Japanese street food offers a dizzying diversity of formats, flavors, and styles. Still, one particular dish rises above the rest: yakitori.
Technically, yakitori is not a “dish.” It’s expertly grilled and seasoned chicken on a stick, the ultimate in handheld, meaty convenience.
Yakitori is a staple of Japan’s foodie-friendly back alleys and cafes. It’s also readily available at Japanese restaurants in North America, although true connoisseurs argue that it’s difficult to find anything that compares to the real thing on this side of the Pacific.
Like many street eats, yakitori is best made by trained chefs using specialized equipment. However, cooking up excellent yakitori is not an insurmountable challenge for home cooks. If you’re looking for a taste of Tokyo without flying halfway around the world, read on.
Note: This recipe details the general process for making yakitori at home. For more on the step-by-step, ingredient volumes, and helpful prep and cooking tips, check out these yakitori recipes:
Gather Your Ingredients
You’ll need the following ingredients to make yakitori at home:
At least one chicken cut; boneless/skinless thighs are traditional, but you can also use breast, tenderloin, wing meat, or innards (gizzards, liver), or any combination
Green onions or scallions
Sauce ingredients: Soy sauce, white or brown sugar, mirin (sweet rice wine), vegetable oil, and sake (traditional rice wine; optional but preferred)
You’ll also need wooden skewers. Any will do. Be sure to soak them for at least half an hour before adding the chicken; you can do this while you prepare the sauce and season the chicken.
Note: While traditional yakitori uses chicken as the primary protein, it’s not hard to find versions of “yakitori” that use other animal proteins. Beef and pork are the most popular. If you choose to use a non-poultry protein, the prep process is more or less the same, but the cook time and final meat temperature may vary.
Prepare the Seasoning (Tare Sauce)
The yakitori sauce, known as tare, makes this delicacy what it is. Fortunately, it’s easy to prepare at home and doesn’t take much time at all. You can get it done while your chicken is coming up to room temperature.
To make the sauce, combine the sake and/or mirin, soy sauce, sugar, and oil in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Then, reduce heat to low and simmer for another five minutes, until the sauce is evenly mixed and aromatic. Remove from heat and set aside half the sauce for dipping; you’ll use the rest to season the chicken before it’s grilled.
Prepare the Chicken
If you’re using breast, thigh, or tenderloin, cut the chicken into smaller, evenly sized pieces. Once that’s done, add them to the soaked skewers, taking care to leave room at both ends.
Next — and this is a bit controversial — you can brush some of your tare over the raw chicken before adding it to the grill. Some cooks wait until the meat has some sear on it, though; it’s up to you.
Get Grilling!
Now for the fun part. In Japan, and in Japanese-style restaurants elsewhere, yakitori is typically cooked on a specialized grill over hot coals.
However, this is a bridge too far, budget-wise, for most home cooks, and it’s not strictly essential. If you have a grill pan, you can get pretty close to the ideal yakitori cook on a gas stove or gas, charcoal, or electric grill.
To begin, place your grill pan over high heat and apply a light coating of vegetable oil as it warms. Add your chicken (preseasoned or not) and cook one side at a time until the meat is firm all the way through. The optimal cook time over high heat is about seven to ten minutes per side for thighs, about the same for breasts, and perhaps a bit less for tenderloin, depending on the thickness. Use your judgment.
If you haven’t preseasoned the meat, wait to apply the first coating until you’ve seared both sides and can no longer see pink. Then, baste repeatedly and frequently as the meat cooks through, making sure to use all the allotted sauce. The lower layers should caramelize lightly, setting up a stunning, complex flavor when you’re done.
Once the meat is cooked through, remove it from heat and let it rest for 10 to 15 minutes. Season with green onions and the remaining tare, or use the tare for dipping as you eat.