If you are looking for moist, tender, and flavorful chicken, try this marinade! It has teriyaki goodness, and an oriental blend of flavors.

I know dinner is a success when the only statement I hear repeated continuously from my husband is, “this chicken is sooooo good!” 

It is particularly significant in light of him being able to remain so single-minded when the three children seated around him were seeing how many pieces of rice they could stick in their ears. He was right, though, this chicken was great.

Thanks again, Kristin, for coming through with another great recipe for me to try. (Visit Kristin’s recipe blog for even more delightful recipes to choose from.) 

My husband loves all things teriyaki – this marinade has a teriyaki goodness to it but it also has an oriental blend of flavors (I’m not quite sure what I mean by that but just go with it) and the main virtue is the chicken is very moist and tender. 

Trade Secrets: Since it is below freezing in my neck of the woods and I don’t have a broiler pan, I used my indoor grill pan (top five kitchen “thingies” I can’t live without) and it worked great, but my word of warning is that the marinade kind of sludged at the bottom of my grill pan.

That was probably because I didn’t shake enough of the marinade off the chicken before laying it in the pan and also because I didn’t keep in mind that the marinade has a full cup of sugar in it, which means it is easy to burn while cooking, but all it took was a quick swipe of the pan with a paper towel in between batches, and it worked great. 

Next time I’ll probably round up a broiler pan and try it that way to see how it works. Also, I melted the butter for the marinade and before letting it cool I just dumped it right into the rest of the marinade ingredients. The result? Curdled butter that separated from the rest of the marinade. I don’t think it made any impact on taste but it looked frightening and next time I will definitely let the butter cool before mixing it in with the marinade.

California Chicken Marinade

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Ingredients

  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • ½ cup melted butter
  • 1 tsp. dry mustard
  • ¼ cup water

Instructions 

  • Marinate chicken strips all day. Broil for 10 minutes or so, depending on how thick you cut the strips. This also works great on chicken breasts on the grill.