The 4th of July is right around the corner, and I can think of no better way to celebrate than with a beautiful feast of traditional burgers, brats and maybe something a little different like this STICKY GRILLED GINGER CHICKEN.
Lately, we’ve been getting most of our groceries from our local ALDI. It’s conveniently less than a mile away from our house (walking distance, yay!) and we absolutely love their wide selection of organic produce, affordable snacks and the fresh and frozen meat options. Tony adores the ALDI Clancy brand chips and their take-and-bake pizzas and I’m a huge fan of their organic snacking options and healthy baking staples such as nut butter & honey.
I’m curious, what are some of your favorite things from ALDI? Let me know by leaving a comment below so I can’t check them out on my next visit.
Today I’m sharing an absolutely delicious recipe that features fresh chicken (you can use any cut of fresh or frozen chicken you’d like!), a sweet and spicy ginger chicken marinade that doubles as a sticky glaze, honey roasted peanuts for crunch, and fresh produce like cilantro and green onion to bring it all together.
This recipe is easy and absolutely perfect to throw together for an epic 4th of July BBQ filled with meats, snacks and a few healthy sides for the entire family.
Ingredients in grilled ginger chicken
If you’re looking for a great recipe to throw on the BBQ this summer, look no further. This grilled ginger chicken will surprise just about anyone with its sweet and spicy Thai flavors like ginger and garlic, a hint of sweetness thanks to brown sugar and honey and a sticky finger-lickin’ good glaze. Here’s what you need to make the recipe:
For the chicken: for this recipe I used chicken drumsticks from ALDI, but you can use 2 or 2 ½ pounds of any kind of chicken cut. Their Simply Nature Organic Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts or Fresh Family Pack Chicken Thighs would also be amazing! Personally, I’m a huge fan of the chicken thighs because they stay deliciously tender.
For the marinade:
- Soy sauce: for a nice salty umami flavor to infuse into the chicken.
- Sesame oil or olive oil: you can use either!
- Honey: I love how affordable the ALDI honey is! I love their raw honey best.
- Light brown sugar: I love how the sweetness of the brown sugar helps to slightly caramelize the chicken.
- Fresh lime juice: you’ll need one lime for a hint of acid that helps to balance the marinade out.
- Garlic: because who doesn’t love garlic?
- Ginger: fresh grated ginger brings a nice intense flavor to the chicken that keeps it fresh, sweet and so flavorful.
- Red pepper flakes: for a kick of spice!
To garnish: I love garnishing my chicken with honey roasted peanuts from ALDI, chopped green onion and cilantro. It just helps to bring everything together.
How to grill different cuts of chicken:
- For boneless skinless chicken breasts: preheat grill to medium high (about 400 degrees F) and lightly oil the grate. Cook chicken breast 6-8 minutes per side, until juices run clear and chicken is no longer pink. Check out my full guide for how to grill chicken breast that’s perfectly juicy here!
- For chicken drumsticks: preheat your grill to medium high and lightly oil the grate. Place the chicken on the grill and cook for 8 minutes, then flip, brush with the reserved marinade, and grill for an additional 8 minutes. Turn the chicken over one last time, brush again with the remaining marinade, and cook for 5 more minutes or until no pink remains in the center of the chicken.
- For boneless skinless chicken thighs: preheat your grill to medium high and lightly oil the grates. Cook your chicken thighs for 6-8 minutes per side, flipping once. When the internal temp reaches 165 degrees F, your chicken is done.
- For skin-on chicken thighs: preheat your grill to medium high and lightly oil the grates. Place chicken skin-side down and grill for 5-6 minutes until grill marks appear. Flip your chicken and cook for another 6-8 minutes more until the internal temp reaches 165 degrees F.
What to serve with this chicken
So what’s my game plan for 4th of July? An epic grilling menu filled with all of Tony’s favorite things + a few healthy sides for yours truly. Here’s what I suggest:
- This grilled ginger chicken recipe
- Chips (Tony says you should all try Clancy’s Corn Chips from ALDI)
- My healthy coleslaw recipe that would be amazing with this chicken
- Street corn pasta salad that’s super unique
- For dessert: healthy peanut butter krispie treats, almond butter brownies or blueberry pie bars served with ice cream
If you make this grilled ginger chicken recipe, please let us know by leaving a comment and rating the recipe below. We love hearing from you! Xo.
