Honey garlic chicken dinner recipe in two bowls ready to be eaten.

We’ve been on such an easy dinner recipe kick lately and our Honey Garlic Chicken fits right into that category! We love how quickly this recipe comes together, the simple ingredient list and that it all results in a super delicious and flavorful dish!

There are some asian notes in this dish for sure, but the honey is the real stand out in this recipe. Don’t worry though, this honey garlic chicken isn’t overly sweet and the flavor balances out nicely with the garlic, sesame and soy sauce.

How to Make Our Honey Garlic Chicken

MARINATED CHICKEN

Place chicken into a large bowl and add remaining chicken marinade ingredients.
Stir together until evenly combined. Allow mixture to sit for 15 minutes.

Marinating chicken for honey garlic chicken recipe.

Chicken marinating in a glass bowl to make honey garlic chicken.

HONEY-GARLIC SAUCE

Stir together all sauce ingredients. Set aside

Honey garlic sauce ingredients in a bowl to be mixed up.

COOKING AND ASSEMBLY

Honey garlic chicken garnish ingredients.

Place a large sauté pan over medium-high heat and melt butter.
Add chicken and sauté for 4 to 5 minutes.

Melted butter in a skillet to make honey garlic chicken.

Chicken cooking in a skillet to make honey garlic chicken.

Pour sauce over chicken, lower heat to medium and stir together.
Simmer mixture for 4 to 5 minutes or until sauce thickens enough to coat chicken.

Honey garlic chicken in a skillet cooking.

Honey garlic chicken in a skillet with a spoon.

Remove from heat and top with sesame seeds and green onion. Serve.

Close up on one bowl of honey garlic chicken.

Tools You Will Need

Can this Honey Garlic Chicken be Made with a Different Protein?

Absolutely! While we prefer using cubed chicken thighs for our honey garlic chicken, you can use whole thighs, (cubed or whole) chicken breasts, salmon, tofu, pork, and shrimp! The cooking times will vary depending on the protein and cute you use, but the method will almost always be the same.

Just note that for seared salmon, there’s no need to coat the salmon in the cornstarch, garlic mixture to begin with. Just give the salmon a nice sprinkle of salt and pepper, sear for a minute or two on each side before pulling it from the pan to make the sauce. Once this sauce has slightly thickened, add the salmon back into the pan and simmer, flipping once or twice to really get the entire piece of fish coated in delicious honey-garlic sauce!

Honey garlic chicken dinner recipe with sesame seeds and green onions.

What to Serve with Our Honey Garlic Chicken?

We love serving this dish over some steamed rice and usually next to some vegetables (like roasted broccoli, green beans, cauliflower, etc), but you can also serve it with cauliflower rice, kimchi fried rice, garlic noodles, chow mein, and macaroni salad just to name a few!

Can this Dish be Made Ahead of Time?

Yes! While we love enjoying this dish fresh, you can make it up to 2 days ahead of time, stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator. When ready to enjoy, just pour it into a skillet and heat over medium heat, stirring occasionally until heated through. If the dish gets too thick add 1 to 2 tablespoons water to thin it out.

Alternatively, you can also prep all the ingredients out up to 2 days ahead of time and store in the refrigerator until ready to use. This will save you about 10 to 15 minutes of prep work, so when you’re ready to cook, that’s really all you have to do since everything will already to chopped, minced and prepped.