Glazed Five Spice Chicken
The best part of having a food blog is that I don’t always have to post original recipes! Often times I read other recipes for inspiration and then modify recipes based on the ingredients that I have or what I prefer to cook with. However, sometimes I find an amazing recipe that is so good as is, I don’t want to change anything about it. I love that with this blog I can share these favorite recipes too and give credit where credit is due.
A few years ago, I spent a summer reading through the cookbook “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” by Samin Nosrat with a couple of girlfriends. After we read through each chapter on the 4 elements of cooking (salt, fat, acid and heat), we choose a few recipes from the book to practice what we learned. The recipe I’m sharing today is on page 338 of that book. If you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend it. It’s even more fun to read and cook through it with friends.
The majority of the time preparing this meal goes into making the marinade. Do this the day before you plan on cooking. On the day of, you simply place the chicken and all the marinate in a pan and throw it in oven. Garnish the chicken with cilantro and green onions and serve it over rice with a veggie on the side. It’s a delicious meal you can put on the table even on a busier night of the week.
Ingredients:
6-8 chicken thighs, (bone-in or boneless…I prefer skin-on)
Sea Salt
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup mirin
1 tsp sesame oil
1 Tbsp finely grated ginger
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
chopped cilantro and green onions to garnish
Instructions:
Season the chicken thighs with salt. Set aside for about 30 minutes while you make the marinade.
In a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, sugar, mirin, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, five-spice, and cayenne pepper.
Place chicken in a gallon-sized resealable plastic bag and pour marinade over the chicken. Seal the bag and squish the marinate around until all of the chicken is well coated. Refrigerate overnight.
A few hours before you want to cook the chicken, pull it out of the refrigerator to bring to room temperature.
Preheat the oven to 400F.
Pour chicken and marinate into a 13x9” baking pan. If using chicken thighs with the skin-on, place the skin-side up.
Bake the chicken for 20-25 minutes (for boneless thighs), or longer if using bone-in thighs. Use a meat thermometer to ensure chicken is fully cooked to 165 F.
For the last 5 minutes of cooking time, crank up the oven to 450 F so that the sauce reduces and the skin of the chicken gets crisp. Brush the tops of the chicken with the marinate from the pan a few times during this last 5 minutes.
Remove chicken from the oven. Garnish with cilantro and sliced green onions. Serve chicken over jasmine rice and a veggie on the side.