Soy Sauce Chicken (豉油鸡)
January 31st, 2010 | Chinese New Year, Chinese, Chinese Recipes | 49 Comments
My Chinese New Year recipes continues today with everyone’s favorite Cantonese Soy Sauce Chicken (豉油鸡)—a staple chicken dish commonly found at Chinatown BBQ joints here in the United States and around the world—dark and glossy whole chicken dunked in a soy sauce mix with meat so tender, silky, and juicy that they are one of the must-have’s for Cantonese-style BBQ rice plates. If you have been to a typical Cantonese BBQ restaurant, I am sure you have had soy sauce chicken. I can hardly resist the tempting looking chicken with the perfect sheen, hanging at the display window calling my name! Soy sauce chicken is utterly delicious, especially when you dip it with the ginger and scallion condiment. The thought of it just sets my mouth watering…(get soy sauce chicken recipe after the jump)
Chinese love chicken and there is always a chicken dish on the Chinese New Year menu, so what about serving soy sauce chicken this year? Soy sauce chicken (豉油鸡) is really not so hard to make, and you don’t have to use a whole chicken. I didn’t because I didn’t have a pot big enough to contain a whole chicken, plus, I must confess that I don’t have great knife skills (I didn’t go to culinary school!) to make perfect chops. I used chicken leg quarters but you can use cut up whole chicken, too. Of course, if you have all it takes, by all means, use a whole chicken.
Do try out this soy sauce chicken recipe (豉油鸡), it’s pretty darn close to the ones at my favorite BBQ joint here in SoCal. I saved the soy sauce mix to make various accompanying dishes such as Chinese soy sauce eggs (滷蛋) and soy sauce fried tofu (滷水豆腐). Super yummy!
Ingredients:
3 chicken leg quarters (about 2 lbs)
2-inch ginger (skin peeled and lightly pounded)
4 cloves garlic (lightly pounded)
2 stalks scallions (cut into 2-inch lengths)
2 star anise
1 cinnamon stick (about 2-inch length)
1 dried honey dates (optional)
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon Chinese rose wine (preferred) or Shaoxing wine
3 dashes white pepper powder
4 oz. rock sugar
4 cups water
Ginger and Scallion Dip
1 oz. ginger (skin peeled, pounded, and finely chopped)
1 scallion (cut into thin rounds)
1/2 heap teaspoon chicken bouillon powder
1/2 heap teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons oil
Method:
To prepare the ginger and scallion dip, place the ginger, scallions, salt, and chicken bouillon powder into a small bowl. Heat up 2 tablespoons of oil in a wok until it starts to smoke. Pour the oil into the small bowl and blend well. Set aside.
Add all ingredients (except the chicken) into a deep pot and bring it to boil on high heat for 15 minutes. Add the chicken quarters into the pot and boil over high heat for about 10 minutes. Lower the heat to simmer for about 30 minutes. Turn off heat and let the chicken steeped in the soy sauce mixture for a few hours to soak in the flavor. Dish out the chicken quarters, chop into pieces and serve immediately with the dipping sauce. (Soy sauce chicken is usually served cold or at room temperature.)
Cook’s Notes:
- Some dark soy sauce is darker than others. I used Kimlan dark soy sauce which is not that dark, so I used 1/2 a cup. If you have a very dark soy sauce, you should probably use less.
- I had the best Dongbo Rou (东波肉) in a Shanghai restaurant and they used dried honey dates (蜜枣) to make their soy sauce mixture. Dried honey dates impart delicate and natural sweet taste to soups and stews and widely used in Cantonese cuisine. It’s optional if you don’t have them.
- Save the soy sauce mix. It’s great for soy sauce eggs. Add a few hard-boiled eggs into the soy sauce mix and steep them overnight and you have some great tasting Chinese soy sauce eggs (滷蛋). You can also use the soy sauce mixture to make soy sauce tofu (滷水豆腐); deep fry the tofu and soak it with the soy sauce before serving.
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This looks friggin’ delicious!
It is definitely better if you can cook the chicken whole, but alas, not practical to do at home.
Agreed, I don’t have a pot big enough. :(
My wife would love if I could cook this for her,perhaps I’ll surprise her one day soon. Thanks for sharing
Hi Bee,
Perhaps, we can use a whole Cornish Hens too since they are small enough to be simmered in a “regular” size pot. Any thoughts?
Yes, I love the soy sauced eggs and let’s not forget the soy sauced pig ears!!!
Tuty – oooh, soy sauce pig ears. How can I forget that? Hehe. Yes, I guess you can use cornish hen but the texture of the meat is different though. Yeah, bummer for not having a big pot.
i can’t wait to make this!!!! i really love your website, it’s my favorite for asian food recipes. i live in davis, california, so there is basically no real chinese food place so i gotta make my own :)
This looks AMAZING. I am salivating for some soy sauce chicken and tea eggs right about now… time to hit up Chinatown to get some ingredients!
Why are you doing this to me, Bee!? This soy sauce chicken looks absolutely incredible. And i love anything with the ginger/scallion condiment on it. That’s a double winner!
a two in one dish (chicken and egg) and both are food i like. thanks for the recipes and great photos!
