Easy sous vide teriyaki chicken breast makes a great dinner. This fail-proof recipe comes together quickly using a quick sauce sauce that requires no marinade time and results in the most tender chicken breast you’ll ever eat.
Jump to Recipe
Jump to:
Using the sous vide has completely changed the way we eat on weeknights. For example, I can cook this chicken recipe for a Tuesday or Wednesday dinner on Sunday, pull it out of the refrigerator 20-30 minutes before we’re ready to eat while I prep a quick salad or a side dish and set the table and sear the meat for 1 ½ -2 minutes on each side before sitting down to a healthy, homemade dinner with my family.
It’s also a favorite cooking method when working from home. I can get dinner prepped and started if I can find 10-15 minutes in my day to step away from the desk. And although today’s recipe is for chicken breast, we also love cooking pork chops and steak this way, too. Cuts that might be easy to overcook (or unevenly cook) are tender and juicy every time.
No Vacuum Sealer? No Problem!
Sous vide cooking refers to the method of vacuum sealing your food and cooking it in a temperature-controlled water bath. However, as you’ll see in this recipe, vacuum-sealing is optional. Many start off their sous vide cooking journeys using heavy-duty Ziploc bags and something called the water displacement method (which you can see in the how-to section of this post) to remove the air from the bag.
So, to cook sous vide, all you really need is a sous vide circulator and a large pot you can fill with water. For Christmas this year, I got a vacuum sealer, and what I would say here is that a vacuum sealer can be a big pro if you want the ability to season, marinade or dry rub cuts of meat, and freeze. (Another advantage of sous vide cooking is that you can cook things directly from the freezer.) I’ve currently got a couple of meals of steak prepared and sitting in the freezer for when Baby #3 makes his arrival, and will likely also prep a few chicken breasts too.
Cooking Chicken Breast with Sous Vide
I’ll be honest, before the sous vide, I generally steered clear of boneless, skinless chicken breast except for the occasional air fryer chicken tender or saucy instant pot meal. It was relegated to diet cooking, too often coming out dry and stringy. (You can argue that it’s my fault. You’d be right. But also, I don’t like having to baby what should be a fairly straightforward dinner, and I get sidetracked in the kitchen. All the time.)
Anyway, enter sous-vide cooking. Using this method, you cook your meat at (and to) the temperature you want to serve it at. No trying to figure out if the center is cooked (only to find that it’s still raw). And, when you use this method to cook your chicken, you can actually cook it at lower temperatures, which keeps meat juicier in the end.
Lower than 165 degrees F, you say? Yes, that’s right. In fact, I’ve found the ideal temp to be 145 degrees. The FDA says that chicken that is cooked to an exact temperature of 145 degrees for at least an hour is safe to eat. This is because the sous vide process actually pasteurizes the chicken and kills any bacteria. Serious Eats dives much deeper into this topic in an article about sous-vide chicken breast, but the one thing I took away from the article was this: Food safety is a product of temperature and time.
And that is perhaps the one drawback to the sous vide method – the only one, in my opinion – it takes a long time. Chicken breast, for example, takes at least an hour in the sous vide. So, you kind of need to know you want to cook chicken using this method sometime before dinner.
The advantage is that sous vide cook time is fairly flexible. Chicken for example can cook anywhere from 1 to 3 hours without sacrificing texture. (This also makes it the perfect method for a weekend lunch if you have morning sports’ games or errands, for example.) Okay, stepping off my soapbox.
Back to This Teriyaki Chicken Breast: The Ingredients
Chicken breast: I developed this recipe for sous vide teriyaki chicken breasts because a) it’s always good to incorporate lean meats into your diet, and b) you could throw together teriyaki chicken thighs on the stovetop for an equally quick meal. However, you can swap for boneless, skinless chicken thighs to make sous-vide teriyaki chicken thighs as long as you increase cooking temp to 150 and cook for at least 2 hours.
Fresh ginger and garlic: Although you’ll often see ginger and garlic as part of teriyaki sauce recipes, it’s actually not traditional to authentic Japanese chicken teriyaki. “Teri” apparently refers to the luster or glean of the final sauce and “yaki” to the cooking method of broiling or grilling. As soon as you start adding things like ginger or garlic, you remove that almost mirror-like glaze this dish is known for. BUT, because we’re cooking this sous vide, we can actually go all in on flavor without impacting the final glaze by adding ginger and garlic to the meat while it is cooking to infuse it.
