Korean-Style Soy and Honey Garlic Fried Chicken

This Korean-style soy and honey garlic fried chicken is 100% satisfaction guaranteed! It’s the perfect savoury food for potluck parties, bbq and picnics, and always a winner with kids and adults.

If you haven’t heard of KyoChon, their fried chicken is the most popular in Korea. It was voted #1 for 13 consecutive years in Korea. And believe me, they are the best I’ve had.

I have been meaning to replicate their fried chicken for the longest time.

This is my version of as-close-as-you-can-get to my favourite KyoChon fried chicken. Though not exactly copy-cat variety, these turned out really marvellous!

KyoChon-style soy and honey garlic fried chicken

I combined my two favourite flavours of KyoChon into one, the honey series and the soy garlic series, hence these soy and honey garlic chicken.

To emulate the crunchy fried batter that makes the chicken extra crispy, I use a dredging mixture of corn flour (corn starch) and potato starch.

While you can use all corn starch, I find that incorporating potato starch yields a crispier coating that also stays crispy a lot longer than an all corn-starch dredge.

And it’s fried twice, just the way KyoChon does it’s fried chicken. Double-frying is the go-to technique for getting extra-crispy fried food, and it’s what I do in recipes like sweet and sour fish and sweet and sour pork.

Last but not the least, this soy and honey garlic sauce has the perfect balance of flavours.

The sweetness of the honey and brown sugar, saltiness of soy sauce, and the tang of the vinegar blends together into a delicious sticky glaze.

Now that you know what you’re in for, I’m excited to get to the real ‘meat’ in this post. And that’s to show you how easy it is to make these delicious Korean-style fried soy and honey garlic chicken.

Ingredients for soy and honey garlic fried chicken

This version of Korean fried chicken doesn’t use any special ingredients. If you do quite a bit of Asian cooking, you’ll likely have all of the ingredients in the pantry already.

Here’s what you’ll need:

For the fried chicken:

• chicken wings, cut in half at the mid-joint
• garlic powder
• ginger powder
• turmeric powder
• salt
• Chinese wine (you can use sherry or sake as well)
• corn starch
• potato starch

For the soy and honey garlic sauce:

• light soy sauce (regular or low-sodium)
• brown sugar
• honey
• Chinese wine
• rice vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)
• chopped garlic
• chopped spring onion
• chilli powder (optional)

Step-by-step: How to cook fried chicken

Step 1. Season and coat the chicken

1. Once you’ve got the chicken pieces cleaned and patted dry, place them in a large bowl. Add garlic powder, ginger powder, turmeric powder, salt, and Chinese wine. Rub into the pieces to make sure they’re well coated. Set aside.
2. In a separate large bowl, combine potato starch and corn starch, and mix well.
3. Toss in the chicken pieces, turning them over several times until they’re well and fully coated (I sometimes like to use a large tray, but a big bowl will make this easy work as well). Make sure you get the starch in between and all around the skin folds and joints.

Step 2. Double deep-fry the chicken

1. Heat up oil in a wok or Dutch oven until hot, between 176 – 190˚C (350 – 375˚F). Fry the chicken pieces in batches to prevent over-crowding (I do 6 – 7 pieces per batch since these are wings). How many pieces per batch will depend on the size of your chicken pieces as well as the frying equipment you use.
2. Fry until about 80% cooked, or until the chicken turns a light golden brown. This usually takes 5 – 6 minutes, but depends on the size of the pieces. Please read my frying tips below.
3. Remove with a slotted spoon and spread them on a wire rack set over a tray. Quickly scoop out any debris with the slotted spoon or strainer. Allow the oil to get hot again, then fry the next batch and keep repeating until all the chicken pieces are done.
4. Again, allow the oil to get hot. Repeat the same steps for the second deep-fry. Except this time, the time will be shorter, about 2 – 3 minutes. The goal here is to draw out the excess oil and moisture, and crisp up the surface. Take out once the chicken pieces have turned a deep golden brown, and set them on the wire rack.

Frying tips

• Double-fry for extra crispy chicken. The first deep-fry at a high temperature cooks the meat till about 80% cooked, while the second deep-fry draws out the excess oil and moisture so the batter crisps up without becoming greasy.
• Look at the oil and listen to the sizzling. Observe the size of the oil bubbles and sizzling sounds! When there’s still lots of moisture in the meat, the bubbles will be large and the sizzling consistent. As the chicken cooks, the bubbles will get finer and the sizzling increases in pitch – this is when you can remove the chicken.
• Fry similar pieces together. If you have different types of meat, fry similar pieces together, for example, a batch of drummettes only, or all wingettes, or all breast cubes.
• Drain on a wire rack or basket. Once fried, set the fried chicken onto a wire rack or basket that allows plenty of room for the excess moisture to escape and circulate.
• Do not set directly on baking paper. The moisture can’t escape and gets re-absorbed into the coating, thus causing the chicken to lose its crispness.

Step-by-step: How to make the soy and honey garlic sauce

1. Combine the sauce ingredients in a small saucepan. Heat up over low-medium heat, stirring frequently until it bubbles.
2. Once bubbling, remove the spring onions and garlic with a slotted spoon or strainer. In a separate bowl, prepare the slurry (corn starch solution).
3. Stir in the slurry, and keep stirring as the sauce simmers. Once the sauce has the consistency of a thin glaze and thinly coats the back of your spoon, it’s done. Take it off the heat and allow to cool for 2 – 3 minutes. You don’t want it too thick, because it will thicken up as it cools and will be difficult to evenly baste the fried chicken pieces.

Step-by-step: Coating the double-fried chicken

You can coat the fried chicken with a simpler and quicker tossing method (great if you have small and large batches of fried chicken) or use the basting method.

Before you start, make sure the sauce is warm and liquid-y like a glaze.

If the sauce has cooled and thickened, simply re-heat the sauce in the saucepan over low heat or microwave at a medium power setting for about 20 seconds, until the sauce has the consistency of a glaze.

Toss

In a deep bowl or plastic bag, toss the chicken with the sauce until it evenly coats all the pieces.

Start with a few tablespoons, adding more sauce as needed to get the chicken completely coated (Note: You don’t want too thick of a coating, so you may not need all of the sauce. The leftover can be served on the side).

Baste

Alternatively, you can baste the sauce over the chicken as follows:

Place the double-fried chicken onto a tray lined with baking paper. Using a pastry brush, baste the pieces generously with the sauce. Turn over the chicken and baste the other side. Be sure you get the sauce into every nook and cranny!

The sauce starts to thicken up fairly quickly, and it’ll get stickier (simply re-heat in a microwave for a few seconds, if needed).

Do a second basting if you’ve got some sauce left over after the first round of basting.

Garnish and serve

Garnish generously with toasted sesame seeds, and chopped cilantro or spring onions. Serve immediately!

Frequently asked questions

Here are more delicious fried dishes you may like:

• Gong Bao Chicken (Chicken Fried With Dried Chillies)
• Fried Prawn Paste Chicken (Har Cheong Gai 虾酱鸡)
• Deep-Fried Chicken Curry Puffs
• Chinese-Style Superior Sweet and Sour Whole Fish

Tried this recipe? I’d love to see! Remember to share your pics on Instagram and tag @foodelicacy or #foodelicacy.