing this recipe Nami!
Hi Alana! So happy everyone liked this recipe! Thank you for trying this recipe, Alana! 🙂
Nami, thank you so much for this recipe! First, I was drawn in by the mouthwatering photo and then when I tried the recipe last night it was a huge hit! The wings were crispy and the sauce with a hint of ginger (I put extra) and garlic was amazing! My son put his chicken over a bowl of rice and drizzled some of the sauce over it – he must have eaten about 9 wings! I love your recipes!
Hi Eileen! I’m so happy to hear you and your family enjoyed this dish. Thank you so much for writing the kind review/feedback! Thank you for trying this recipe, and following my blog! 🙂
yall food is really goog
Thank you! 🙂
I tried this the other day: it was delicious, as expected!
But that’s not all! We had a lot of sauce left over, and may I share that it’s the Best. Marinade. Ever. I used it on grilled beef chuck for Valentine’s Day and on chicken and rice bake just yesterday. A little goes a long way, and it’s amazing! Thanks so much for sharing the recipe.
Hi Wendy! I’m so happy to hear that! Thank you for trying this recipe! Yeah the sauce is pretty addicting. I love having extra sauce around and dip my chicken… 🙂 Thanks so much for your kind feedback!
Made them many times over and soooo sooo good!
Hi Azusa! Yay! So happy to hear you like the recipe! Thank you for your kind response!
Hi, may I know if the fried chicken wings will stay crispy for long? Planning to bring this dish (2kg) to a beach party. Thanks and appreciate your response.
Hi Teo! Just like any other deep fried food, there will not be as crispy as right after you deep fried. It’s just impossible with the humid in the air and how you keep the deep fried foods after you cook. So it really depends… As you go to the beach, with moist in the air, I think it’s probably harder to keep it crispy. But that’s the nature of deep fried food on picnic or beach etc… If you can reheat it over fire, you can remove the moist and make it crispy again at the beach, but… I’d say it’s best to eat right after deep frying, especially you seem like you want to keep it crispy. 😉
So delicious! I think next time I’d skip the salt though. I think the reduced soy sauce is salty enough and that adding the salt before reducing makes it too salty. It’s definitely a matter of preference so if you don’t like super salty food, remember to salt late, not early. Even so, I think I don’t regret it at all, it’s the best chicken wing I’ve ever made in my life — and I make really good, crispy chicken wing in both American and Japanese style.
I ground the sesame seeds to let more of their flavor out and it was worth the tired arm muscles.
I think that this recipe could work well with very firm tofu pieces also, or seitan if you like that (I don’t).
Hi M! Thank you so much for trying this recipe and for your kind feedback. I’m glad you liked the recipe. 🙂