Lissa's Killer Teriyaki Marinade

If you plan to grill teriyaki chicken or teriyaki steak this summer, this is definitely a recipe you're going to want to use on your grill.  Sure you can buy a bottle of teriyaki sauce at your local grocery store, but anyone who is experienced with teriyaki sauce knows that nothing in an old plastic bottle compares to fresh homemade teriyaki marinade. If you try this recipe, the rich aromatic essence of sesame oil will permeate your home for hours. You will smell the fragrance of fresh garlic, soy sauce, ginger, pineapple juice, honey and brown sugar. I tasted this Killer Teriyaki Marinade, and there was a burst of flavor in my mouth. It will knock your taste buds out. This recipe is just right. Not too sweet, not too salty, not too oily, this recipe will change your life.  Give this a try and you will throw away that old canister of teriyaki sauce and start cooking like a professional, making your own teriyaki marinade.

Killer Chicken Teriyaki with Jasmine Rice and Sugar Snap Peas

Lissa's Killer Teriyaki Marinade

1 cup Kikoman Soy Sauce

1/2 cup Sesame Oil

2 Tbsp fresh Garlic crushed, shelled and diced

4 Tbsp C&H Pure Cane Brown Sugar

1/2 cup Pineapple Juice

2 Tbsp  Raw Honey

1 tsp Ground Ginger

These are the ingredients that I used. I added honey and fresh ground pepper to this recipe, not pictured. Sesame seeds are optional.  Use this recipe to marinate your choice of meat.

The hardest part about this is that I did not short cut the garlic.  Sure, you can buy a glass bottle of already chopped garlic that is ready to go, but I really wanted to use fresh garlic in this recipe.  I used one whole garlic which was several cloves.  If you prefer less garlic, that is fine, but I think that fresh garlic is essential to achieving the flavor of this recipe.

I crush my garlic with the side of my chopping knife.  Once the garlic is smashed, the peel falls right off.  Some of the garlic peels were very sticky.  I had to wash my hands several times to get the gluey resin off my fingers so that I could work.  It is more work trying to cut the garlic yourself, but it is so worth it.

So after a little bit of pulling and messing around with the garlic, I finally got the peels off.  This is what the garlic looks like without the peel.

I chopped the garlic down into little bits.

I added the soy sauce (pictured below), and the sesame oil. I think the one scent that gave this recipe it's amazing flavor was the sesame oil.  From the moment I opened the bottle, the sesame oil scent became very aromatic.  I started to stir the sesame oil in with the soy sauce.  I thought it might make the marinate too oily, but actually these two ingredients worked together quite well.

I added all of the ingredients together and stirred. After the garlic was chopped, everything was completed in less than 10 minutes.  Not having enough time to make a homemade teriyaki excuse is no excuse.  With the exception of chopping the garlic, this recipe is very time efficient.

Teriyaki marinade works well with most kinds of meat.  Today I'm going to use this teriyaki recipe to marinate my grilled chicken.  What I did first was wash the chicken and trimmed the fat and excesses away.  I did leave a little bit of fat for flavor, but otherwise the chicken needs to be well cleaned.

After the teriyaki marinade is finished and the chicken is ready to go, it's time to pour the marinade over the chicken.  This is a short clip of how we did this.  The kids filmed it.  After the teriyaki marinade was poured over the chicken, we covered it and set in the refrigerator for an hour.  Most of the times it's better to wait 12 hours or so for the marinade to set, but we were impatient.

I have a George Foreman electric grill that I use, and I love it.  I can't say enough about this grill. Everything cooks in under 10 minutes.  Most of the grease and fatty parts are swept down into the grease bin below. The bad part?  Well, I believe low and slow heat cooks better.  In order to get the center of the chicken to be fully cooked, using an electric grill might require that the outside of the chicken to be slightly blackened.  I sliced the center to see if there was any pink, uncooked parts, and this chicken was white in the center, fully cooked.

I plated the teriyaki chicken with jasmine rice and sugar snap peas.  This was Nicole's plate, and she usually never finishes her food, but tonight she did very well with eating her dinner.  The teriyaki chicken was a little dry so I gave her a side of soy sauce so that she could pour it over her rice and help flavor the meat.  The teriyaki chicken was especially tender and savory.

If you plan to grill this summer or any time of the year, give this recipe a try.  This teriyaki recipe would go great with chicken, steak, pork or just about any kind of meat.  Thank you for reading. Like us on Facebook.  Add us on Twitter and Google Plus. Pin us on your Pintrest and have a great day.

Love, 

Lissa