How to Make Chicken Teriyaki, Straight from Seattle | Cook’s Country

Bryan Roof shows Julia Collin Davison how to make chicken teriyaki, inspired by his visit to Toshi’s Teriyaki just outside of Seattle, Washington. For this preparation, Bryan purees garlic and ginger to add even more flavor to the soy sauce-based marinade. After getting a nice caramelizing char on the grill, the juicy and tender chicken is served with teriyaki dipping sauce atop fluffy white rice.

Seattle Chicken Teriyaki Recipe: https://cooks.io/4fqVJkx

00:00 Chicken Teriyaki Sauce
01:58 Marinating Chicken
03:05 Grilling The Chicken
05:51 Plating The Teriyaki Chicken

Subscribe to America’s Test Kitchen: https://youtube.com/@AmericasTestKitchen?sub_confirmation=1 ​

Watch full episodes of America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country for free on our new YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@ATKFullEpisodes

Get exclusive access to every recipe, review, and more via our homepage: https://cooks.io/4fq5cbX

Sign up for our free newsletters to receive more delicious recipes, cooking tips, and exclusive content: https://cooks.io/4m30X8v

Watch More! ​
In The Test Kitchen: https://youtube.com/watch?v=eLxup9tEP0M&list=PLnbzopdwFrnZsva37L040wy1u2RTOhqiF&pp=0gcJCWMEOCosWNin ​
The Taste Test: https://youtube.com/watch?v=SkqhwZqnA8s&list=PLnbzopdwFrnZ3usQguuxS2qWxlwj-9aN8 ​
Techniquely With Lan Lam: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnbzopdwFrnYyvwrqTB_5AhufdOMisGnF ​
Most Popular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2guC4Badq2s&list=PLnbzopdwFrnZcFFuiSDnaymlMCb9ANwC5

Follow America’s Test Kitchen: ​
Instagram: http://instagram.com/testkitchen ​
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/testkitchen ​
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@testkitchen?lang=en ​
Facebook: http://facebook.com/americastestkitchen ​
Twitter: http://twitter.com/testkitchen ​

The mission of America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) is to empower and inspire confidence, community, and creativity in the kitchen. Founded in 1992, the company is the leading multimedia cooking resource serving millions of fans with TV shows (America’s Test Kitchen, Cook’s Country, and America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation), magazines (Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country), cookbooks, a podcast (Proof), FAST channels, short-form video series, and the ATK Essential Membership for digital content. Based in a state-of-the-art 15,000-square-foot test kitchen in Boston’s Seaport District, ATK has earned the trust of home cooks and culinary experts alike thanks to its one-of-a-kind processes and best-in-class techniques. Fifty full-time (admittedly very meticulous) test cooks, editors, and product testers spend their days tweaking every variable to find the very best recipes, equipment, ingredients, and techniques.​

