This is a hot honey chicken with a crispy coating! This dish combines a variety of Asian cooking techniques to create a honey chicken that maintains its crispy texture for hours after adding the honey sauce. With no extra ingredients or tools needed, the Chinese frying batter produces a light and non-greasy coating that is crispy and puffy!

With this recipe, you can make the most delicious hot honey chicken meal for the whole family in a matter of minutes, which calls for both chicken breasts and thighs! This dish is ideal if you’re craving something sweet with a touch of savory.

They perfectly cooked the chicken with a gorgeous sauce, and optional crispy and sticky skin. Things stay the same!

This really easy recipe yields perfectly sticky sauce and delicate, crisp chicken. I prepared some crispy oven-fried chicken a few months back, which you may or may not remember. The chicken pieces tasted so excellent with this sauce that I started to wonder what would happen if I fried some of the pieces directly in the sauce without the need for breading or crumbing.

Not only does this sauce taste fantastic, but it also gives you a great sense of satisfaction to watch it boil and transform into a harmonious blend of sweet, salty, and garlicky syrup. But as you watch the sauce simmer and envelop the chicken so perfectly, your mouth starts to truly thirst. What’s this recipe’s bonus? It creates so much sauce that you can use it as a drizzle over steamed broccoli or rice.

Which one is perfect for this recipe—chicken thighs or breasts?

This dish is ideal for chicken thighs since their dark flesh is incredibly flavorful and juicy. Nonetheless, we also adore this dish made with chicken breasts, which taste amazing with this sauce.

What makes this honey garlic chicken the best? All of the items are already in your kitchen pantry, kitchen faucet, and refrigerator.

INGREDIENTS

COLD soda water For an ultra-crispy batter, cold soda water with artificial bubbles is necessary since it helps produce a fizzier effect when the batter comes into contact with the heated oil.

cornflour/cornstarchchicken Because wheat contains gluten, it softens crunchy batters. Using corn flour in the batter is essential for crispiness because it is gluten-free. (In a similar vein, I make Crispy Beer Battered Fish with rice flour.) How about just simple corn flour? Bcorn flour stays white when cooked and turns into a thick adhesive that cannot be worked into a batter for Honey Chicken—we want it to have a lovely golden hue.

Flour – We need some to activate the baking powder so that the chicken pieces fry up well and are golden (as previously said, cornflour doesn’t become golden when fried; it stays white) and also to make this crispy coating puffy.

Baking powder – The key ingredient to give the batter lift and make it puffy, as opposed to Sweet & Sour Pork’s thin coating that completely sticks to the chicken.

Superb crunchy all-purpose fry batter

You may use this fry batter for any dish that calls for crispy bits of meat to be coated in batter, such as General Tso’s Chicken, Orange Chicken, Lemon Chicken, and even Sweet and Sour Pork if you like a crust that is crunchier and thicker. Since then, I’ve also made Honey Prawns, my other favorite Honey Chicken version, using this recipe! Furthermore, you are not limited to Asian recipes!

Fish and prawns/shrimp require special precautions while cooking since they release more water throughout the cooking process. When made according to the recipe, they are extremely crispy when hot but become mushy as they cool. After I figure out how to use it best for seafood and vegetables, I will publish this fry batter as a “All Purpose Crispy Fry Batter.”

2. Chicken & marinade

CHICKEN MARINADE

Chicken thighs The ideal chicken to use here are the thighs since they contain more juice than breast or tenderloin, giving you more leeway to experiment with the cooking time. This is especially useful for beginners who aren’t very skilled at deep-frying. However, if you do choose to use chicken breast, go to the recipe notes for an additional baking soda tenderizing suggestion (Velveting Chicken);

Soy sauce – To make the honey sauce as transparent as possible, mild soy sauce works best. All-purpose will also function well, but it will result in a somewhat darker sauce. Avoid using black soy sauce as it is too potent.

Chinese cooking wine, which is used in practically every Chinese dish and is used by the gallon, is the key component needed to make food taste as good as it does in Chinese restaurants. Replace with soy sauce; additionally

Cornflour/cornstarch: this thickens and tenderizes the marinade, causing it to stick when it’s coated with cornflour before frying.

3. Honey Sauce

NO water – most Honey Chicken sauces include water and cornflour/cornstarch for thickening. Crispy coating and water are not friends! Give the water a miss.

corn syrup: this gives the honey covering an almost “candy” texture, similar to what you may have seen in Chinese eateries. This is essential for a honey chicken to remain as crispy as possible; it’s also the key to caramel popcorn, which, believe it or not, stays crispy for weeks at a time.

Chinese cooking wine Add salt and a hint of Chinese restaurant flavour to the sauce so it’s not just a plain honey sauce. The water component in these largely cooks out when simmered, so it doesn’t compromise the crispiness!

How to make Honey Chicken

Marinate chicken: Marinate the chicken to give it flavor and to make the insides of each piece very soft. Additionally, this allows for mistakes in the frying time—a crucial feature for people who aren’t skilled fryers!

Cornflour/cornstarch coating: The coating made of cornflour or cornstarch acts as an additional barrier to keep the chicken’s juices within and prevent the crispy coating from softening.

COLD batter – Cold batter is a crucial stage in making sure the chicken is extremely crispy because the shock of the cold batter striking the hot oil causes the chicken to be crispier. To make the batter cold, mix it right before frying and use club soda or refrigerator-cold soda. It’s a good idea for novices to freeze the bowl and dry ingredients before mixing in the water, just for peace of mind.

Dip in batter; drop in a handful of chicken pieces, then coat in batter. Ready to fry!

180C/350F for 1–3 minutes, or until light golden. Because the batter contains cornflour, which doesn’t brown, it will appear abnormally light, but just a touch will reveal how incredibly crispy it is! This stage involves fully cooking the chicken. Although the chicken is already extremely crispy, a single fried will not keep it crispy for more than ten to fifteen minutes; this is why Step 7 calls for a double fry!

2. Cool before frying twice—an additional crucial hint for lasting crispness! I only know that double-frying cold chicken makes it crispier and keeps it crispy for longer, but I have no idea how the science works behind this. Maybe for the same reason that cold batter makes the chicken crispier?

3. A rapid 90-second double fry is the key to incredibly crispy, low-grease fried food (additional examples: Sweet and Sour Pork, my mother’s Chicken Karaage, and also a version of this Honey Chicken dish, Honey Prawns). This technique is quickly becoming the worst-kept frying secret. The first cooked turns cold problem associated with batch cooking is also resolved since you may pack the pot for Fry #2, reheating all of the chicken in one or two rapid batches at most.

4. After all this work to get the chicken crispy, don’t waste it by draining it on paper towels, which will make the bottom mushy and squishy! 😂 Instead, drain the chicken on a rack. Using a rack, raise the chicken so that it can drain and maintain its crispy texture.

How to make the Honey Sauce

In a nonstick skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Cook and stir garlic for 3 to 4 minutes, or until it becomes translucent.

Bring to a boil after adding the soy sauce, honey, and ketchup. Simmer for approximately five minutes, stirring now and again, over low heat, until the flavors blend.