Teriyaki Chicken

Teriyaki chicken is one of those dishes that my mom made regularly when I was growing up. And it was one dish that no one at the table complained about. Maybe that’s why she served it so often. Of course, in those days, you made it with a dish of chicken and half a bottle of Kikkoman teriyaki sauce. I’m not sure that many people in the 80’s were whipping up their own teriyaki sauce at home.

Even so, the smell of this dish cooking was kind of nostalgic for me. And my kiddos ate it up just like I did when I was a kid. Like almost all of the recipes in Fix, Freeze, Feast, it comes together with very little fuss. Cook up some rice and toss together some veggies and you have dinner on the table.

Teriyaki Chicken

Source: Fix, Freeze, Feast by Kati Neville and Lindsay Tkacsik

Grocery List

• 7 pounds (or 16 pieces) chicken thighs on the boneskin removed
• 1 cup soy sauce
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 Tbs vegetable oil
• 3 tsp minced garlic (about 9 cloves)
• 3 tsp minced ginger
• 3 one-gallon freezer bags labeled

1. Rinse and divide chicken evenly among freezer bags.

2. Combine, stirring until sugar is dissolved, soy sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, and oil in a small bowl. Divide the marinade evenly over the chicken. Into each bag measure 1 teaspoon garlic and 1 teaspoon ginger.

I used 1/2 cup of honey instead of the brown sugar, and I used rice vinegar instead of the red wine vinegar just as a matter of flavor preference. It occurred to me as I was mixing this up that this recipe could be adapted to be GAPS friendly. If you want to make this a’ la GAPS, use tamari soy sauce, which is naturally brewed and fermented and is gluten free, replace the brown sugar with honey, and use coconut oil instead of vegetable oil. Voila! GAPS dinner for the whole family. I’m definitely tucking this recipe under my hat for when I’m able to have tamari.

3. Seal and freeze.

Bonus: this one doesn’t take up a lot of space in the freezer.

TO COOK:

1. Completely thaw one entree in the refrigerator.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

3. Place chicken in an ungreased baking dish. Bake, uncovered, for 1 hour, or until a meat thermometer reads 180 degrees. Turn pieces once or twice during baking. The longer the cooking time, the thicker and stickier the sauce will be.

If you use honey, your sauce won’t be quite as thick, but it will be just as yummy. I got distracted in the garden while this was baking and it went a few minutes too long. Caught it just before it started to burn!