Honey Bourbon Chicken is an easy one-pot meal full of bold flavors. This dish is perfect for a weeknight meal!
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This dish is so much easier than you would think and is way better than takeout. The chicken is coated in cornstarch, which leaves it only lightly breaded and perfectly thickens the sweet and spicy sauce.
Cooking with Bourbon
While this isn't a Southern dish by any means, there's nothing more Southern than bourbon. We use bourbon like it's vanilla extract in baked goods and add it to hearty meat dishes like this one to bring complexity to the flavors. Here are some of our favorite cooking with bourbon recipes:
- Bacon Bourbon Cheeseburger
- Banana Bread Bundt Cake with Bourbon Glaze
- Bourbon Peppercorn Sauce for Steak
- Banana Buttermilk Pancakes with Pecans
- Maple Bourbon Butternut Squash
- Bacon Bourbon Jam
- Mint Julep Ice Cream
- Maple Bacon Bourbon Glaze
Ingredients and Substitutions
To make our honey bourbon chicken, we used boneless chicken thighs and tossed the pieces in a mixture of cornstarch, salt, and pepper.
The sauce is a mixture of orange juice, bourbon, soy sauce, honey, rice vinegar, garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes.
If you don't have fresh ginger around, you can substitute the 2 teaspoons of fresh ginger for ½ teaspoon of ground ginger.
Also, feel free to adjust the quantity of red pepper flakes to meet your family's spice preferences.
The vegetables we used were a bag of mixed Asian stir fry veggies from the produce section of the grocery store. You could also use frozen vegetables or pick and choose your own vegetables like broccoli, baby carrots, and red bell peppers.
See recipe below for quantities.
How to make Honey Bourbon Chicken
You're going to start out by cutting your chicken thighs into bite-sized pieces. Toss the pieces with a mixture of cornstarch, salt, and pepper to give the chicken a thin coating. This will help thicken the sauce later, too!
Heat up half of your vegetable oil over medium high heat in a large skillet. Add half the chicken and cook until it becomes golden brown on all sides. Remove to a plate, add the rest of your vegetable oil to the pan, and repeat with the remaining chicken. Set it all aside.
Next cook your vegetables right in the same pan. You'll be cooking them for about 5 minutes, so use this time to whip up your sauce with the remaining ingredients.
Once the vegetables are tender-crisp, add the sauce to the pan and let it come to a boil. Then, lower the heat and add the chicken back to the pan. Stir it gently for about 3 minutes until the sauce thickens and coats the chicken.
Serve it over white or brown rice and garnish with green onions and sesame seeds!
Storage
This dish will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days. We have not tried freezing it, so if you do let us know how it goes!
For a quick and fun look at this recipe be sure to check out the Google Web Story.
📖 Recipe
Honey Bourbon Chicken
Ingredients
- 2 lb boneless chicken thighs cut into bite-sized pieces
- ½ cup cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- ½ cup orange juice
- ¼ cup bourbon
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- ¼ cup honey
- 2 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 2 teaspoon ginger grated
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 12 oz Asian stir fry vegetables fresh
- white rice cooked, for serving
- green onions for garnish
- sesame seeds for garnish
Instructions
- Toss the chicken thigh pieces, cornstarch, salt and pepper in a medium bowl.
- Heat 2 tablespoon oil over medium high heat in a large skillet.
- Cook chicken in 2 batches turning until golden brown on all sides. Add the remaining oil for the second batch. Remove chicken to a plate and set aside.
- Cook vegetables in the same pan until tender-crisp (about 5 minutes).
- While vegetables are cooking, mix remaining ingredients in a small bowl.
- When vegetables are cooked, add the sauce to the pan and bring to a boil. Lower heat and add chicken back to the pan.
- Stir gently until sauce is thickened and coats chicken, about 3 minutes.
- Serve over rice and garnish with green onions and sesame seeds.
Notes
- Any vegetables may be substituted
- Dried ginger may be substituted for fresh
- Red pepper flakes can be adjusted for heat preference
Nutrition
More one dish meals
Holley says
This chicken is absolutely amazing! I love that it's an easy, one-pot meal and the whole family loved it!
Sharon says
I am adding this honey bourbon chicken to the easy dinner recipe rotation! It had lots of flavor from the sauce.
Gina Abernathy says
This chicken is fabulous! This is on our weeknight rotation menu for the next few months. Full of flavor.
Sara Welch says
Enjoyed this for dinner last night and it was a savory success! Loved all the balance of flavors and textures; easily, a new favorite recipe!