For a quick, delectable, and entertaining lunch, chicken is marinated in a soy sauce, sake, and ginger sauce before being strung onto skewers and grilled with leeks.
| Prep Time: | 25 mins |
| Cook Time: | 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 45 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
| Yield: | 6 skewers |
Ingredients
- ½ cup sake
- ½ cup soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 1 (2 inch) piece fresh ginger root, grated
- 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast meat – cubed
- 3 leeks, white part only, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
Instructions
- In a medium dish, mix together the sake, soy sauce, sugar, garlic and ginger. Add chicken, and allow to marinate for 15 minutes.
- Preheat your oven’s broiler. Grease six metal skewers, and thread alternately with 3 pieces of chicken and 2 pieces of leek. Place on a baking sheet or broiling pan, and brush with the marinade.
- Broil for about 5 minutes, baste again, then broil for another 5 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Discard remaining marinade.
- The nutrition data for this recipe includes information for the full amount of the marinade ingredients. Depending on marinating time, ingredients, cooking method, etc., the actual amount of the marinade consumed will vary.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 159 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 12 g |
| Cholesterol | 44 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 20 g |
| Saturated Fat | 0 g |
| Sodium | 1261 mg |
| Sugars | 5 g |
| Fat | 1 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Really easy to make. Coconut liquid aminos and sugar substitute worked great. Very good flavor.
Used sweet soy sauce in lieu of sugar and it reminds me of Okinawa.
I had rave compliments for the yakitori chicken sticks I prepared. I didn’t have sake on hand so I substituted with white wine. The leftovers I broiled them in the oven and they came out perfect! Recipe was awesome!
This a very flavorful and simple dish to make. The marinade is very potent, so the meat does not need long to absorb the flavor. I let the chicken sit in the marinade for right at 15 minutes and it was PERFECT. I make this dish all the time and the whole family loves it, including my 3 year old!
Next time I’ll sub the sake with vinegar…
Great and easy recipe to follow; I doubled the recipe. I read all the reviews about the chicken being too salty from marinating overnight, so I just added an extra cup of water and it came out perfect when I broiled it the next day. I also skipped skewering the leeks because it kept breaking into small pieces when I put it on the skewer, so I just broiled the chicken skewers on top of the cut leeks and served it with it.
I’ve been making this yakitori chicken for about 8 years now. We love it as much as day one! And now my two boys (7 & 3) are wild for it, too. When I prepare this, I marinate for no more than 30 min. Learned the hard way on that. Much longer and the chicken is way too salty. We skip the leeks and serve it with Weight Watchers fried rice recipe.
I have made this recipe a few times and it always comes out perfect. I do everything as written except: I don’t use the leeks and we grill the skewers. It has a great flavor and the chicken comes out very tender. It’s terrific. I pair the leftovers with the Simple Spiced Rice from this site, add my favorite stir fry vegetables and make fried rice in my wok. Excellent. Thank you for the recipe!
Tried this today, followed as directed. It was delicious.
Very good! Will make it again! Thank you for sharing
This was really good! Juicy chicken, very flavorful – even the onions were tasty. I broiled them because it was too cold out and they turned out great – will def make again.
Instead of discarding the marinade, pour it into a little pot and cook to reduce until slightly syrupy, then serve a little over rice. Note: If it is too salty for your liking, add a little more sugar to balance the flavor.
Didn’t care for the combination of chicken, marinade, and leeks. The leeks didn’t cook up well and they couldn’t decide if they were going to be “onion”-ney or if they were going to try to mimic the flavor from the chicken.
Great recipe. Instead of putting in the oven, I put my skewers on the grill. I used bamboo skewers soaked in water since I don’t have metal ones.
My 12 yr old son prepared this last evening for a country report presentation for his classmates & parents. He had no problems following the recipe & everyone enjoyed it alot.
I made this recipe last night, but only had 1/4 cup of soy sauce, so the ginger was pretty over powering. I used the marinade as a dipping sauce to enhance the flavor of the Chicken. It didn’t taste much like the Yakitori you get in Japan, but was a nice change. I may try again with the correct amount of soy sauce, just to use up the Sake.
A great base recipe. I have made this a few times, and changed it each time..but the base as written is very close to the Japanese place that we enjoy. Highly recommended.
This was so good that my husband was asking me to make it again before we were even finished eating it. I didn’t have fresh ginger, so I used ground ginger, and it turned out very well.
I have also saved all of the marinade, put it on the stove bring to a boil(to kill off any bad chicken germs). Then added some cornstartch to thicken. Dunk or drizzle over the cooked skewers just before serving..yummy!..going to try them out on my Japanese friend tommorrow for s-bowl. We will see how a ‘expert’ rates them 🙂
really tasty!! dont over marinate i left it for 15 mins like instructed and it was perfect, any longer would have been too salty!i mite add little more ginger next time.
Great recipe, I make it all of the time! I make it without the leeks and cut the chicken into strips instead of cubes to make it more like the yakitori restaurants we have locally. Great summer grilling recipe too!