This is an updated version of one of my earliest and most popular recipes. This chicken is fast, easy, delicious and historically significant!
This is absolutely delicious and very easy to make. I made sure to use a cast iron skillet as I don't think the flavor would be quite there with a non-stick or thin pan. Used red peppers in mine as the other are not readily available to me. Boyfriend loved it. Recommend to watch the video, to make sure you really "stay brave" and properly get the chicken caramelized :) - Will make this again and again! Thank you Chef John!
Read MoreAll the flavors are there but the saltiness overpowered everything and spoiled the dish.The only change I made was to cut back the heat. I used less hot sauce and substituted red peppers for the hot ones. The chicken was well caramalized and very tasty at that point.
Read MoreThis is absolutely delicious and very easy to make. I made sure to use a cast iron skillet as I don't think the flavor would be quite there with a non-stick or thin pan. Used red peppers in mine as the other are not readily available to me. Boyfriend loved it. Recommend to watch the video, to make sure you really "stay brave" and properly get the chicken caramelized :) - Will make this again and again! Thank you Chef John!
Delish! Yum! I left out the chili peppers (had to be careful for the other eater in my house) and the cilantro (didn't have it on hand), but otherwise I followed the recipe. I used a packet of boneless skinless chicken thighs from Costco which came to a pound, so I cut the recipe in half. It was wonderful. I've made the original Caramel Chicken before, so I knew this would be great. I highly recommend watching all of Chef John's videos if you are making something for the first time! Thanks, Chef!
Wow. I made this exactly as directed and it knocked my socks off. This will definitely be on my favorite list - just right spicy, full of flavor, beautiful to look at. My 12 year old granddaughter was with us for dinner and she declared that this was going to be her new favorite for her birthday dinner. The trick really is letting the chicken get really really brown. You might think it is getting overdone, but don't be afraid - it will turn out so well
This is delicious. I've made it several times now for guests and they've all raved about it, and it's my boyfriend's favorite dish that I make for him. I follow the recipe without any changes, however I do find that I have to cook it for quite a bit longer than 8-10 minutes for the chicken to begin to caramelize.
This is great, didn't change anything and saw where others suggested to let the chicken cook the 8-10 minutes to get the caramel type coating. So just watch your temp and it will make a nice coating on the chicken.
Oh my gosh! Are you kidding me? This is so delicious! Don't change a thing... Chef John is da man!
All the flavors are there but the saltiness overpowered everything and spoiled the dish.The only change I made was to cut back the heat. I used less hot sauce and substituted red peppers for the hot ones. The chicken was well caramalized and very tasty at that point.
This is so incredibly tasty, and not super time consuming. I had also tried Chef John's older version of Caramel Chicken and loved it, but I think this one somehow absorbed the sweet and spicy flavors even better. Great!!!
Made according to the directions. I've never made a recipe from Chef John that I wasn't able to give 5 stars. My children, ages 2-9, all ate seconds. Served
HEE HAW! Oh boy, this is spicy! I used peppers from my garden, seeded and deveined. Sriracha for the hot sauce in the marinade. Sinus clearing but really good. Make sure to have plenty of rice to accompany this. Chef John has a recipe on this site, 'Caramel Chicken' that is similar without the extreme heat.
This recipe has flavor! Often times when I come across recipes for stir fry types they are really bland. My spouse and I enjoy a lot of flavor and heat! My changes - I used 4 jalapenos instead of 2. Also, I didn't have cilantro or green onions on hand so I used what I had which was a yellow onion. Totally worked! The next time I make it I will double the marinade so that we have more to add to rice for leftovers. Also I see others recommend using cast iron - I didn't but now I see why they suggested it. Yes, use cast iron if you have it.
OMG Chef John, this was just fantastic! Although I rarely divert from your recipes because they are so marvelous, I added some shitake mushrooms and this was terrific. Thank you!
My difficult to please family LOVED this! A definite add to our meal plans. My only feedback is that it seemed a tiny bit heavy on the ginger and I may cut back next time.
Although I had less than a lb of chicken, I kept the sauce amounts as listed. The chicken was carmelized, but it was SO dry and not a pleasure to eat. The sauce, although delicious, was WAY too salty, as Granny also mentioned. My soy sauce was low sodium (only 1 tsp anyway), but the fish sauce had 1360mg of sodium in a tblsp (and at 1/3 cup) - yikes! No wonder it was salty. I used a regular red pepper, and it worked fine. Sorry, but I don't think I'll make this again.
This was very tasty but not as spicy as we like it. Will have to try it with Thai peppers instead of jalapeños and add more siracha. The only change I made from the recipe this time was to use boneless chicken breasts instead of thighs as we prefer them.
I’ve been making the original version for years. I love both versions. I made this new version in my cast iron skillet like chef John does, it took me an hour to get the sugar that caramelized onto the bottom of the skillet cleaned out. I’m not sure what I did wrong, but I won’t prepare this again in my cast iron skillet. Chef John is by far the best chef on the internet. Thank you Chef John for so many delicious recipes.
Pei Wei used to have this dish on their menu and I adored it. I craved it so often after they'd removed it from their menu, so I'm extremely happy I came across this recipe. It's amazing and basically identical, except the Pei Wei version was lightly breaded. It's going in my menu rotation.
