Teriyaki Chicken - 4 Ways to Prepare!

By Addie

Toss the take-out menu this week and enjoy this simple dinner! The leftovers are fabulous after they sit in their sweet and tangy lip-smacking sauce over night!

Something is always cooking in our home. And one thing that I make once a month is a very large amount of white rice that I cool and freeze in portioned out plastic freezer bags. It’s a life saver and makes something special out of a recipe using simply chicken and a great sauce!


I linked this recipe to a “Baked Teriyaki Chicken” recipe that uses chicken thighs. For this posting today, I adapted the recipe for the Pressure Cooker. It speeds up the cooking time and infuses the chicken with tons of flavor. You could also use this recipe in your slow cooker and adapt the cooking time accordingly - see below. And you could also simmer this on the stovetop - So you’ll have no excuse for preparing this - Bake, Slow Cook, Pressure Cook or Simmer!

I made a couple additions to the sauce - there are several variations of homemade teriyaki sauce out there - so use what you prefer. If you are using the pressure cooker (or a slow cooker) - don’t add the cornstarch/water slurry until the chicken is done cooking - follow along.


For the sauce - I simply heated everything in the pot of my pressure cooker. Here’s what I used:

Ingredients

• SAUCE:
• 1/2 cup brown sugar (instead of white sugar)
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons dry sherry
• 2 cloves garlic, minced (instead of 1 clove)
• 1 teaspoon minced ginger ‘paste’ (comes in a jar that once opened you refrigerate, and used in place of ground ginger)
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• Pinch red pepper flakes
• ..................................
• Chicken breasts

Preparation

Step 1

I heated the sauce and then simply added my chicken breasts to the cooker. I then locked the lid in place and brought the cooker up to high pressure (over high heat).

Once pressure had been reached, I set the timer for 6 minutes. My pressure cooker chart that came with my cooker suggests 8 minutes for chicken breasts - my chicken breasts were about 4-5 oz each instead of 6 oz, so I adjusted the cooking time. See how nicely the flavors got into the chicken in only 6 minutes!

Once the 6 minutes were up, I allowed the pressure to release naturally - by turning the burner off and waiting for the pressure indicator to drop.


I then removed the chicken from the pot and started to thicken the sauce. I made a slurry of 1 tablespoon corn starch with 1 tablespoon cold water. I added the slurry and brought the sauce up to a boil. I simmered it until it was thick - and just for a touch of added sweetness, added about 1 tablespoon of honey (completely optional).

If you were doing this in your slow cooker - I find chicken breasts cook through in 4 hours on low heat. Once the 4 hours are up and the chicken is cooked - remove from the crock and place the sauce in a pan and continue with the recipe like I did when adapting to the pressure cooker.


If you were doing this on the stovetop - I would make the sauce like the linked recipe states and cube the chicken first and saute. Once the chicken is almost cooked through, add the sauce and simmer until cooked through.

Back to the Pressure Cooker ... Once the chicken was cool enough to cut into bite-size pieces, I added it back to the sauce and heated.


Then serve over rice or noodles - along with your steamed vegetable of choice. Garnish with thin green onion slices and serve! ENJOY!!