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
Sticky, Sweet & Spicy Grilled Ginger Chicken
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup Fusia Asian Inspirations Soy Sauce
- ¼ cup water
- 2 tablespoons Carlini Toasted Sesame Oil or Olive Oil
- 2 tablespoons Simply Nature Organic Wildflower Honey
- 2 tablespoons packed Simply Nature Organic Light Brown Sugar (or sub coconut sugar)
- 1 small or medium lime, juiced
- 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon Stonemill Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
- 2 ½ pounds chicken drumsticks, skin removed (or chicken breasts and/or thighs will also work)
- To garnish:
- Chopped Southern Grove Honey Roasted Peanuts
- Diced green onion
- Diced cilantro
Instructions
- Make the chicken marinade. In a large bowl, whisk together soy sauce, water, oil, honey, brown sugar, lime juice, garlic, ginger and red pepper flakes. Reserve 1/2 cup of marinade and place in a small bowl in the fridge. You’ll use this for glazing the chicken on the grill later.
- Marinate the chicken: Pat the drumsticks dry, remove the skin, season them with a pinch of salt, and add them to the large bowl or a shallow dish with the Thai chicken marinade. Mix to coat the chicken evenly, then marinate in the refrigerator for a minimum of 1 hour, or up to 24 hours.
- About a half hour before you’re ready to cook the chicken, remove the chicken from the marinade and allow it to come to room temperature. Preheat a grill to 400 degrees F.
- Grill the chicken: brush the hot grill grate with oil. Place the chicken on the grill and cook for 8 minutes, then flip. Generously brush each drumstick with the reserved marinade a few times, and grill for an additional 8 minutes. Turn the chicken over one last time, brush again with the remaining marinade, and cook for 5 more minutes or until no pink remains in the center of the chicken.
- To serve: Place the chicken on a platter or large plate, then garnish with honey roasted peanuts, diced green onion and cilantro. Serves 4, 2 drumsticks each.
Nutrition
This recipe is in partnership with ALDI. All opinions and text are my own.
23 comments
Wow, she does it again. Super recipe and instructions. Loved the chicken. I use a plastic bag to hold the marinade and chicken. It is easy to move the chicken around to coat every side. Love the site. Thank you for all your work and sharing
Perfect! So glad you loved this one 🙂 I hope you keep finding recipes here that you love!
Hi Monique,
Made the spicy,sweet, garlic drumsticks for my 4th of July party. Everyone loved it. I used thighs and drumsticks. Great recipe!
Hi Tim! Amazing! So happy to hear that 🙂
This recipe is so delicious! Every time I make it the comments are over the top great!
Amazing! So happy to hear that 🙂
Delicious! Full of flavour, Loved the little pinch of heat. Marinated for 24 hours and I used chicken thighs. My family loved it! I used olive oil instead of sesame oil and the rest I left the same.
marinated the chicken overnight and brought it for an easy camping dinner, it was a hit !
Perfect! Love that idea 🙂
Do we have to remove the skin for the marinade to stick?
As mentioned in the ingredient list, you should remove the chicken skin 🙂
This was great..my husband loved it. I added some hot sauce to the marinade but that’s all I did..honey roasted peanuts and scallions really topped it off..i will make this again for sure..thank you from the the very eastern end of long island..cheers!
Love that! Glad you enjoyed!
This was delicioussssss. Definitely a keeper. We don’t have a grill, so we fried it in a pan. Also used 3/4 tsp powdered ginger instead of the freshly grated ginger. The final result didn’t really have a strong ginger flavor, but it was definitely sweet & spicy and tasted oh so good. Smelled like bulgogi, actually!
Perfect! I’m glad they were still delicious with the powdered ginger 🙂
Chicken is my favorite dish since my childhood. I was searching for an delicious chicken recipe that i can make for my wife and i found this. Thanks
Hope you love this one!
Fantastic marinade. Full of flavor. Not too anything. Sweet, Salty, Acidy, And I kept the skin on for that crispy Fat. Reminiscent of Teriyaki. I will have to double the recipe next time.
Yes, the perfect balance of flavors–glad you loved it, Amelia!
Delicious chicken! I made it with chicken thighs and left the skin on as we were going to cook it in the BBQ. Left it marinating for the full 24hr and it was so tasty! Great that most ingredients are things that I typically have in the kitchen so I can decide to make it anytime 🙂
I’m so glad it came out amazing, Arianna! Yay! So excited for you to make it again 🙂
Awesome marinade for chicken! will definitely make this again. Super easy to make the night before and really added flavor to the chicken (I did not add the extra sauce during grilling, I just heated it a bit and spooned it over the top when it was done)
This marinade was delicious. I took half and prepped two chicken breasts and then used the other half to marinate some air fried tofu. My meat and potatoes husband loved it and I was a happy plant-based lady!