Japanese fried chicken (karaage) is the best crowd pleaser because it is so versatile and goes with so-so-so many things. Even my very picky boy loves Karaage.

In America, we will often eat fried chicken as the main dish right? We might eat fried chicken with a side of mashed potatoes or fries, a side of collard greens or corn on the cob. Japanese approach fried chicken a bit differently. Karaage chicken are small popcorn chicken sized pieces of fried dark meat chicken and eaten as a side dish, or a topping on a rice bowl. Most people just eat a few pieces of karaage as part of lunch or a snack during a night out at an izakaya pub.

Bring chicken karaage to your next picnic at the park

Japanese chicken karaage is one of the absolute best dishes to bring for a picnic lunch. Our picnic lunches often include karaage chicken along with spinach with sesame dressing (Goma-ae), fruit or cherry tomatoes, and onigiri (rice ball with nori). Chicken karaage is actually pretty easy to make and stays crunchy and flavorful even when served cold.

Karaage is perfect for izakaya style date night at home

We love turn our dining table into a little izakaya. We eat karaage Japanese izakaya style, with beer or sake, and other small dishes like Japanese potato salad, pan fried spicy shishito peppers, and lotus root. On the weekends, Chi Chi and I will have dinner after the kids go to bed and we will just set out a bunch of appetizers like chicken karaage and eat in between sips of our drinks, talking about nothing for hours. It’s our date night at home. What honestly could be better?

居酒屋　

Izakaya:

Japanese Gastropub

Did you know Chicken Karaage is Gluten Free?

One of the things I discovered as I was learning how to make chicken karaage is that it is made with potato starch instead of flour, which makes it a delicious gluten free fried chicken for anyone, like myself, that tries to avoid eating gluten products. The potato starch we get from the Japanese grocery store is called Katakuriko potato starch.

In addition to using potato starch to make our karaage chicken crispy and crunchy, we also use it in many of our Japanese recipes that call for a thickener, including my Gluten Free Curry Rice. Come to think of it, you could top curry rice with karaage to make a chicken karaage rice bowl. Yumm. Chicken Karaage is so versatile. I love it.

Japanese Chicken Karaage: little bites of crunchy yum

Recipe by BeckiCourse: Sides, Late-night snackCuisine: Japanese

Servings

4

servings

Cooking time

10

minutes

Marinate Time

1-12

Hours

Prep Time

10

Minutes

Ingredients

• 1 lb chicken thighs (skin on)

• 1/4 cup sake

• 1/4 cup soy sauce

• 1 tbsp ground ginger

• 1 tbsp minced garlic

• 1 cup Katakuriko potato starch

• 4 tbsp grapeseed oil

Directions

• Chop chicken thighs into pieces that are about 1-2 inches in diameter. Mix together sake, soy sauce, ginger and garlic in a large bowl. Add chopped chicken thigh pieces to bowl, cover and marinate in the refrigerator. Ideally, if you have time, marinate the chicken over night, but at a minimum marinate for one hour.
• Remove chicken from refrigerator when you are ready to cook. Add potato starch to a large bowl. Dip and coat each piece of thigh meat chicken into the potato starch, make sure to completely coat each piece with the potato starch. Place coated chicken pieces onto a large plate.
• Heat oil in a large frying pan on medium high heat. To test to see if the frying oil is hot enough, drop of starch to sizzle and fry immediately. add karaage pieces to the pan. Reduce the temperature to medium heat and add the karaage chicken pieces to the frying pan. Cook through on one side about 2-3 minutes then flip over. Cook chicken until golden brown on each side. Remove fried chicken from pan and place on a paper towel to soak up excess oil.
• Serve right away with izakaya side dishes or pack for your picnic at the park!

Recipe Video