Chicken Karaage: Japanese Fried Chicken Recipe

How to make the best chicken karaage (Japanese fried chicken nuggets) at home! The ultimate guide to juicy, crisp and crunchy Japanese fried chicken karaage.

Have you ever watched Food Wars: Shokugeki no Soma? It’s an over the top and hilarious anime (based on a manga) that revolves around food and cooking battles. A couple of the episodes focus on chicken karaage, which both Mike and I love. Making chicken karaage and snacking on it while we watch has been one of our latest guilty pleasures.

What is chicken karaage?

Chicken karaage is Japanese fried chicken: bite sized, super juicy, intensely flavorful, with a crispy, cracker-y crunch.

How to make chicken karaage

Cut down your chicken: Start off with cutting the chicken into bite size pieces. Make sure you cut all your pieces the same size. You don’t want thin pieces because they tend to be drier, so try to make sure they are kind of chunky and thick.

Marinate: From there you’ll want to marinate them in soy sauce, sake, sugar, ginger, and garlic. It’s a pretty dry marinade so be sure to mix everything up evenly so that all the chicken pieces are coated. You want them to marinate for at least 30 minutes. I like to leave them in a cool spot in the kitchen so the chicken can come up to room temp. This helps it cook more evenly and quickly instead of cooking it straight from the fridge.

Coat the chicken: After the chicken has marinated, you want to coat it in potato starch. You dont need to drain the marinade, since it’s pretty much a rub, so just go ahead and toss the chicken in the starches, being sure to coat evenly and shaking off the excess.

Fry: From there you can either deep-fry, air-fry, or oven-bake. The choice is yours!