#AmericasTestKitchen #CookingTutorial #FoodScience​​

So, we’re going to begin by making our teriyak sauce in the same style as toshi. So, we have one cup of soy sauce. This is just regular granulated sugar. Half cup of sugar. Interesting. So, one cup of soy to half a cup of sugar. I know a lot of recipes use equal parts. So, this is substantially less sugar. Yeah. It’s a lot less sweet than a lot of versions out there. And that was one of the things that was offputting about some is that they can be very sweet. I didn’t like that. Yeah. And then two tablespoons of mirin, which is a slightly sweet Japanese rice wine. Just give it like a little boozy element. And we’re going to turn this on and bring it up to a boil over medium high heat. And that’s really just to dissolve the sugar. There’s not going to be any cornstarch that goes into this. We’re not going to make it thick and gloppy. The only thickness this is going to get is from that melted sugar. Interesting. So, we’ll just give this a whisk. Soon as this comes to a boil, the sugar’s dissolved. We’re going to set it off heat and let it cool down to room temperature. Then add it to a measuring cup and start using it in the rest of our recipe. Okay. Our teriyak sauce is cooled down and it yielded about 1 and 1/4 cups. We’re going to make our marinade with a portion of that teriyak. So, we’re just going to peel and smash five cloves of garlic. Smash this. Drop that in there. Next, we’re going to peel. This is a 2-in piece of ginger. I tend to just use a pairing knife. Uh, and just trim it off. Just trim it off like that. So, we’re just going to slice this thin. We’re going to drop that into our blender. Nice. And now, we’re going to use 3/4 cup of our teriyak sauce to make our marinade. And look at how viscous this is, you know, as it pours off the spoon. Yeah, almost like maple syrup. I was just going to say that. Got there before you did. So, I own that now. So, again, 3/4 of a cup is going in here. Okay. So, we’ll save the rest of this teriyak sauce for serving after we’ve grilled the chicken. So, we’re just going to process this for about 20 seconds until everything’s nice and homogeneous. Okay, looks good. You can smell it. Just perfume with ginger and garlic. You really smell the ginger. All right, now we’re going to marinate our chicken. So, when it comes to chicken and grilling, especially with chicken thighs, I’m not one for trimming it. Really? Yeah. I like when those bits of fat get nice and crispy on the grill. We’re going to marinate this in a zipperlock bag. This is three lbs of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. So, we’re going to take our marinade, just pour it into the bag here. You’re a very tidy cook, I have to say. There is not a drop out of place. Wait till the end. It’s going to be sauce all over our faces and all over our shirts. And then we can just pull the collar of the bag up and force the air out as you’re sealing it. Nice tight seal. Before you lay it on its side, you always want to kind of make sure that it is indeed sealed. And then I just kind of move it around. Flip it around a little bit. Make sure the marinade is touching all those pieces of chicken. Didn’t seem like very much marinade. It was only 3/4 of a cup, but it really gets in there once you start moving it around. Now, although the zipper lock bag looks like it’s sealed, I always take precaution when I’m putting it in the refrigerator. And I always put it inside of a bowl. Mhm. And we’re just going to refrigerate this for at least an hour. Okay. But I’m telling you, if you want it to be the best possible chicken, go for the full 24 hours. Okay. So, a whole day. Whole day. All right. So, we have six course of charcoal briquettes here. So, we’ll dump those in. Spread those into our charcoal grill here. I can feel it. It’s hot. They’ve been cooking down till they’ve got this nice layer of thin gray ash on top. Use our tongs to spread them around a little bit. We’re looking for a nice single level fire. Okay, that is really, really hot. It is. Now, the bottom grill vents are open so we get that nice flow of oxygen throughout the grill. We’ll drop in our grill grate, cover it, making sure our lid vent is fully open, and we’re going to let that grill grate heat up until it’s nice and hot. And takes about 5 minutes. It’s been 5 minutes. Our grill grate is nice and hot. Mhm. All right. We’re going to scrape that. Make sure it’s nice and clean. Then we’re just going to dip our paper towel into some oil and just give it a light brush to help the food not stick on the grill. All right, now we can grab our chicken and we start putting that on the grill. I like to start the chicken with the boned side down. It’s a gnarlier looking side as I like to get those crispy bits of odd shaped meat on the pure heat of the grill right when it’s still very very hot. Oh, I just got a whiff of teriyak sauce on charcoal. Yeah, man. That smells good. This is one of the most simple and delicious recipes I think we’ve ever done. All right. So, that’s it. We’re all set there. We’re going to let it cook uncovered for about 6 minutes until the underside gets nice and charred. All right. All right. It’s been about 6 minutes. We could take a look at some of our chicken here. See how it’s nicely charred there? That’s gorgeous. Yeah, those nicely charred pieces we want to flip. If they’re not nicely charred, let them go for another couple minutes. Like this one’s perfect right here. here. Perfection. All right, so we will flip these over. We’ll let this chicken continue to cook for another 6 to 8 minutes or so until it hits at least 175° and it’s nicely charred on that second side. Okay, Julia, it’s been about 6 minutes on the second side here. Those are gorgeous. Nicely charred, nicely brown. So, we just want to temp them and make sure they’re getting at least 175°. So, you can see that the thighs have like a thin part in the middle and like thicker sides on the ends. So, we want to go into one of those thicker sides and get at least 175. And here we’re at 176. Perfect. So, now we can just take them off the grill. We’ll showcase that smooth side. That is picture perfect chicken. Really good chicken. All right. And our final piece of chicken. M. Taps it off at the end there. So, that chicken looks great. We need to let it rest for 5 minutes. And we’re going to do that underneath a little bit of foil to trap the heat. All right. Best part of the day, right? Oh. All right. Let’s slice a few pieces for us. When you order it, it comes sliced. Yes. Comes ready to go in a styrofoam container. Ready to eat on the go? Yes. With rice and kleslaw. M. All right. Can I uh sauce you up? Sauce me. This, you know, was the litmus test for a lot of the places I went to. How good is the sauce? It’s like a little bit of a glaze, but then it’s soaking down into the rice. All right. Well, cheers. Yeah. Cheers. Mhm. That is good teriyak. The flavor is in the chicken. It’s not just on top. That’s the marinating. And it’s balanced. It’s not too sweet. I really I make a teriyak at home for my family. This is so much better. Mine is too sweet. This You can taste the chicken. You can taste the garlic and the ginger and the soy. Yeah. And I especially like that since you have a little bit of that teriyak in the marinade. The chicken is quick to char, you know, get those little burnt bits, especially the fatty bits, which if you dig into the corners of that chicken, those fatty bits are are where it’s at. For full episodes of your favorite cooking shows, head over to ATK’s full episodes channel on YouTube. You can stream complete seasons of America’s Test Kitchen, Cooks Country, and more. See you there.