I didn't have all of the ingredients on hand and was trying to get rid of a few things, so I modified (like I do with most recipes). I'd never use 3/4 cup of brown sugar in a small recipe, so I cut it down to less than 1/4 of a cup, and it was plenty sweet enough, so to make it healthier, I'd recommend cutting down the amount of sugar. It's still great without it. I didn't have fish sauce, so used half soy sauce and half rice wine vinegar. Can use low sodium soy sauce to cut down on the sodium and make it healthy. I didn't have green onions, I used leeks instead. We also used jalapenos, red chilis, and some green and red bell peppers as well. Plus, we used a small head of broccoli and red onion as well. We did steam the broccoli before putting in and cooked the veggies a little longer than recommended. Again, the basic flavor was great place to start!
I have made Chef John’s Carmel Chicken (5 stars) several times but this came up as a suggestion so I made it tonight. I honestly can’t tell the difference between the two recipes but maybe that’s because we like spicy food and I always used 2 jalapeños in the other one. Personally, I think 1/3 cup of fish sauce is too much and makes it fishier tasting than I care far so I only used 2 tbsp. Besides using low sodium soy sauce, I followed the rest of the recipe. I did not have an issue with it being too salty. It has lots of great sweet and spicy flavor. Served over jasmine rice.
Beyond delicious! I found the video helpful, mentioned not to take off the chicken before it carmelizes.
Gorgeous recipe as written. The only thing I'd warn is make sure you use a cast iron skillet. Mine is only 10 inches, so the chicken didn't all lay flat in the pan and it took longer, 20+ mins. Plus my husband was late so I just kept it caramelizing on medium, adding slashes of water or sauce so it didn't burn. The flavor was very deep, complex, and caramel-y this way. The two of us ate it all and wanted more!
Chicken was rubbery (I used breasts) so I guess I cooked it too long. There was too much liquid in with the breasts so they didn't sear/carmelize for a while. Too spicy.
Followed the recipe to the letter, and it was fantastic! Next time, I'd cut the brown sugar a bit, but it had amazing flavor.
Wow! I love Asian inspired dishes and I have to admit that this dish is going down as one of my all time favorites. The ratios of strong ingredients are so well balanced that none of them is overpowering. It's a great portion size for 2-4 healthy portions, making it perfect for date night. Thanks Chef John!
Excellent taste. I've made this twice and will certainly make it again. My teenagers love it. I use a non stick pan and find that it takes more like 15 min for the chicken to caramelize and brown. Make sure the pan and oil are smoking hot (as directed) before adding the chicken. Suggest making lots of rice. After a day it two in the frig the leftover rice will make a great fried rice.
3.5 stars. I made it as written without any changes, my husband liked it better than I did. I did like the amount of spice/heat though, we like things hot. I don't know if I would make this one again, I think there are better recipes. Clean up to the pan was a pain afterwards, even with a non-stick pan. The caramelization of the chicken resulted in hard, stuck on caramelization on my pan also.
It was amazingly good, definitely gonna be a staple now. We used chicken breasts instead of thighs, used a red bell pepper and some Thai bird chili pepper for more of a kick instead of jalapeño, and we added some mushrooms we had left. Spices exactly the same, it was amazing as is. And it makes for easy leftovers! I will be making this again!
I followed the recipe exactly! And it was delicious! Next time I will add a bit less fish sauce, it was a bit salty for me. But I believe that is a brand issue not a recipe issue.
Another Chef John winner. The flavors came together very well. Loved the peanuts.
Very tasty. I usually stay close to the recipe, first time I make something. I didn't have peanuts on hand, so I used some broken/pieces of Cashews instead. To me, it was just spicy enough, without having to have a pitcher of ice water, tableside. If I imagined myself at a Thai restaurant, I'd say this rated 3 - 3.5 star spiciness. I took him literally on the HIGH heat (8/10), and used a 10" cast iron pan but next time I think I'll drop the heat a few points...be careful! I will make this again
This dish is amazing. The one change I would recommend to others is to pour all the sauce on the chicken before cooking, and then pour all of the sauce in the pan with the chicken when you start cooking. I have made the dish both ways and using all the sauce at once is significantly better (but the dish is good either way). Also, as always, double the garlic
I made it as is and it tasted perfectly like a very good Vietnamese restaurant dish!
I was thoroughly impressed, and I can’t wait to impress guests with this one.
Good, but perhaps just not to my taste. (I normally LOVE Chef John's recipes. Seriously, is he married...?) Anyway, I felt it was a little too salty, and a little to 'thin'. I tried cooking it for about 3 times as long, but just couldn't get it to that nice, gooey consistency that sticks to the chicken and rice.
Made this according to the recipe except for the peanuts. Fast, easy and delicious!!! It's a new family favorite. Thanks Chef John for another keeper.
So, I hate cooking; like truly do not enjoy it at all. But my partner and I have gotten super sick of all our standbys, so I downloaded this app and tried 2 recipes. The first one I tried was a disaster, so when I was angrily making this one (legit, it was some of the grumpiest cooking you ever saw), I didn't have much hope it would be any good. I had never used fish sauce and I was afraid it was going to be fishy, I accidentally added the vegetable oil directly into the sauce, I hate measuring and I'm messy; effectively I was blowing up the kitchen, expecting the worst, and vowing never to cook again. To my surprise, we sat down to eat and it wasn't terrible! In fact, it was pretty darn delicious! Honestly, it was one of the first times in my life I made something new and felt genuinely thrilled with the results. Which is both great and terrible because now I don't have to give up cooking.
the fish sauce was a little strong, so i had to add some ingrdients to tone it down. added snow peas at the end to have more vegetables. used siracha in place of hot sauce.
All of Chef John's recipes are spot-on amazing, but this one is by far the family favorite!
