Chef John’s Caramel Chicken

I’ve been making this dish for years and both of my children absolutely love it! I leave out the jalapeños for them but otherwise, follow the recipe as written. Delicious!

Watching the video and comparing how much liquid I had – seems measurements might be off in recipe. He had FAR less liquid in pan. Agree with others – omit the water. I’m je doesn’t say if the sugar should be packed. I had a hard time getting to syrup stage. Could be two things – 1) sugar was supposed to have been jacked or 2) I didn’t siens enough time dissolving the sugar with whisk so when I added the first 1/3 cup it had more liquid than sugar (sugar would have sunk to bottom of bowl). Took more than twice as long to get to syrup stage. I was cooking in my le creuset. It eventually got almost there but not quite. Again- way more liquid in my pan than his. After adding remaining liquid it took a little longer than recipe stayed to get to caramélisation. I would say totally caramelized but close. This is a very sweet dish on its own. I think when I serve over rice it will be perfect and that will cut some sweetness. It’s a bit sweet for my taste but I’m making this for others who I think will love it. The flavors are there. Just a tad sweet but again – it’s caramélisés chicken what do you expect lol. I’ve cooked at least thirty chef John recipes. All 5 star. I’ve never had issues with technique before. His recipes are foolproof. This one is a bit trickier. This is why I’m giving 4 stars. I’d say my cooking level is quite advanced and I got tripped up a bit but adjusted on the fly. Luckily chicken thighs are forgiving as mine needed much more time.

Delicious!

It came out perfect! Thank you for posting the video as well!

WOW!! This was one of the best dishes I’ve ever cooked for myself. And I’m no slouch in the kitchen. This is a fantastic recipe and one that can easily be altered to fit your tastes. I’m rather sensitive to fish sauce for some reason. I find it very potent, even in smaller quantities. But in this dish I was able to alter it (1/2 of what recipe calls for and replaced with same amount of additional soy sauce) to where it gave the dish that little bit of umami deliciousness without it being overpowering for me. I couldn’t stop shoveling this into my face, it was that good.

I’m a huge fan of Chef John’s. I came across this recipes years after I followed the originator, Chef Chan relate this scrumptious dish on a local tv she show. At that time I wanted to replicate the amazing looking dish from repeated by the work renowned chef from the infamous “Slanted Door” restaurant. Finding the specific sugar and cooking vessel was a challenge, but I followed the instructions as best as I could and loved the results. However, due to the challenges of sourcing the specific ingredients I found myself only making this dish one other time. I decided a few years later I was up to the challenge once more when I stumbled across This recipe. I use many of Cuef John’s recipes so I decided I would try the s one and it looked straight forward with easier everyday ingredients, no special cookware needed. He added peanuts that is not original to the recipe so decided to skip for a personal reason and I noticed some broccoli in my fridge and decided it would be a great addition to the dish and boy was I glad! I added the chopped broccoli during the last 6 minutes of cooking. It turned out better than expected and added an additional depth of flavor. Superb addition, akin to beef with broccoli. Loved it!

Delicious! Though I admit I used some caramel fish sauce I had from a SLT class (for shrimp I think) and I used bone in, skin on thighs (it’s what was available at the grocery store yesterday). Served it with steamed basmati rice and asparagus. Can’t wait for leftovers and to make it by the actual recipe!

This recipe is amazing!!! Delicious! I followed the recipe exactly. I read a few reviews that said don’t add the water the recipe calls for. Too late. My husband made the sauce and had already added the water. So I read another review that said boil the chicken & sauce for 10 – 15 minutes. We did that and it carmelized beautifully. We aren’t great cooks, and we’re surprised when it carmelized so perfectly. Delicious recipe!! Another winner from Chef John!

Wow! This was restaurant quality! I think it was the fish sauce that gave the sauce real depth of taste. We loved the sauce so much I’m going to try the recipe again tonight using thin sliced round steak I bought for a different recipe. Loved this!

A little too sweet for my taste (although my kids had no complaints!), I’ll cut back on the brown sugar to 1/2 c. next time. Definitely will be making this again.

Very good but next time I’ll use less sugar. Only thing that I changed was the rice vinegar. I used a mix of white wine and vinegar. It was sweet but the flavors were on point!

This was really good and pretty easy to make. I did not have dark brown sugar so I used light brown sugar. It didn’t get to a syrupy consistency, maybe because of that. Next time I will use the dark brown. But even so, very yummy. I think I would leave some jalapeno seeds in next time for a little more heat, but for those of you that don’t like hot dishes, taking out the seeds works to give it a little jalapeno flavor without the heat.

I have been a devout student of cChef John’s for a year now….man taught me to cook at 48 years old…..I have cooked 100 of his recipes and this was in the top 3…..easy and good!!!!

This recipe makes a delicious sauce. I made this twice as per the recipe and the third time I altered the technique. It is all about the caramel here folks. I cooked down all of the brown sugar mixture first until all of it became a thick bubbly very hot caramelized syrup. Then I threw the chicken into the syrup to cook it. I got a much thicker, coated mahogany chicken than the original recipe.

So, I made this and should probably upload my own recipe because I cut all of the heat out of it and the 11 and 7 year old kids loved it. Early on it seemed like a lot of fish sauce but even without the heat my kids loved it. As far as I am concerned, if you change a recipe that much it becomes your own. Stand by for my version!

The best Asian inspired dish I have made! I followed the recipe except that I totally forgot to buy green onions so couldn’t add them at the end but the flavor was still great. I cut the jalapeno down to one for our taste but next time I will probably add them both. A dark non-stick pan or wok would brown the meat better as I had to switch to my wok after I couldn’t get the sauce to caramelize.

Really delicious. Watching the video was incredibly helpful.

Delicious! Very salty. Relatively easy, too, after the prep is done. Next time I will put the green onions in when the dish is completely finished cooking, to keep them more crisp.

His best recipe. Everyone loves it.

Next time I would cook the chicken for awhile longer before adding the first bit of sauce as my chicken *sigh* had a lot of water it released which made carmelizing the sauce take a LOT longer and it was more challenging to brown the chicken. The flavor was wonderful! I may substitute the jalapeño for another pepper or even just red pepper flakes, but overall, YUM!

Everyone loved it!!! I doubled the soy sauce and added red peppers to it. Delicious!