Restaurant-quality Homemade Tori Karaage recipe with crispy coating outside and flavourful tender chicken inside. Chicken pieces are seasoned with ginger, garlic, mirin, coated with flour mix, and deep-fried to crispy golden perfection. Great as a starter or savoury snack for parties and gatherings!
What is Tori Karaage?
Tori Karaage is a Japanese fried chicken and is loved by everyone in Japan and overseas. You can find Karaage on the menu of every Japanese restaurant across the world. Succulent fried chicken bites, marinated with simple Japanese seasonings and super crispy coating. It can be served as an appetizer, savoury snack, or serve as a main meal over a bed of plain rice.
Tori karaage chicken is also called tori no karaage or tori kara age or just karaage. In Japanese, it is written as 鶏の唐揚げ. Tori, 鶏 means chicken, and Karaage, 唐揚げ means deep-fried coated dish. You can pronounce Taw-Ree Ka-Ra-Ah-Ge Different types of protein can be used for making Karaage, but chicken Karaage is the most popular dish.
If you are a fan of the tori karaage Wagamama recipe, you will definitely love this easy homemade tori kara-age. Made with simple ingredients and the cooking process is so much easier than you have ever imagined.
What do we need
You will need chicken pieces, seasonings, sauces, flour coating, and oil for frying. Following is a quick guide and detailed ingredients on the recipe card at the bottom of the page.
- Chicken: Boneless chicken thigh is ideal to achieve the succulent fried chicken result. You can either use skin-on or skinless chicken pieces.
- Marinade: Traditionally tori karaage marinade includes, sake, mirin, ginger paste, and Japanese soy sauce. It can be slightly different according to the chef and the family's own recipe. In this recipe, I used mirin, ginger garlic paste, soy sauce, salt, and fresh ground black pepper.
- Coating: You will need a mixture of potato starch and all-purpose flour for the chicken coating. Potato starch creates a super crispy coating texture. Instead of potato starch, you can use corn starch or sweet potato starch.
- Frying oil: Recommend using neutral-flavored vegetable oil like canola, sunflower, or peanut oil.
INSTRUCTIONS:
Cut the chicken into medium bite-size pieces. Place chicken pieces in a large bowl and add all ginger paste, garlic paste, soy sauce, mirin, salt, and black pepper. Combine everything well. Set aside and marinate for at least 30 mins. If you have more time, you can leave up to 1 hour.
Then dredge the marinated chicken pieces with the potato starch and plain flour ( all purpose flour ) mixture. Gently press and coat each chicken pieces well and toss the excess flour out before frying.
Heat the oil into high heat about 350 F. Add the coated chicken pieces and deep fry for 2-3 minutes.
Once the chicken start floating, remove it from the oil and set it aside and let it cool down for 4-5 mins.
Then reheat the oil to high heat and deep fry the chicken pieces again for about 2 minutes, until crispy golden brown.
Place the fried chicken pieces over the paper towel or cooling rack. Then transfer to the serving plate and garnish with lemon wedges.
How to serve this dish
Serve immediately while hot with Kewpie Japanese Mayonese or choice of mayonnaise or dipping sauces. Karaage also tastes great with sweet chilli sauce. You can also add shredded cabbage and carrot salad on the side.
Sprinkle Japanese Shichimi chilli pepper mix on the Mayonnaise ( Optional ).
Top Tips
- You can also try this recipe with seafood, tofu, or your choice of protein. Tofu karaage and pork karaage recipes are popular too!
- Deep frying is essential to making karaage. Fry with high heat and double frying gives the extra-crispy result.
- Do not overcrowd the frying oil and fry with batches if you are cooking for a crowd.
- Clean the oil with the fine mesh strainer after frying each batch to prevent the oil from cloudy and burning the crumbs.
Frequently Asked Questions
To make chicken karaage don or Karaage rice bowl, place the crispy, juicy fried chicken over a bed of Japanese short-grain rice, or jasmine rice. If you have any leftovers you can also make a tori karaage bento lunchbox with rice, and karaage, with a choice of side dishes like tamago yaki ( Japanese omelet), steamed vegetables, or salad.
Deep frying is the best method to make karaage but if you don't want to deep fry, air-frying is the next best option. Brush or spray the oil over the coated chicken pieces and fry it in a pre-heated air-fryer 200°C ( 400°F ) for 15-20 minutes or until crispy. Flip halfway through.
Chicken Katsu is usually made with chicken breast with panko breading, meanwhile, Chicken Karaage is a marinated chicken thigh with flour coating. Chicken katsu is usually served with Japanese Worchestershire sauce and Karaage chicken is served with Japanese mayonnaise.
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📖 Recipe
Tori Karaage (Japanese fried chicken)
Equipment
- Large frying pan/pot
Ingredients
INGREDIENTS
- 300 g Boneless chicken thigh About 10.5oz, cut medium bite-size pieces.
- ½ cup Potato starch About 65 gram, Or Corn starch ( flour )
- ⅓ cup Plain Flour About 43 gram, Or All purpose flour
- 2-3 wedges Lemon To garnish
- Japanese mayonese/ regular mayonese To serve
- Oil for frying Vegetable or neutral flavour oil
- Shichimi Japanese chilli powder optional
Marinate for Chicken
- ½ tsp Ginger Paste
- ½ tsp Garlic Paste
- ½ tsp Salt
- ½ tsp Soy sauce All-purpose soy sauce or light soy sauce
- 1 tsp Mirin
- ½ tsp Black pepper
Instructions
- Cut the chicken into bite size pieces. Add chicken pieces in a large bowl and add all the ingredients in the marinate list.
- Mix all the ingredients and rub it to chicken pieces well. Set aside and marinate for 30 mins.
- Mix the marinated chicken pieces with the potato starch and plain flour mix. Coat the chicken pieces well and toss the excess flour out before frying.
- Heat the oil into high heat about 350° F. Add the coated chicken pieces and deep fry for 2-3 mins until the chicken starts floating on the oil. Remove from oil and set aside for 4-5 mins.
- Then reheat the oil to high heat and deep fry the wings again till the color changed into crispy golden brown. ( Double frying make the chicken more crispy)
- Transfer the fried chicken pieces to the serving plate.
- Garnish with Lemon wedges and serve with Japanese Mayonese. Serve immediately while hot.
- Sprinkle Japanese Shichimi chilli pepper mix on the Mayonese. ( Optional )
Video
Notes
- Mirin - is a Japanese cooking rice wine, ideal for this tori karaage recipe. If you cannot find it, you can use sake or dry sherry wine instead.
- Mirin substitute - If you are making halal or non-alcohol karaage, you can skip adding mirin to this recipe. Or you can also try it with halal mirin.
- Japanese soy sauce - You can either use regular all-purpose Japanese soy sauce or Chinese light soy sauce.
Jax says
was so friky good my kids eat like mad......
Khin says
Thanks for sharing your feedback, Jax. So glad that your children enjoyed this recipe.
Laura says
Absolutely love this recipe! Made it for my big family and they all loved it. Taste way better than Wagamama chicken karaage! Thank you!
Khin says
Glad that you enjoyed it, Laura! Thanks for trying out and sharing feedback!
Louie Maligon says
Another japanese style fried chicken recipe that is very delicious. Thanks again.
Khin says
You are most welcome Louie. I am so glad that you enjoyed it.
Will M says
Best fried chicken recipe. Thanks Khin. Keep up with new Japanese recipes. My son really loves them.