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Do you like the classic mahogany chicken? If so, you’ll love this recipe! It uses a combination of Coca-Cola, soy sauce, vinegar, ginger, and garlic to create a rich, creamy, and savory Asian sauce. The chicken is moist and tender, with an extra crispy skin. Prepping it only takes 5 minutes and the active cooking time is only 10 minutes. Serve this dish over steamed rice, boiled noodles or a baked potato with some greens, and you could easily serve 8 people with no fuss.
Cooking this dish is really easy. All you need to do is mix the sauce together, pour it onto the chicken, slowly cook it at a medium-low oven temperature, thicken the sauce, and then return the chicken to the oven and broil to char the skin.
I highly recommend you use bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs for this recipe, instead of chicken breasts. Do not worry about the skin. The slow cooking will fully render the fat so that the finished chicken will be light and clean-tasting. The fat will keep the meat moist during cooking, so it will remain juicy and tender. On step 7 of the recipe, you could choose to skim the fat and discard it. This way, the final broth won’t be greasy at all and will contain fewer calories.
On the other hand, if you do not mind the bits of ginger and garlic, and want a richer sauce, simply skip step 7 and thicken the sauce straight away.
You only need to thicken 1 cup of sauce to serve with the chicken thighs in this recipe, but don’t throw that extra sauce away! Save it in the fridge because it goes great with any type of chicken. You can also use the leftover sauce to cook this easy chicken chow mien.
Make sure you watch closely during the final broiling step. Because of the sugar content of the sauce, it will caramelize really quickly, within minutes. I highly recommend you leave the oven light on, check on it frequently, and pull the chicken out as soon as the surface is charred. Also, don’t forget to serve the sauce separately and drizzle it on the chicken right before eating so the skin will stay crispy!
INGREDIENTS
- 12 ounces Coca-Cola
- 1 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup dry sherry
- 1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 4 pounds bone-in skin-on chicken thighs, trimmed
- 1 (2-inch) piece ginger, smashed (or 1/2 teaspoon ginger powder)
- 6 cloves garlic, smashed (or 1 teaspoon garlic powder)
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
- Add Coca-Cola, soy sauce, dry sherry, vinegar, sugar, ginger and garlic into an oven-safe 12-inch skillet. Mix well. Place chicken in skillet, skin side down, without overlapping.
- Bring the liquid mixture to a simmer over medium heat. Cook for 5 minutes.
- Transfer the skillet to the middle rack of the oven. Bake uncovered at 300 F for 30 minutes.
- Flip chicken so that it’s skin side up and continue cooking for another 30 minutes, until the chicken registers 175 degrees F.
- Transfer the chicken to a plate.
- Preheat broiler.
- Pour the cooking liquid through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl. Discard the strained ginger and garlic. Let the liquid set for 5 minutes. Skim and discard the fat on top.
- Add cornstarch and and 1/4 cup water to a small bowl. Whisk to dissolve cornstarch.
- Add 1 cup of the cooking liquid and the cornstarch mixture into the same empty skillet. Cook and stir over medium low heat until the sauce thickens. Transfer the sauce to a bowl and set aside.
- Return the chicken to the skillet, skin side up.
- Place the skillet back in the oven and broil until the skin crisps, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Transfer the chicken to a plate and let cool for 5 minutes.
- Serve warm with the sauce over steamed rice or noodles.
