Easy Crispy Japanese Chicken Tempura with chicken breast and homemade tempura batter. Made with simple pantry-friendly ingredients and anyone can make at home. Serve with a delicious soy sauce dipping sauce. Incredibly delicious!
I love to make Asian-style crispy chicken appetizers at home. If you love tempura and crispy fried chicken, you will definitely love our popular Taiwanese Fried Chicken, Crispy Salt and Chilli Chicken and Chinese Chicken Balls recipes.
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What is Chicken Tempura
Classic Japanese chicken tempura is made with tender chicken breast with light and crispy batter. Served with Japanese dipping sauce for tempura, called Tentsuyu made with dashi, mirin and soy sauce, sugar, and grated daikon ( Japanese radish ).
Tempura batter can be slightly different depending on the family and restaurants own recipes. Traditionally Japanese tempura is a mixture of cake flour, corn starch, egg, and ice-cold water.
In this recipe, I am sharing our homemade version of chicken tempura with my favourite quick tempura dipping sauce.
Why you would love this recipe
- This recipe is so simple and easy to make at home.
- Made with everyday cupboard-friendly ingredients.
- No readymade tempura batter is needed.
- Do not require any special ingredients or equipment.
- Restaurant-quality airy, non-greasy chicken tempura that all kids and adults can enjoy.
- Perfect appetizer for parties and gatherings.
Ingredients we need
Chicken
I use boneless skinless chicken breast in this recipe. You can also try it out with chicken thigh. Remove excess fat from the chicken, flatten and tenderize it with a rolling pin or tenderizer. Then cut the chicken into medium-size thin strips about 2cm wide and 2 inches long.
Marinade
You don't need many hours to marinate. Simply season the cut chicken strips with soy sauce, pepper, ginger, and garlic paste/grated.
Batter
A mixture of fine plain flour, corn starch, egg, and cold sparkling water is ideal to create a perfect airy tempura batter. Season with salt and pepper and whisk gently.
Frying Oil
Fry with neutral flavour high smoke point oil, vegetable oil, canola, sunflower, peanut, rapeseed oil, etc.
Dipping Sauce
I love to serve with a quick dipping sauce made with Japanese soy sauce, Mirin Japanese cooking wine, lemon juice, sugar, and freshly grated ginger.
How to make it
- First, pat dry the chicken breast with paper towel and flatten it by gently pounding with a meat tenderizer, or rolling pin. Then cut into thin long strips. ( About 1.5 cm wide strips ) Season the chicken strips with soy sauce, ginger, garlic, salt, and pepper. Mix well and combine the chicken and seasonings evenly and marinade for 15 minutes.
- Then lightly coat each chicken strips in corn starch and set it aside.
- Fill the frying pan with vegetable oil and heat the oil into high heat about 350°F ( 180°C ).
- In a large mixing bowl, add plain flour, corn starch, salt, pepper, and mix it well. Pour the whisked egg and cold sparkling water in. Stir it gently.
- Dip each chicken strips in the batter and fry it in a pre-heated oil for 4-5 minutes until crispy.
- Remove the fried chicken tempura from oil and set it aside on the cooling rack. Repeat the process and fry the remaining chicken strips. Do not overcrowd the oil and fry small batches. Between batches strain the crumbs with mesh strainer.
- Serve immediately with soy sauce dipping sauce, shredded carrot, cabbage or choice of salad.
Make Dipping Sauce
- Mix all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl and mix until sugar dissolved.
Pro tips
- You can make extra dipping sauce, keep it in an air-tight jar for later use. It usually last in fridge for up to one week. This dipping sauce goes well with seafood tempura and vegetable tempura.
- It is important to add the cold sparkling/soda water to keep the batter mix cold.
- Keep the batter chilled.
- Make sure to fry with high-heat oil and the temperature should be around 350°F.
- Do not overcrowd the pan and the oil temperature should be steady.
- Clear the oil with mesh strainer after frying each batch to remove the crumbs.
- Do not over whisk the batter, a few lumps in the batter is completely fine.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, you can. If you use ready-made tempura flour, you don't need to add any seasoning, prepare the batter by the packet instructions.
