A cross between a roasted chicken & Peking duck, this Peking chicken recipe is for days when you have that craving for a Peking duck but chicken is all you have to work with

Chicken, love it to pieces! It’s easy to find, reasonably priced and takes on the flavors you marinate it in and in this case, it’s soy sauce and five spice!

This Peking chicken is super easy to make and just requires a bit of extra time for it to be marinated. Once it has marinated, you can stick it in the oven and voila you have a flavorful and arromatic Peking chicken, your house will smell amazing!

INGREDIENTS FOR PEKING CHICKEN

Chicken – For this recipe, I used a whole chicken but you can easily switch it up and use chicken drums or chicken legs as well.
Soy Sauce – I use both light soy sauce and dark soy sauce for this recipe. The dark syrupy soy sauce gives the chicken its dark color and the light soy sauce gives the chicken it’s flavor and saltiness. If you cannot find dark soy sauce, you can omit it but you will lose out on the brown coloring on the skin.
Sugar – I have used sugar, honey and maple syrup in this recipe and it works well with all of them.
Ginger – I highly recommend using fresh ginger for this recipe. Ground ginger powder doesn’t give it the same flavor and I find it too strong.
Five Spice – For this recipe, I use Chinese five spice powder.

GINGER SCALLION SAUCE (Pairs Wonderfully with Peking Chicken)

This sauce is essentially 4 ingredients (salt, oil, green onions, and ginger) and it packs a lot of flavors. To use it, you would spread the green onion and ginger over the chicken and then eat it! I find it goes amazing mixed in with white rice as well.

You can find detailed instructions on how to make it and what to use this sauce on here: Ginger Scallion Sauce.

4 SIMPLE STEPS TO THE PERFECT PEKING CHICKEN

Marinate. Dust 1/2 teaspoon of five spice inside the cavity of the chicken, then combine all the marinating ingredients into a ziplock or a large bowl with the chicken. You want to marinate the chicken for a minimum of 4 hours, preferably overnight.
Cook the Chicken.
- Remove the chicken from the fridge 30 minutes before putting it in the oven. Stuff the ginger slices that you used for marinating into the chicken.
- Pre-heat the oven, and put the chicken in when it has come up to temperature. I highly suggest using a rack so that there is proper airflow under the chicken to allow it to crisp up a bit. If you don’t have a rack, you can crunch up foil into little balls and rest the chicken on top of it.
Create the Basting Sauce. Cook the remaining marinade over the stovetop and add honey or maple syrup at the very end to sweeten and slightly thicken it.
Basting. This is where the magic begins. In the first 20 minutes of the roasting, the chicken will release its oil from the skin. Use a brush and baste the chicken with the drippings for the first hour every 20 mins. (If your chicken doesn’t have oil drippings, you can use a tablespoon of oil and baste it with that.) After the hour mark, baste the chicken with the basting sauce every 10 minutes, approximately 2-3 times or until the marinade is finished.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THE CHICKEN IS DONE?

Cooking time will always be different and vary for everyone depending on how the oven temperatures are and big the chicken is.

I highly recommend a digital meat thermometer to take the guessing game out of how long to cook meat. Insert the digital thermometer at the thickest part of the chicken, which is usually the thigh.

When I first started using the digital thermometer for chicken, I had a very hard time finding the right spot and I would always insert it between the drums and the thigh which is just…skin! doh! You want to make sure it is inserted into the meat – not the gap between the drum and the thigh. 🙂

I took it out of the oven when it reached 165F (74C). For me, it took about 1 hour and 30 minutes to reach that temperature at 350F (177C).

Let the chicken sit for an additional 10-15 minutes before carving into it to allow the juices to redistribute into the meat, and so you don’t burn your fingers. 🙂

The Kitchn has a great read on ‘Chicken Still Pink After Cooking? Don’t Panic‘ that explains the safety of the doneness of the chicken.

LOOKING FOR OTHER OVEN ROASTED MEAT RECIPES? TRY THESE!

NEED A STUFFED ROASTED CHICKEN INSTEAD?

If you are craving a stuffed roasted chicken instead, head on over to The Hungry Bites and try out his ‘Greek Whole Stuffed Chicken with Rice and Chestnuts‘ recipe!

DID YOU MAKE THIS PEKING CHICKEN?

If you made this, I want to see! Follow Pups with Chopsticks on Instagram, snap a photo, and tag and hashtag it with @pupswithchopsticks and #pupswithchopsticks. I love to know what you are making!

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