Comforting, and yet not too spicy (my 4 year old loved this!) these sweet sriracha chicken breasts are perfect for a quick, weeknight meal!
I see so many blogs with chicken recipes and began to realize I don't share that same feature. I don't know why because my daughter and husband love chicken, but I guess I do not serve it as often as I thought.
I kind of revisited an old recipe. I had made Sriracha chicken wings in the past and they turned out awesome! I figured the recipe would be easily adapted onto chicken breasts and that is exactly what I did. These sweet Sriracha chicken breasts were quick, simple, and oh so tasty! Sriracha can be spicy for many, but this recipe allows you to play around with that spice by adding more honey if you feel like it. I kind of want to call this honey-garlic chicken, but that is not the case. Sweet Sriracha chicken breasts seemed more appropriate, though there is a lot of basil here, too. Arg, naming recipes can be so hard at times!!
I used two different temperatures for this recipe. I wanted the chicken to cook without the sauce first to kind of get a nice "crust" on it. I mean, there is no skin on these breasts, but you do not want a soggy chicken piece served to your guests or family. UPDATE: I decided to for-go the pre-cooking of the chicken with no sauce and just add the sauce in the beginning. Great change and it made the recipe even easier! I also always worry about honey burning, so before I put the sauce onto the chicken, I lowered the temperature to 375F. It may not be necessary, but it left me feeling comforted that my sauce would not burn.
📖 Recipe
Sweet Sriracha Chicken Breasts
Pay attention to whether you chicken is bone in or not as it will affect the cooking time! Cooking time will also vary depending on the size of your chicken breasts.
Ingredients
- 2 lbs skinless, bone-in chicken breasts OR boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 4 pieces)
- Salt and pepper
Sauce
- ¼ cup Sriracha
- ¼ cup honey
- 2 tbsp. butter, melted
- 2 tsp. soy sauce
- ¼ tsp. red chili flakes
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tsp. dried basil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425F. Line a baking pan with aluminum foil/parchment paper for easy clean up. Place chicken into pan and season with salt and pepper.
- Combine all the sauce ingredients. Pour about half the mixture onto the chicken breasts. Place into oven and bake for 15 minutes.
- Remove from oven, pour remaining sauce on top, and place back into oven. Lower temperature to 375F and bake for another 10 minutes or until chicken reaches 160F internally (you may need another 5-10 minutes on top of that for bone-in breasts!)
- Serve over rice!
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 4 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 562Total Fat: 15gSaturated Fat: 6gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 7gCholesterol: 234mgSodium: 871mgCarbohydrates: 22gFiber: 1gSugar: 20gProtein: 81g
And there you have it! Sweet Sriracha chicken breasts, bone-in style! Bone-in chicken breasts tend to go on sale here a lot more often than boneless-skinless chicken breasts, and while I know many get creeped out by the bone-in, the bone is there to keep the chicken moist and juicy. I understand skinless chicken breasts for health reasons, but do not pass up on the bone! It is there for a reason (and as a vegetarian, I feel weird talking about this, haha.) UPDATE: I made this recipe with boneless, skinless chicken breasts and they were perfect! I adjusted the cook time accordingly to help you out 🙂 REMEMBER THAT CHICKEN BREASTS COME IN ALL DIFFERENT SIZES SO COOK TIME MAY VARY FOR EACH PERSON!
One more word of advice: you do not have to use Sriracha. Use your favorite hot sauce, but be warned, some sauces are looser than others and some carry a lot more spice. You may have to add more honey and spices to balance out flavors.
Love these sweet sriracha chicken breasts?! Try some of these recipes:
Coconut and Lime Chicken with Mixed Asian Vegetables
Kaitie
These look delicious! Perfect for a weeknight meal!!
Mary
If I want in mild spicey not spicey hot, how much Sriracha and how much honey? Thank you.
Leia @ Eat It & Say Yum
Those sound really good. My husband loves sriracha. I bet it goes really well with the honey. Pinned.
Joanie @ ZagLeft
I love the honey-sriracha combo, especially on chicken!