Simply swap chicken with prawns/shrimp, squid, eggplant, okra, sweet potato, carrot, mushroom, etc.
Chicken tempura goes well with Japanese-style soy sauce based dipping sauces, sweet and sour sauce or sweet chilli sauce. Pair it with a bowl of plain rice, shredded vegetable salad, stir fry noodles or fried rice and make it a wholesome dinner.
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📖 Recipe
Chicken Tempura
Ingredients
Chicken and Marinade
- 300 g Chicken breast About 10.5oz, chicken breast/thigh, boneless skinless cut into thin slices.
- 1 tsp Ginger Grated ginger or ginger paste
- 1 tsp Garlic Grate garlic or garlic paste
- ¼ tsp Salt
- ¼ tsp Black pepper or white pepper, freshly ground
- 2 tsp Soy sauce Japanese soy sauce or light soy sauce
- 4-5 tbsp Corn starch To dust the chicken strips
Tempura Batter
- ½ cup Plain flour About 70 gram, regular all-purpose flour, or cake flour.
- ½ cup Corn Starch About 70 gram, corn starch or potato starch
- 1 cup Sparkling water Or soda water, keep it cold ( see details in note )
- 1 Egg Whisked
- ½ tsp Salt
- ¼ tsp Black pepper Freshly ground
- Oil for frying Vegetable or neutral flavour oil
Dipping Sauce
- 2 tbsp Soy sauce Japanese soy sauce or light soy sauce
- 2 tbsp Mirin Japanese rice cooking wine ( see details in note )
- 1 tsp Brown Sugar Or white sugar
- 1 tbsp Lemon juice Or lime juice, freshly squeeze
- ¼ tsp Ginger Finely grated
Instructions
Marinade Chicken
- First, pat dry the chicken breast with paper towel and flatten it by gently pounding with a meat tenderizer, or rolling pin. Then cut into thin long strips. ( About 1.5 cm wide strips ) Season the chicken strips with soy sauce, ginger, garlic, salt, and pepper. Mix well and combine the chicken and seasonings evenly and marinade for 15 minutes.
- Then lightly coat each chicken strips in corn starch and set it aside.
- Fill the frying pan with vegetable oil and heat the oil into high heat about 350°F ( 180°C ).
Make Tempura Batter
- In a large mixing bowl, add plain flour, corn starch, salt, pepper, and mix it well. Pour the whisked egg and cold sparkling water in. Stir it gently.
- Dip each chicken strips in the batter and fry it in a pre-heated oil for 4-5 minutes until crispy.
- Remove the fried chicken tempura from oil and set it aside on the cooling rack. Repeat the process and fry the remaining chicken strips. Do not overcrowd the oil and fry small batches. Between batches strain the crumbs with mesh strainer.
- Serve immediately with soy sauce dipping sauce, shredded carrot, cabbage or choice of salad.
Make Dipping Sauce
- Add all the dipping sauce ingredients, soy sauce, mirin, lemon juice, sugar and grated ginger in a small bowl. Mix until sugar dissolved.
Video
Notes
- Soy sauce - recommend using Japanese soy sauces like Kikkoman or your choice of Japanese soy sauce.
- Plain flour - use all-purpose flour, white flour, cake flour, or finely milled wheat flour.
- Corn starch - add corn starch to create a crispy coating texture. Corn starch can be substituted with potato starch.
- Sparkling water - Add cold sparkling water to keep the batter mix cold. Cold batter creates a light, airy, crispy tempura.
- Dipping sauce - Serve the chicken tempura with this quick and easy sweet, sour, savoury soy sauce dipping sauce. You can also serve it with sweet chilli sauce, Japanese tentsuyu or ponzu sauce, your choice of dipping sauce.
- Frying oil - Use high smoke point vegetable oil like canola, sunflower, peanut, or rapeseed oil.
Lynda says
Can I just use normal cold water?
Khin says
Recommend adding icy cold water to achieve the super crispy coating texture. You can use normal cold water but it won't be very crispy.
Adelfa federiz says
Super delicious and this is one of my favorite japanese dishes.. Tempura
Shayu says
I love all types Japanese cuisine especially tempura. This is a new idea of tempura using chicken. Would you to try it out.