Teriyaki chicken is hard not to love. From the texture of well-cooked and perfectly marinated chicken to the final flavour of that spice mix, it’s beloved worldwide. To keep some on hand for your kitchen, is it possible to freeze teriyaki chicken or not?
Can You Freeze Teriyaki Chicken?
Yes, you can freeze teriyaki chicken for around 3 months. The best way is to cut raw chicken up and place it in a freezer bag. To the bag, add the teriyaki sauce in which you would marinate the chicken, and press out any excess air from the chicken and sauce mixture before freezing.
Does Teriyaki Chicken Freeze Well? Yes
Can You Refreeze Teriyaki Chicken? Yes
How to Freeze Teriyaki Chicken
Where possible, we would advise freezing teriyaki chicken before cooking it. It freezes much better this way using this method:
- Prepare Chicken: The first step in freezing teriyaki chicken is to prepare the chicken you’re working with. Cut it into bite-sized pieces.
- Bag Up: Without cooking it, place it into a freezer bag that you’re using, separating the chicken up into portions if you choose to.
- Add Sauce: Next, make or get the teriyaki sauce you’re using – whether it’s from a bottle or made from scratch, you simply need to have the sauce on hand. When it’s ready, pour it into the bag such that all the chicken pieces are covered.
- Seal: Press any excess air from the chicken/sauce mixture in the bag, then seal the bag closed.
- Label and Freeze: Label the outside of the bag, and transfer it to the freezer. It will freeze and then keep for around 3 months.
Yes, leftover teriyaki can be frozen. Once cooled, portion it out into airtight containers, seal and then pop it into the freezer where it can be kept for around 2 months.
3 Tips for Freezing Teriyaki Chicken
Now you know how to freeze it, we’ve got our 3 top tips which we strongly recommend following when freezing teriyaki chicken to have the best results:
Don’t Cook the Chicken
Keeping the chicken raw allows it to marinate while thawing, reducing your preparation time substantially. As a side note, you can freeze marinated chicken in any type of marinade.
Keep the Chicken Chunks Large
Keeping the chicken pieces large will allow the sauce not to soak in too quickly, which could lead to an overpowering final flavour in the chicken dish when you cook it.
Cook Until Steaming Hot
The chicken and the sauce will both be contaminated, of course, with raw chicken. This is a dangerous thing, and the only way to make it safe is to ensure that the chicken and the sauce are cooked until they’re steaming hot through.
How Long Can You Freeze Teriyaki Chicken?
You can freeze teriyaki chicken for around 3 months before the effects of freezer burn start to damage the integrity of the chicken.
The great thing about this recipe is that the sauce you’re freezing the food in ensures you can prevent as much air from reaching the chicken as possible.
Instead, freezer burn will set into the sauce fairly quickly, spreading through the sauce before it gets to the chicken. The sauce’s texture will not be affected by this since it’s a liquid.
To sum up, therefore, the sauce protects the integrity of the chicken, leading to well-textured food.
Teriyaki sauce will last for around 1 week in the fridge when kept in an airtight Tupperware container. If it has been cooked with chicken then teriyaki chicken will only keep for 2 to 3 days.
How Do You Defrost Teriyaki Chicken?
The best way to defrost this teriyaki chicken is to transfer the bag containing the chicken and the sauce to the fridge several hours before you’re planning to cook the food.
This will mean that while the sauce thaws and melts around the chicken, it will penetrate the meat, marinating it while it’s thawing.
This process massively reduces the amount of preparation time you have to deal with, allowing easy access to delicious chicken.
Can You Refreeze Teriyaki Chicken?
Yes, you can refreeze teriyaki chicken, though the process will be slightly different.
This is because, after thawing and cooking the teriyaki chicken, the mixture will be much less moisture-heavy, leading to a different consistency in the food.
After thawing and cooking the teriyaki chicken, we’d recommend placing it into an airtight container, allowing it to cool completely to room temperature, and then sealing the container.
Afterwards, wrap the container in a layer of foil to prevent frost from forming on the outside of the container, which would cause freezer burn. Freeze the chicken for up to three months, and thaw in the microwave, ensuring it’s steaming hot through the chicken pieces.
Does Teriyaki Chicken Freeze Well?
Yes, teriyaki chicken freezes well. This is because sauces, soups, and stews generally freeze quite well – they tend to offer some level of protection to the chunky ingredients within them through the use of sauces around those ingredients.
The freezer will typically freeze liquid ingredients entirely solid over those three months, allowing the other ingredients to get some level of protection from freezer burn.
This isn’t absolute, of course, since the freezer burn will eventually pass from the sauce to the chicken.
Teriyaki Chicken Freezer Recipe
This is the easiest teriyaki chicken recipe you’ll come across, and the good news is that it freezes really well too.
You can cook it fully, as in the recipe, and then freeze it once cooled. Or, you can make the sauce and pop raw pieces of chicken into a freezer bag followed by the sauce so you have ready-to-go teriyaki marinaded chicken pieces when you need them:
Freezer-Friendly Teriyaki Chicken Recipe
8
servings10
minutes20
minutes30
minutesThis is the ultimate Japanese fast food that’s full of umami flavours that are so synonymous with Japanese cuisine.
Keeps the screen of your device ON
Ingredients
3tbsp Sesame Oil
12 Skinless, Boneless Chicken Thighs, Cut Into Chunks
2tbsp Toasted Sesame Seeds
6 Spring Onions, Finely Shredded
- For the Teriyaki Sauce
4 Garlic Cloves, Crushed
3 Inch Piece Ginger, Grated
100g Honey
60ml Soy Sauce
2tbsp Mirin
Directions
- First, make the sauce by frying the garlic and ginger in 1tbsp of sesame oil for a couple of minutes so that it begins to soften but doesn’t take on too much colour. You can then stir in the remaining sauce ingredients along with 225ml of water. Bring to the boil, then cook for 5 minutes until thick and sticky.
- While the sauce is reducing, add the remaining oil to a non-stick pan and then fry the chicken thigh pieces over a medium heat for between 8 and 10 minutes until they are cooked through.
- Once cooked, add the chicken pieces into the sauce and cook until the sauce is completely reduced, leaving you with tender pieces of chicken that are evenly coated in the sticky teriyaki sauce.
- Serve with a sprinkling of spring onions and sesame seeds alongside steamed rice and bok choy.
Notes
Related FAQs
If you’ve still got questions about freezing teriyaki chicken or teriyaki in general, then these may help:
Yes, teriyaki sauce can be frozen on its own. Decant it into small airtight containers, seal, label and then place the container into the freezer.
Yes, salmon teriyaki can be frozen. Place salmon fillets into a freezer bag, top up with the teriyaki sauce, seal and then freeze. Freezing it this way will impart plenty of flavour to the salmon.
