These 5 easy Soy Sauce Chicken Marinade recipes are made with pantry staple ingredients. Each one guaranteed to be delicious whether you use them for chicken wings, drumsticks, or chicken thighs. Try them all and let us know which one is your favourite.
Love Soy Sauce and Garlic?
Then you gotta try this recipe.
Soy sauce is one of my favourite ingredients for meat marinades—it’s a double whammy of salt and umami. And it pairs beautifully with garlic.
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5 Variations
These are our top 5 favourite chicken marinades that use soy sauce:
Oyster Sauce—oyster sauce has a savoury, caramelized flavour that is the perfect complement for chicken and soy sauce.
Spicy Hoisin—this is Kevin’s personal favourite. Something about the sweet hoisin mixed with spicy chile flakes makes for an insane flavour combination, and a dash of soy sauce brings it all together. (Tip: Use chipotle pepper flakes to add smoky heat.)
Soy Garlic—tons of garlic seasoned with soy sauce. Need we say more?
Honey Soy—one of Kevin’s top picks, along with Spicy Hoisin. Soy sauce brings the savoury, and honey brings the sweet. It’s a simple recipe yet has surprisingly complex flavour.
Dak Galbi—inspired by one of our favourite Korean dishes, Chicken Dak Galbi. It’s got the longest ingredient list, plus a couple ingredients you might have to get from the Asian supermarket (gochugaru, mirin). But it’s worth it!
See recipe card for ingredient quantities.
How to Marinate Chicken
How long to marinate chicken? In our experience, not long at all! All of these soy sauce marinades are so flavourful, they don’t need much time. Just 15 minutes before cooking is enough. But you can keep them in the marinade for up to 2 days (in the fridge) or 3 months (in the freezer) if you’re not cooking immediately.
Do you need to poke holes in the chicken or cut it to let the marinade penetrate? Nope. We used to slash our chicken meat to help infuse the marinade, but we realized it didn’t actually make a noticeable difference. The chicken was flavourful either way.
Can you freeze chicken in its marinade? Yep! We do it all the time. Check out the Storage Tips section below for how.
Equipment
Our favourite way to marinate chicken is using freezer bags. You can easily massage the marinate into the chicken without making a mess, and they freeze well too.
Another option is just a simple mixing bowl. Then store the marinated chicken right in the bowl or transfer it to an airtight container.
Meal Prep & Storage Tips
Fridge: Keep chicken in its marinade for up to two days in the fridge. Can be stored in a glass container or a ziploc bag.
Freezer: YES. THIS RECIPE IS PERFECT FOR FREEZING! We like to buy a big tray of chicken drumsticks from Costco and portion them into 1-pound freezer bags, then toss in a marinade and freeze. They don’t even need to be defrosted before cooking, making them a perfect emergency freezer meal!
More Soy Sauce Recipes
Looking for other ways to use your soy sauce? Try these:
Did you make this recipe? Please leave a rating or comment below to give me feedback and help out other readers.
Recipe Card
5 Easy Soy Sauce Chicken Marinades
Equipment
- Mixing bowl or large freezer bag
Ingredients
Oyster Sauce Marinade
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon ground white pepper
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
- 2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
Soy Garlic Marinade
- 5 cloves minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon sugar honey, or maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
Spicy Hoisin
- 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
- ½ tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
Honey Soy Marinade
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 ½ tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar
Dak Galbi Style Marinade
- 1 tablespoon coarse gochujaru
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon rice wine or mirin
- 2 cloves minced garlic
- ½ tablespoon minced ginger
- 1 tablespoon sugar or honey
- 1 ½ tablespoons soy sauce
Instructions
- Pick a marinade flavour. Mix together all the marinade ingredients in a bowl or ziploc bag.
- Add the chicken to the marinade and massage to coat completely.
- Marinate chicken for 15 minutes before using. Chicken in marinade can be refrigerated for up to 2 days, or frozen for up to three months.
Notes
- 1 serving of each marinade is enough to marinate 1 to 1 ½ pounds of chicken (around 4–5 drumsticks or thighs).
- Nutrition facts are calculated for the oyster sauce marinade.
Jamie says
Had the garlic honey soy today for my chicken wings. I did half the sugar🤭🤭 but it was still good
Kelly Zhang says
Thanks for the review Jamie!