Light soy sauce: Purists will recommend using Japanese soy sauce for teriyaki sauce, but I don’t think I can actually fit any more condiments in my pantry, so I used my favorite Chinese soy sauce for this recipe. If you are interested in learning more about Japanese soy sauce, you can read this article.
Brown sugar: Not only does the sweetness of the sugar help create balance with the saltiness of the soy, but it will also help the sauce caramelize and thicken.
Mirin: This is sweet rice wine and will add flavor and help create the sheen we’re looking for on the chicken.
Rice wine (or sake): While sake is the traditional choice here and readily available at most liquor stores these days, I used Chinese shaoxing (hsaoxing) wine because it’s something I always have on hand. In many teriyaki recipes, you’ll find rice vinegar used to replace this ingredient, but several English-language Japanese cooking blogs blasted the use of rice vinegar (and apple cider vinegar) as a proper substitute (and I can see why – would you ever drink white wine vinegar as a substitute for white wine?!) I haven’t tried it, but I suspect dry sherry or even another dry white wine might be a better substitute.
Sesame seeds and green onions: Optional, to garnish your sous vide chicken breast.
How to Make Sous Vide Teriyaki Chicken Breast
- Cooking the chicken breast: Add ¼ teaspoon salt to chicken and place in a single layer in a vacuum seal bag or ziploc bag with smashed garlic and ginger. Either vacuum seal or use the displacement method when adding chicken to water and cook for 1 hour with a water temperature of 145 degrees using your sous vide.
- Making the sauce: Mix all ingredients for the sauce and stir until the brown sugar has dissolved.
- Getting ready to sear the chicken breast: Once the chicken is done, remove ginger and garlic and use paper towels to pat the chicken dry.
- Searing chicken and making sauce: Heat 2 tablespoons of canola or vegetable oil in a pan and sear chicken on both sides for 1-2 minutes over medium heat. Adjust heat to medium low and add teriyaki sauce. Using kitchen tongs, turn the chicken over every few seconds to coat it in the sauce. You can also use the chicken as a way to move the caramel sauce around the pan to avoid burning and sticking.
- Serving sous vide teriyaki chicken breast: Once the sauce thickens slightly and the chicken is coated in the sauce, transfer to a plate and slice. Serve over white rice and spoon some sauce over the sliced chicken if desired. Garnish with sesame seeds and green onions if you’d like.
What to serve with Sous Vide Teriyaki Chicken
- If you’ve got a craving for takeout but want to stay in: cream cheese wontons (or perhaps egg rolls)
- If you’re feeling healthy: roasted or steamed broccoli or even bok choy
- If you’d like a traditional side dish: edamame or pickled cucumber, radish or carrot
And of course, serve with white or fried rice!
Looking for Other Great Chicken Recipes?
Try these!
- Turmeric Ginger Chicken with a Jeweled Couscous Salad
- Salsa Verde Chicken and Nopales
- Crispy One-Pan Lemon Dill Chicken Thighs and Broccoli
📖 Recipe
Sous Vide Teriyaki Chicken Breasts
Ingredients
For Chicken
For Teriyaki Sauce
- 1 ½ lb chicken
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 4 ginger slices
- 2 cloves of garlic smashed
- ¼ cup soy
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons mirin
- 2 tablespoons rice wine
Instructions
- Add ¼ teaspoon salt to chicken and put in a vacuum bag or ziploc bag with smashed garlic and ginger. Either vacuum seal or use the displacement method when adding chicken to water and cook for 1 hour at 145 degrees F using your sous vide.
- Mix all ingredients for the sauce and stir until the brown sugar has dissolved.
- Once the chicken is done, remove ginger and garlic and pat the chicken dry.
- Heat 2 tablespoons of canola or vegetable oil in a pan and sear chicken on both sides for 1-2 minutes over medium heat. Adjust heat to medium low and add teriyaki sauce. Using kitchen tongs, turn the chicken over every few seconds to coat it in the sauce. You can also use the chicken as a way to move the caramel sauce around the pan to avoid burning and sticking.
- Once the sauce thickens slightly and the chicken is coated in the sauce, transfer to a plate and slice. Spoon some sauce over the sliced chicken if desired.
