Best Ever Baked Teriyaki Chicken
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This recipe makes the BEST Ever Baked Teriyaki Chicken! Juicy and tender chicken breasts cooked in the most incredible, super easy homemade teriyaki sauce with simple ingredients. The only baked teriyaki chicken recipe you’ll ever need!
More recipes on my weeknight meal planning include Sheet Pan Chicken Potatoes and Green Beans, Pork Tacos with Pineapple Salsa, and Sheet Pan Balsamic Chicken with Potatoes and Carrots.
This is seriously the BEST baked teriyaki chicken ever! The chicken is tender, juicy, and full of flavor because it is baked in a thick teriyaki sauce to lock in moisture so the chicken doesn’t dry out. The teriyaki sauce is so easy to make and has the most amazing flavor – perfectly sweet, savory, and just a tiny bit spicy. I could eat this sauce every single day, it’s so much better than any store-bought sauce teriyaki sauce!
You are going to love this family favorite easy Japanese teriyaki chicken recipe. It’s so simple, and so tasty you’ll put it on your regular menu rotation for sure!
Teriyaki Chicken Ingredients
The great news is that homemade teriyaki chicken is so incredibly easy to make with simple pantry ingredients. Here’s what you’ll need to make this delicious recipe:
- Chicken breasts
- Soy sauce – I prefer low sodium
- Rice vinegar
- Water
- Sugar
- Ground ginger – or finely grated fresh ginger
- Crushed red pepper flakes
- Garlic – minced
- Corn starch – to thicken the sauce
- Sesame seeds – optional, but recommended!
Here’s How You Make it
Let me walk you how to make the best chicken teriyaki EVER.
- Combine the sauce ingredients over medium high heat,
- Bring to a boil.
- Add a corn starch slurry to thicken the sauce, and remove from heat.
- Place chicken in a large baking dish or rimmed baking pan. Pour half of the teriyaki sauce over the chicken.
- Bake at 400 degrees for about 20-25 minutes until cooked through.
- Drain the pan of excess liquid, then pour remaining teriyaki sauce over the chicken and serve.
Serving Suggestions
Wondering what might go well with this baked teriyaki chicken recipe? I’ve got you covered!
Homemade teriyaki chicken goes great with steamed white rice, or chicken fried rice. The rice soaks up some of the extra teriyaki sauce and makes a perfect companion to the chicken. More side dishes for teriyaki chicken include roasted Asian vegetables, lettuce wraps, hot and sour soup, or cream cheese wontons.
Yes!! You absolutely can. Simply arrange chicken breasts or chicken thighs in a single layer in the bottom of a lightly greased baking dish or rimmed baking pan and preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Pour half of the teriyaki sauce over the chicken, use a fork or tongs to turn the chicken over a couple of times to coat in the sauce, and cover the pan with foil. Bake for 20-25 minutes until chicken is cooked through. Drain the pan of excess liquid, then pour remaining teriyaki sauce over the chicken and serve.
To make super simple, and totally delicious teriyaki sauce, follow these steps:
Combine soy sauce, water, garlic, ground ginger, rice vinegar, and crushed red pepper flakes in a sauce pan.
Bring mixture to a boil.
Add a corn starch slurry (corn starch dissolved into water or soy sauce) to thicken the sauce.
Stir for just 1-2 minutes until thickened, then remove from heat and stir in sesame seeds.
That’s it! Perfect teriyaki sauce you can use immediately, or store in a jar in the fridge for up to 3-4 weeks. You can also use this sauce as a marinade for teriyaki chicken, shrimp, steak, or veggies.
Most Popular Asian-inspired Dishes
- Teriyaki Steak and Pineapple Kabobs
- Crispy Coconut Chicken Tenders
- Chicken Chow Mein
- Instant Pot Honey Teriyaki Chicken
- Best Teriyaki Sauce
- Best Baked Chicken Breasts
If you like this recipe, you’re going to love my go-to Best Baked Chicken Thighs recipe!
Did you try this Baked Teriyaki Chicken recipe? EXCELLENT – please rate the recipe below!
Best Ever Baked Teriyaki Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, pounded to even thickness less than 1 inch
- 1 ⅓ cup low sodium soy sauce, divided
- ½ cup water
- ½ cup rice vinegar
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 3 tablespoons corn starch
- ½ teaspoon sesame seeds
- chopped green onions and steamed rice, for serving
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease a large baking dish or rimmed baking sheet. Arrange chicken in a single layer in the baking dish.
- In a medium sauce pan over high heat combine 1 cup soy sauce, water, rice vinegar, ginger, sugar, crushed red pepper flakes, and garlic and stir to combine. Bring to a boil.
- Once sauce is boiling, whisk together remaining 1/3 cup soy sauce and corn starch until dissolved and stir mixture into boiling sauce. Stir 1-2 minutes until sauce is thickened.
- Remove from heat, stir in sesame seeds, and pour half of the sauce over the chicken in the baking dish. Reserve the remaining sauce for later. Use a fork or tongs to turn chicken over a couple of times to coat in the sauce.
- Cover the baking dish with foil and bake for about 20-25 minutes until chicken is completely cooked through. Drain excess liquid from the baking dish and pour remaining sauce over chicken. Garnish with chopped green onions and additional sesame seeds and serve over rice as desired.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Great RecIpe! So far best teriyaki chicken I Ever trieD. Used to maKe it fried but it Would come out Too dry or even burnt. But this one is sO tender and the sauce taStes fantastic. Thanks for that! DEFINTEly gonna make it again.
This is for SURE better than frying! 😉 Glad to hear you enjoyed this teriyaki chicken so much!
It is in the oven now,i will post photo later and let you know how it tuRned out
Hope you loved it!
Thank you! My husband has been begging for chicken teriyaki but ive been putting it off because my old recipe was so complicated. This was easy and declious. My husband, my picky son, and i really liked it!!! Thank you! 🙂
Awesome job, Lauren! Thanks for your feedback!
i want to make this but i don’t have any rice vinegar. Would it still work if i used white vinegar or none at all?
Definitely do NOT use white vinegar with this recipe!! You can substitute apple cider vinegar if you have that.
We love this recipe! I have even made these as freezer meals as well! I take disposable pans, put the chicken in, pour the sauce over, and freeze. Then when we want to eat them, I take them right out of the freezer and cook frozen (you could defrost too). I like a lot of teriyaki sauce, so I tend to make extra sauce 🙂
This is awesome, Laura! Thank you so much for sharing your idea!
I was really hopeful about this recipe but it was not a hit with my family at all. The 1 tsp of ground ginger was overpowering. My kids were all crying that they had “pepper mouth” from the intensity of the ginger.
1 1/3 cup of soy sauce????That is ridicules……maybe a total of 1/2 cup
This is so DELICIOUS! But can you tell me how to make my sauce a little sweeter? Is it as simple as adding more sugar?
Try adding a couple tablespoons of honey or brown sugar!
The cooking time wasnt even close tO enough time. ThrEw off my whole dinner. 🙁 The sauce was yummy though.
Make sure next time you have pounded your chicken all to even thickness, less than an inch!
Looks Yummy!