The reign of sriracha is not over yet. The price for a bottle of this magic sauce remains stable at my local grocery store, so panic is averted for now.
I fell in love with chicken thighs a while back when I made the Maple Dijon Chicken Thighs. They’re super easy to cook, usually quite inexpensive, and always juicy and tender. For boneless, skinless chicken thighs all you have to do is add some sauce and pop them in the oven. A little while later you have an easy to eat and very delicious meat. That’s all I want—easy, delicious, inexpensive.
For this honey sriracha version, I’ve mixed up a marinade/sauce of the basic goodies: garlic, ginger, soy sauce, honey, and brown sugar. I used half brown sugar and half honey to cut costs, but if cost is not your concern, use all honey and no brown sugar. The end product is sweet, spicy, and full of flavor. Plus the thighs are tender and juicy as always. I’ve been eating this all week over a bed of jasmine rice with a few florets of broccoli. When I’m leaving for work in the morning I add all three to a container (the broccoli is frozen, from a bag in the freezer) and then they all reheat together in the microwave at lunch time. It’s the perfect little inexpensive and filling lunch!
Honey Sriracha Chicken Thighs
Honey Sriracha Chicken Thighs
Servings 6 1 thigh eachIngredients
- 6 boneless skinless chicken thighs (2 lbs) ($5.98)
- 2 cloves garlic ($0.16)
- 1 inch fresh ginger ($0.11)
- 2 Tbsp sriracha hot sauce ($0.17)
- 1 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce ($0.15)
- 1 Tbsp rice vinegar ($0.11)
- 2 Tbsp honey ($0.24)
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar ($0.03)
- 1 Tbsp vegetable oil ($0.02)
- 1/2 cup water ($0.00)
- 2 Tbsp corn starch ($0.12)
- 1/4 bunch cilantro or green onions ($0.20)
Instructions
- Mince the garlic and grate the ginger into a bowl. Add the sriracha, soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, brown sugar, vegetable oil, and water. Stir to combine. Add the corn starch and stir until dissolved.
- Add the chicken thighs to a large zip top bag or a shallow dish. Add half of the marinade/sauce mixture to the chicken and toss to coat (be sure to stir the sauce before adding it to the chicken. The garlic, ginger, and corn starch tend to settle to the bottom.) Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Save the unused portion of the marinade for later.
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Add the chicken and its marinade to a 8×8 inch casserole dish. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, basting the chicken with the juices half way through.
- While the chicken is baking, add the second reserved marinade (the half that wasn’t used with the chicken) to a small sauce pot. Bring it up to a simmer over medium heat while stirring. As soon as it reaches a simmer it will thicken into a nice glaze. Set the sauce aside.
- When the chicken is finished baking, spread the thickened sauce over each piece of chicken. Add fresh cilantro or sliced green onions and serve.
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Nutrition
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I like to add a few spears of broccoli to this dish to make a complete meal!
Step by Step Photos
Mince two cloves of garlic and grate one inch of fresh ginger on a small holed cheese grater. Add them to a bowl along with 2 Tbsp sriracha, 1.5 Tbsp soy sauce, 1 Tbsp rice vinegar, 2 Tbsp honey, 2 Tbsp brown sugar, 1 Tbsp vegetable oil, and 1/2 cup water. Stir to combine.
Add 2 Tbsp corn starch and stir until dissolved.
Add half of the marinade mixture to a large zip top bag (or shallow dish) along with 2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs. Toss to coat and then marinate for 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Be sure to stir the marinade mixture well before pouring it into the bag because the garlic, ginger, and corn starch tend to settle to the bottom. Save the second half of the marinade for later.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Add the marinated chicken thighs to a small casserole dish, along with all of the marinade from the bag. Bake for 30 minutes and baste the chicken half way through (either spoon the juices over top of each thigh or use a baster to squirt the liquid over top).
Meanwhile, add the reserved half of the marinade (the half not used on the chicken) to a small sauce pot and bring it up to a simmer over medium heat. As soon as it reaches a simmer, the corn starch will begin to thicken the sauce until it becomes a nice glaze. Set the thickened sauce aside until the chicken is finished baking.
When they’re finished baking they look like this. Kind of naked, huh? That’s why we saved half of the sauce! :D
Sauce them thighs up! (Just use a spoon to spread some of the sauce over each thigh.)
Add a little greenery to freshen it up (cilantro or sliced green onions) and you’re ready to serve! Like I said earlier, I’ve been eating this in a bowl with jasmine rice and a little broccoli. So good—So easy.
This was delicious, I served it with air fryer asparagus and quinoa.
delicious and easy ! thank you!
This satisfied my amorphous craving for spicy Chinese-type food. I made it with just three chicken thighs, thinking that I could use the extra sauce to have a heap of sauced veg as well, but the sauce quantity is already quite generous, so I had A Lot of sauce (the horror). I used 200g of tenderstem broccoli, a yellow bell pepper and about 200g of mushrooms, and could have easily doubled that and still been well-sauced.
Yummy, easy, and satisfying.
Loved this was baked in the oven. We made about 20 chicken thighs in two pans and adjusted the other ingredients. Adjuster down the sirachi to accommodate 7 yr old too!
This is one of my all time favorite recipes, and one of the only recipes I’ve made several times over. The marinade is good as a marinade or a dipping sauce! I’ve made this with every cut of chicken imaginable. I’ve even made it with tofu! Seriously, you can’t go wrong with this one. Today I’m going to try and make an instant pot version. Wish me luck!
Is it possible to use bone in thighs? If so, what would the cooking time change? Thanks!
I’d say about 45 minutes for the six thighs.
Tastes really good (don’t get me wrong) but the flavour is pretty “simple” – tastes mostly like a gingery-sweet heat for the chicken in my hands. Would be a great adventure into novel flavour for kids/the spice averse, but not quite interesting enough for me to earn five stars. Still, a really easy, satisfying meal for a Saturday night at home :)
I have been hooked on your balsamic chicken thighs for a while now and somehow didn’t notice until yesterday that you mentioned your recipe for honey sriracha chicken thighs in the intro. My goodness, I made them today and they are ah…may…zing!! I made them exactly as instructed, except I seasoned the thighs with all purpose seasoning and creole seasoning before marinading. The perfect blend of sweet and spicy and the chicken was so tender. Definitely adding this to the dinner rotation. Thanks!
Made this a bunch of times. LOVE IT. Its delicious as written, its also very flexible.
This was a resounding success at my house….i followed your recipe exactly will fed make again and again!
Is it possible to substitute the fresh ginger with ground ginger? If so, how much ground ginger would I want to use? Thank you!
Fresh ginger and ground ginger taste quite a bit different, so it’s really difficult to give an estimate for substitution. I think I would need to test the recipe with ground ginger to find an appropriate amount before advising on that one.