Shannon @ Dinner from the Heart
We always have a BIG bottle of sriracha at our house. In fact, my hubby just wondered this morning how sriracha would taste on his chicken. Well, I am definitely trying this recipe - although I may opt for chicken thighs - because we couldn't love sriracha more if we tried! 🙂
Krista @ Joyful Healthy Eats
Sriracha just makes everything better!
Kacey
Agreed!
Chrisy @ Homemade Hooplah
This looks delicious! I love finding recipes with sriracha - it's so versatile.
Kacey
Completely agree! And if Sriracha is not a favourite, any other hot sauce would work 🙂
amanda @ fake ginger
I don't serve chicken much either unless it's in something, like a casserole or pasta. I will definitely be making this soon though! I loooove sriracha and honey together!
Kacey
Thanks, Amanda!
Holly
I just made this but subbed maple syrup when I realized I was out of honey, and served it with brown rice with roasted red peppers. It was a big hit!
Beth
Sriracha is my man's go-to sauce.. think I should make these for him? 🙂
Kacey
I cannot lie, I think you should!
Val
I love anything with Sriracha, will add this to my list! Very creative and Pin-worthy recipe!
Melanie | Melanie Makes
A perfect weeknight - or any night! - main dish option. It looks delicious!
Cathy@LemonTreeDwelling
I love the combination of sweet & spicy! Chicken is our go-to meat, so can't wait to try this!
Kacey
I started to post more chicken recipes for that very reason: chicken is the most popular meat choice 🙂
Kacey
Thanks, Meg!
Patrick
I have Sriracha powder. I assume your recipe calls for Sriracha sauce. How much powder and water should I use?
Kacey
Yes, the recipe does use the sauce variety. I have never worked with the powder before so I could not say. Sorry!
Christel
I have never had Sriracha before but I tried it and it came out perfect for my first try!!
I did not use all the ingredients only: Sriracha, honey, black pepper, salt and union powder.
The time and temperature are spot on, it wasn't too dry or too soggy but perfect.
I did make it a tad too spicy for my taste but I can easily fix that next time.
Do you have any advice to make the sauce a bit thicker?
Thank u for the recipe I love it! deffo adding this to my chicken list lol
Kacey
This is great to hear!! Adding more honey may help with thickening the sauce, but it will also cut down on the spiciness (making it sweeter but that is alright!)
Gabrielle
Will be trying this tonight! What temperatures do you suggest for boneless chicken breast or boneless chicken tenders?
Kacey
The temperatures should be alright for even boneless chicken, but I would only cook at 425F for 15 minutes max, and then check the internal temperature. If it needs more time, continue to cook in 5 minute intervals at 375F. This way you should not over-cook it! But if you still feel worried about over-cooking, you could stick with 400F for about 20 minutes (all chicken breast sizes are different so just keep an eye on them!)
Meg
Love this! I tweeked it though. Used Cholula (it's all i had and i like it better than Sriracha.) Made marinade as you suggested and I'm slow cooking the whole thing in my cooker. Later I'm gonna blast on broil. Thinking flipping the procedure will lend a super pow on the flavor. But thank you so much for this recipe! Can't wait to try it!
Kacey
I am glad you are customizing it! We have our favourite hot sauces, too 🙂 I really hope you enjoy it!!
Krystal
Was the soy sauce intentional in the recipe ingredients?
Kacey
It is only two teaspoons so you could omit it (I just like the idea of an additional salty aspect and help adding more depth to the sauce.)
Krystal
it doesn't say it in the directions (only ingredient list). Should it be added?
Krystal
What's the soy sauce for?
Krystal
sorry, I didn't see my original comment. so I redid it.
Kacey
No worries 😉 The soy sauce is in both the ingredients and the instructions but you can easily omit if you want (I just like that tangy element!)
piper
could this possibly be made in a crockpot??
Kacey
I do not see why not! You may still want to broil the chicken in the oven to get some crispiness 🙂
Liz
I love this idea. My husband puts this stuff in everything. I can't wait to try it. We're going to experiment on the grill with it! Thanks for sharing.
Peter
Hi, just making it as I type this message, it looks awesome, smells great, and I am sure to taste delicious. Do you have the nutritional information for this recipe? If so that would be great, thanks for the recipe.
Kacey
Hi, Peter! So happy the chicken is coming along nicely! Unfortunately, I do not know the nutritional information for the recipe but I hear myfitnesspal is great for plugging in ingredients and getting the values for them.
