This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
Sticky and Easy Honey Garlic Chicken made fast and simple, with the most amazing five ingredient honey garlic sauce that is so good you’ll want to use it on everything!
A recipe that allows for the use of either chicken breast or chicken thigh, this dish is bound to become a fast family fave! This honey garlic chicken recipe is the perfect meal to have when you’re struggling to decide between sweet and savoury.
Catering to lovers of crisp and sticky chicken skin, as well as those who prefer a soft, succulent piece of chicken, it doesn’t get any better than this recipe. With a beautiful sauce and perfectly cooked chicken, you’ll absolutely love this tasty Asian inspired dish!
This super-simple recipe makes crispy, tender chicken with a perfect, sticky glaze. You may (or may not) remember the Crispy Oven Fried Chicken I made a couple of months ago?
Well, those crispy chicken pieces were scrumptious covered in our honey garlic sauce, so I wondered what would happen if I cooked some chicken pieces right in the sauce without any crumbing or breading. That’s when our easy honey garlic chicken recipe was created!
HONEY GARLIC CHICKEN
As you may have already noticed, we love honey garlic sauce. Overtime, we have created a plethora of recipes which use a similar flavour palette that you’ve all loved, like our Easy Honey Garlic Salmon, Easy Honey Garlic Pork Chops and our Honey Garlic Butter Shrimp.
This sauce not only tastes amazing, it’s incredibly satisfying to watch as it bubbles and morphs into a perfectly balanced savoury, sweet, garlicky syrup. The sauce thickens and coats your chicken as it cooks making for delightfully, caramelised chicken pieces.
The great thing about this recipe is that the recipe accounts for a generous amount of sauce which means you’ll have extra to pour over your broccoli and rice when you’re finished cooking.
CHICKEN BREAST OR THIGH?
To be honest, it’s really up to you and your personal preference. For this particular recipe, I prefer to use chicken thighs since dark meat is super moist and packed full of flavour. Although, we also enjoy this recipe with chicken breasts.
One of my favourite things about this honey garlic chicken recipe is that I usually have all of the ingredients ready to go in my pantry and refrigerator. I incorporated a bunch of staples into this recipe to make it as easy to throw together as possible:
- Honey? YES ✓
- Soy Sauce? YES ✓
- Vinegar? YES ✓
- Water? OF COURSE ✓
- Garlic? Not even a question ✓
So few ingredients needed for such an irresistibly sweet and salty dish!
WHAT TO SERVE WITH HONEY GARLIC CHICKEN
You want to make sure you’re making the most out of that sauce, so I would recommend pairing your chicken with some Buttery Sautéed Green Beans and some Fried Rice with Bacon.
WATCH US MAKE THE MOST ADDICTIVE HONEY GARLIC CHICKEN RIGHT HERE!
For more Chicken Recipes, try these!
- Browned Butter Honey Garlic Chicken
- Honey Garlic Sriracha Chicken
- Oven Fried Chicken with Broccoli + Honey Garlic Sauce
You may also love these!
- Easy Honey Garlic Salmon
- Lobster Tails with Honey Garlic Butter White Wine Sauce
- Browned Butter Honey Garlic Shrimp
- Honey Soy Baked Chicken Thighs
Need to cook it in a slow cooker instead? Try our Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken recipe!
You might also like
Get a free eBook!
Subscribe to Cafe Delites FOR FREE and receive recipes straight into your inbox!
Easy Honey Garlic Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 chicken thighs bone in or out, with or without skin
- 1/4 teaspoon salt to season
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder to season
- 6 cloves garlic crushed
- 1/3 cup honey
- 1/4 cup water or chicken broth
- 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar, or any white vinegar
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper to season
Instructions
- Season chicken with salt, pepper and garlic powder; set aside.
- Heat a pan or skillet over medium high heat; sear chicken thigh fillets or breast fillets on both sides until golden and cooked through.
FOR BONE IN THIGHS:
- Reduce heat after searing on both sides, cover skillet with a lid and continue cooking until the chicken is cooked through, while turning every 5 minutes until done. Alternatively, see notes for oven method.
- Drain most of the excess oil from the pan, leaving about 2 tablespoons of pan juiced for added flavour.
FOR SAUCE:
- When chicken is done and cooked through, arrange chicken skin-side up in the pan (if cooking with skin); add the garlic between the chicken and fry until fragrant (about 30 seconds). Add the honey, water, vinegar and soy sauce. Increase heat to medium-high and continue to cook until the sauce reduces down and thicken slightly (about 3-4 minutes).
- Garnish with parsley and serve over vegetables, rice, pasta or with a salad.
Notes
*For oven baked, bone-in thighs: Preheat oven at 400°F or 200°C. Sear chicken in an oven proof skillet or pan, skin side down first for 3 minutes. Flip and sear for a further 3 minutes until browned each side. Then bake in the oven for a further 20-25 minutes, until completely cooked through and no longer pink inside. Continue directions from the sauce, onwards.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Made this for dinner tonight and it was a hit. I’m not a fan of soy sauce so I just did a quick dash of it. The taste was really faint. It was a quick and easy dish to make. Paired it with stir fry rice and broccoli. I added way more honey than was noted, that was an accident. It didn’t over power the other flavors though. I seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper only. Used both thigh and breast. My boyfriend wants me to write the sauce down for future use. I love to impress him and this did just that. Thank you for sharing!
Tried this recipe tonight. I added balsamic vinegar coz that’s what I had on hand. It was delicious and now a hit in my home.
Tried this recipe tonight. I added balsamic vinegar coz that’s what I had on hand. It was delicious and now a hit on my home.
I used apple cider vinegar because that’s all I had and it was delicious!!!
Wow!! This is the first recipe I’ve used from here and I’m definitely becoming a regular! I used chicken nuggets simply for convenience sake and it worked out great! The vinegar smelled really strong and I was so worried I wouldn’t be able to eat it (I’m pregnant and right now vinegar is🤢) but it faded after a few extra minutes of cooking and it was delicious!! Perfect mix of sweet and savory! Even my one year old dug in! Thank you so much for this! Going straight into the roster!!
This recipe was amazing. Thanks so much for sharing it! Definitely going to add this dish to my roster.
Made this the other night for the first time and it was a hit! My husband was hesitant at first when he smelled the vinegar (he’s not a vinegar fan) but you couldn’t even taste it. Perfectly balanced sweet and savory. I’ll be making this regularly!
Made this for lunch today! I used thin sliced chicken breasts. I combined the sauce ingredients into a bowl and followed tips from previous reviews and added some red pepper flakes and ground ginger for extra flavor. I also added a cornstarch slurry after combining the sauce and chicken into the pan to make it thicken quicker. It was so delicious and I would definitely make this again as a quick meal idea. Super easy. I served with roasted potatoes and steamed broccoli.
I tried your recipe tonight using boneless chicken leg with skin. It was so easy to cook and the flavour of the sauce was spot-on! It was amazing how the honey, water, apple cider vinegar, soy sauce and garlic complement one another so well. My kids loved it and so did I. Thank you so much for sharing such a good recipe. 🙂
Wow! The recipe was very simple yet the result is like something I’d get from a restaurant! I can hardly even cook rice, yet I managed to cook this and it was delicious!