Mall Food Court Chicken Teriyaki At Home | The BEST Sarku Japan Copycat Recipe

I’m not generally a big fan of chain restaurants, but there is a soft spot in my stomach for Sarku Japan, the mall food court chicken teriyaki spot with over 200 locations throughout the US. I loved it since I was just a little tot.

Their free samples always lured me in and their sauce has a death grip on my heart. In this video I show you how I recreate their delicious chicken teriyaki recipe, extra chicken, extra sauce NO VEGGIES – because that is how I order it.

My videos aren’t great on the numbers, because neither am I, but I achieve the taste I am looking for or I dont post. So just try to follow along, taste your dishes along the way, and modify in a way that suits your taste buds. If its too spicy add sweetness, if its too sweet add some more savory ingredients. In my book, life is about trying different things until you find a balance – and I look at cooking the same way. Below is a shopping list for any items needed to make this dish.

Shopping list:
Chicken in whatever form you prefer (Thighs are what Sarku uses, I used tenders.)
Water
Sesame oil
Chicken broth
Shaoxing wine, rice wine, or sherry
Garlic
Pepper or white pepper if you have it
Baking soda
LOW SODIUM kikkoman soy sauce
Kikkoman teriyaki sauce
Brown sugar
Corn starch
Fresh ginger (or even sushi ginger if you have it. I did this once in a pinch and it turned out great still.)
Honey
Udon noodles

Bonus Ingredients:
1 large beer (to drink while cooking)
1 sarku japan takeout box for presentation
1-2 toothpicks to stab into said takeout box

I hope everyone is doing well in this crazy time. I know it can feel uncertain and scary, but as is the case with most uncertain times – we gotta find happiness in the little things. For me – that is delicious food and good beer. Hope you all are coping in a similar fashion!

As a 90’s kid the mall food court has a special element of nostalgia for me they’re the free samples we’re always going and the extra sauce was always flowing and when you actually had to go out to shop for stuff this place was a hot spot to me sokku Japan takes the

Number one spot of all food for eateries with over 200 locations and malls throughout the u.s. I would often go to the mall without a shopping list just to get some of that delicious extra sauce chicken teriyaki I have been craving it for the past week but given the current

State of things who knows how long malls will last so today you’re going to figure out how to make the king of free samples at home with this recipe it all starts with the chicken I’m going to use the tenders because it is all that I have at the

Moment but Sarco japan uses ultra young chicken thighs to achieve their tender name so to get our chicken as tender at home we’re gonna want to marinate it a day before we start cooking the marinade is pretty simple but very important in getting that same texture and flavor I

Cut my chicken up to look like Saku pieces and put them in a ziplock bag I then added 1 cup of water and then 1/2 cup of Kikkoman low-sodium soy sauce this is pretty important I’ve had some really salty dishes using regular soy sauce in the past 1/8 cup of rice wine

And 1 teaspoon of garlic powder one and a quarter teaspoon of white pepper and 1 teaspoon of baking soda and then you just use a quarter cup of any high fat oil you have you can use sesame avocado canola whatever you like as tempted as

You are to shake this bag don’t make the same mistakes that I did there’s a baking soda in here and you know science so just give it a light massage so that all the flavors come together and leave that to marinate overnight so it’s the next day and our Saku

Craving is at an all-time high so it’s time to mix our sauce I’m about to give a lesson on how not to make a soft base off of a recipe I found on reddit so pay close attention we’re gonna fix this later on we’re gonna start off making this sauce in a bowl

Which is the first mistake add 1 cup of chicken stock 4 tablespoons of teriyaki sauce 4 tablespoons of brown sugar an apprehensive tablespoon of low-sodium soy sauce a teaspoon of chopped garlic a teaspoon of grated ginger and a tablespoon of cornstarch whisked in for consistency now the secret here is to

Pour one large craft beer and just start chugging that because this sauce is gonna be super mediocre once you get a good swig in you can start searing your chicken and your biggest flattest pan or on a griddle if you got one add the mediocre sauce to a sauce pan to start

Reducing and use your fields to see when the chicken is brown enough to flip when it’s got a nice brown crust on both sides take it out add a little sauce to that hot pan and start scraping off the brown bits with a plastic spoon or spatula take some udon noodles these are

Available in the Asian section of most grocery stores and also in Asian specialty stores and break those up into there and stir them around until they start to look saucy and shining add a little bit more sauce because you know how it is then get ready to serve course

Once I started making this video I went out to get footage of Sarco and tried their version of the dish and of course because I’m a bit extra I got their classic black styrofoam box to serve this in so I just lay down a heaping

Dump of these udon noodles top it with a huge scoop of chicken a fat close up pour of extra sauce and then I break up a toothpick and stab it randomly through this container for authenticity because that’s how as you can see these two dishes look really really similar I’ll admit I got

Hungry and ate most of the chicken out of the real star ku on the left but you get the point now for the taste test and yeah theirs is better I mean don’t get me wrong this is a solid option and everything is texturally perfect and the chicken and the noodles are both

Delicious but the sauce needs some work sar ku has this sweet savoriness and depth the flavor that is just missing here but not to worry I’m gonna take these off to the side have my way with them slug this beer and contemplate how I can make this recipe right gonna make

This sauce the right way we’re going to need to start off with a pan over low heat and then add up some of our sesame oil to that and a little bit of chopped garlic once that starts to brown and smell good we’re gonna add some chopped

Ginger until it’s fragrant then add a glug of chicken broth three tablespoons of brown sugar and we’re going to add in the glug of teriyaki sauce right here the less healthy glug of soy sauce some of that rice wine and then we’re gonna add some cornstarch mixed with water

That’s all whisk together and make sure you spill that on your burner because that is just so great for cleaning and then the secret ingredient to get that same sweet stickiness that’s our KU Japan has is two tablespoons of honey this is really important and this made

The recipe so much better then we’re just gonna sear off our chicken until it’s nice and brown adding some of that sauce while it’s cooking add some more of the sauce because you know how it is put that to the side and do the same process with your noodles

Where you add the sauce let it reduce scrape off those nice brown bits on the bottom bring up your noodles and get them nice and shiny I didn’t know we were gonna be doing this two times so I didn’t have the black Styrofoam containers lying around but I just use

These latte mugs to present these nicely add in the noodles then our beautiful chicken and then of course to slow-mo scoops of that sauce this was honestly delicious it definitely hit the star ku spot and the sauce was a much better consistency than the first night but I’m

Biased here so just take the word of my biggest critic so as you could probably hear in my surprise really I was so stoked with how this dish came out and the fact that Mitch said that is a big sign at the quality of this dish because

She does not tolerate any BS she she always tells me when something’s wrong when it’s too salty and she doesn’t like it so I can promise you that this is a dish that your family will stand behind and I hope you guys enjoy it I hope you’re staying safe during this crazy

Time and I hope to see you in the next video so take care of yourselves and keep living an awesome life