Peter
Thanks, I actually am using myfitnesspal. Yes, it did have all the items, thanks for the great recipe, it also works great for pork chops. Delicious especially with quinoa and steamed vegetables. Keep the amazing recipes coming, and the fettuccine alfredo recipe with veggies turned out great as well.
Kacey
You are too kind, Peter! Thanks so much and glad the recipes are working out (need to try the sauce on pork chops for sure!)
Sammi Ricke
We just finished this and LOVED it, especially my Sriracha loving husband! Thanks so much for the simple and flavorful recipe 🙂
Kacey
Haha, your husband sounds like mine. Thank you so much!
Jodi
Easy & DELICIOUS! I will be making this A LOT! And I want to try it on chicken wings too...DELICIOUS! I needed to tame down the heat a lil (cuz I'm wimpy) so I dipped them in a little Ranch. I think one chicken breast is around 12 smart points so I might try slicing chicken breasts in half to lower points (but that will also make it spicier). We ate them plain with steamed green beans on the side...DELICIOUS! Thanks for the recipe!
Kacey
Love the idea of using ranch here!! Going to have to try it with my sister who also cannot take much spice 🙂
Steve
For 3 or 4 boneless breasts, there is barely enough sauce to coat them all. I recommend doubling the sauce amount provided. Also, recognize that this sauce is very spicy due to the siracha to honey ratio and adding the crushed red. Not for anyone who prefers medium to hot level spice. If you prefer extra hot or higher, this is for you.
Kacey
It is definitely a spicy recipe, but I make sure to let people know that 🙂 Not for the non-spice lover!
Shannon
I made this last night and it was a hit. Adding it to a regular rotation. I split the chicken breasts in half because they were really thick so it didn't take quite as long to cook. I use a digital thermometer and pulled them out at 165. Thanks so much for the recipe.
Kacey
Great to hear, Shannon! I rely on my thermometer a lot because you just never know with the different weights/sizes of meat. Better to be safe than sorry 🙂
Amanda Baker
Quick question, I made this tonight, I wish I could include a picture, anyway, often, as did tonight, my chicken breast seem to carry a lot of water.. so it ends up boiling my recipes everytime or diluting my sauce... do you have a remedy/suggestion? Your sauce looks so thick and fantastic!
Kacey
I totally know what you mean! I thought the high cooking temperature would help counter-act that. One suggestion I have is to remove the chicken when they are finished cooking and perhaps reducing the sauce (cooking it longer while the chicken rests.) Or you could go the "gravy" route and mix in some cornstarch and cold chicken broth to thicken it up. Or maybe precook the chicken a bit before adding the sauce and draining the excess liquid! Sorry about that, I feel meats can be finicky at times!
Lisa
A flavourful receipe, but spicey! I added extra sugar. Next tine I will put a little less siracha and pepper flakes. My hubby and son really liked it's!
Kacey
Great to hear! It is definitely spicy (but glad your family can enjoy it with some minor adjustments!)
Breana
Hi! I've tried this recipe on chicken breasts and it was great!! Would the cooking time differ much if I use bone in chicken thighs?
Kacey
I haven't tried them with chicken thighs but I definitely see it working! You will need some more time (I'm thinking at least another 10-15 minutes minimum.) Sorry I am not of more help (I totally rely on my meat probe!)
Amy W.C.
My new favorite recipe, no joke! This has the best sweet-heat and just has the most perfect flavor! I had no idea it was going to taste like THIS!! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. It’s going right on my menu again next week. (I never do the same recipe in the same month). If my husband doesn’t hurry home from work then I’ll have to eat his too... LOL)
Kate
So flavorful! Perfect balance between sweet and spicy & Boyfriend Approved 😉 I have made it 3 times this month already!
Stormie
I love love LOVE this recipe! I always have ingredients, nice & simple and delicious! Always a go-to recipe.
Kacey
My family LOVES it so much! I am glad we are spicy lovers here!
Kat
I'm a vegetarian, so I made this using extra firm tofu instead. I did triple the sauce because tofu is so bland and subbed maple syrup for honey. It turned out so good I've already made it twice!