Wow I didn’t know it was so easy to make this. Will definitely try this as an alternative to the hainanese style. Thanks.
You had me at soy sauce – I am definitely giving this one a try. Thanks for the inspiration!
You’re funny. God blessed the Chinese for inventing soy sauce, really, or Asian food would be really sad. ;)
Everyone in my family loves soy sauce chicken. And the soy sauce tastes even better after cooing the chicken. Have to reserve the sauce and cook with other favourite foods.
The ginger/scallop dip – usually see this condiment beside 白斩鸡, not 豉油鸡…hmmmm…
But I love it. Next time, you can try 茶叶鸡 also…..the base ingredients are almost the same as what you using now :)
In the BBQ restaurants here, all soy sauce chicken are served with the ginger and scallion dip. I love it.
This is definitely a favorite at Chinese restaurants! Thanks Bee for providing a recipe!!! :)
Hi Bee, this is simply tasty! My type of food, will surely bookmark this.
Oh wow, it’s been ages since I last had soy sauce chicken. Thanks for reminding me about it, and for sharing the recipe. :)
I am hungry now! Thanks for sharing.
this dish makes me so homesick for family, mom’s cooking, grandma’s cooking – the smells of the kitchen i grew up in.
Love this dish of yours and I especially like having it with the ginger and scallion condiment. Another condiment that I go for is the Chinese mustard.
hi
I have been using Lee Kum Kee’s Soy Sauce chcken sauce …Pour whole bottle add another bottleful of water..boil….throw chicken in…..
not bad !
dried orange peel boil with the mixture – optional as well.
This is what I’d love to try out. It’s very similar to the way we do our chicken. Philippines have dark soy sauce tha I can try with this recipe like Lauriat brand which is my favorite.
Viel – sounds good, let me know how it goes.
hey Bee!! love ur site.. always keep revisiting when i can… but, its the first time i’m leaving a comment! i love love love love soy sauce chicken.. my trips to chinatown in toronto were never complete without a plateful of soy sauce chicken! never mind that more often than not, it was the sole reason of my visits to chinatown in the first place!
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!!
I am going to try some of your recipes very soon. I keep printing them out .They look SOOO delicious. I’m in country Australia but we have had a new asian shop open. & I’ve bought some ingredients, Just have to have the courage to try. If I see people in the Supermarket next to the Asian stuff I always tell them to get on to your website, it is so great. Happy New Year to you & all Asians who share this wonderful website
Hi Sharon – thanks so much for your comment and promoting my website. I hope you like this soy sauce chicken recipe.
I tried so many of your recipe and it turn out to be great!
but this seems very salty after i cooked it.. too much of soy sauce.. does it meant to be this way? s like only me who encounter this problem :(
I believe it’s the salt content of your soy sauce as I had already mentioned in my notes, different soy sauce tastes different. I use low sodium ones. Add the soy sauce and dark soy sauce bit by bit, until you get the desired taste you want. If it’s too salty, add more water, improvise the recipe as it’s a guide rather than science.
Make this 2 days ago.. absolutely yummilicious. I am planning to prepare this for up coming NCY party as well and was wondering how many times i can reuse the soy sauce. Do i just keep adding the chicken or if we need mix a new one?
You can reuse the soy sauce a few times, that is no problem.
Thanks so much for this recipe! I made it the other day for my friends, and it was delicious, we devoured it! But mine didn’t turn out looking as nice as yours, it looked like it had been mauled by a raccoon, haha. How did you make yours turn out looking so nice? :)
thanks for sharing this recipe! it’s very similar to the steamed soy chicken that i make but it’s a lot easier. i also used the sauce to make soy sauce eggs and loved it. next up, soy sauce tofu! :D
we always bought this chicken when go to the asian bbq restaurant and it is so expensive. i am cooking this recipe right now, and cant wait till i can eat those delicious chicken. thx for the sharing and great website thx
Hi,
I love your website! I just made this recipe, actually a slight variation of it, but in a pressure cooker. Half the time and sooooo delicious! Thanks.
Pressure cooker, wow, how come I didn’t even think about that? Thanks for sharing the tip and trying my soy sauce chicken recipe!
Glad you like the pressure cooker tip! I received the pot as a gift and have been on a pressure cooker craze. Saves energy…
I have one question now that I have this delicious leftover cooking liquid. To make the soy sauce eggs, should they be shelled? I am guessing they should so they can absorb all the goodness, but I just wanted to make sure.
Thanks!
Yes, they should be hard-boiled and shelled before you add them. I love the eggs more than the chicken actually. ;)
Hi! Your soy sauce chicken looks amazing!! I followed your recipe but the skin on my chicken didn’t turn out nearly as dark or even as yours did. I would like to try again. Did you simmer with the pot lid on or off? Also, my dark soy sauce is quite dark and I still used 1/2 cup. Do you have any ideas as to what I might be able to try to make my chicken look as nice as yours?
Thanks so much!!!
Hi Alison, I cooked with the lid on. Some chicken has really fatty skin so the fat resists the soy sauce entering the skin. Try to keep the chicken longer in the liquid. Good luck!
Thanks so much!
Just tried this, turned out delicious! And very easy to make too!