Lemon Chicken with Honey and Sesame Seeds
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Sticky Lemon Chicken with Honey is deliciously tender with crunchy sesame coating. A quick weeknight staple made with pantry-friendly ingredients. Naturally gluten-free, made with cornflour and tamari.
This Lemon Honey Chicken is a quick and easy dinner which truly delivers with plenty of punchy flavour.
Juicy tender chicken thighs are dusted with a spiced flour rub and cooked until crisp then doused in a sweet and tangy lemon honey glaze.
Super quick to make this dinner is always a huge hit in our house and a reliable mid-week meal.
I’ll share tips on how to get your chicken really crisp and your sauce deliciously thick.
Why You’ll Love This Sticky Lemon Chicken
- Gorgeous textures – sticky, crunchy, crisp and saucy.
- Quick and easy to make for midweek meals.
- Bags of flavour from chinese five-spice powder, tangy lemon, sweet honey, salty tamari and garlicky goodness.
- A generous meal for three people but does stretch to four people.
Ingredients Needed
Chicken thighs. Deliciously juicy chicken thighs are used here for the best flavour. Keep the skin on for extra crisp.
Lemon. Choose unwaxed as we’re using the peel as well.
Cornflour (cornstarch). This is a naturally gluten-free flour which is perfect for crisping up our chicken when we pan fry it and also helps thicken the sauce. You can switch out for tapioca flour.
Chinese five-spice powder. Easy to buy at most UK supermarkets.
Garlic powder. We’re using garlic powder here as we mix it with the flour rub to coat the chicken.
Seasoning. Just a dash of salt needed.
Olive oil. This is needed for pan-frying our chicken. You can use coconut oil, avocado oil or even vegetable oil.
Honey. You need clear runny honey, the fancy stuff is not needed – just supermarket own works fine.
Tamari. This is a gluten-free soy sauce. If you don’t need it to be gluten-free you can use actual soy sauce. Or you can swap for coconut aminos if you would like your sauce to be soy free.
Sesame seeds. Perfect for giving our chicken a real crunch! If you have any allergies to sesame then you can add crushed peanuts or cashews or even sunflower seeds for the crunch factor.
How To Make Lemon Chicken with Honey and Sesame Seeds
For full recipe instructions go to the recipe card at the end of this post.
Place the cornflour, five-spice, garlic powder, zest of the lemon and salt in a medium sized shallow bowl and whisk together until evenly mixed.
Dice the chicken thighs into 1-2 inch sized pieces. Toss the diced chicken into the cornflour mixture until thoroughly coated.
Heat up the oil in a large wide bottomed saucepan or wok until hot then add the chicken, cooking on a medium to hot temperature for 4 minutes each side until crispy and cooked through. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.
Whisk the honey, tamari and juice from the lemon together until combined then pour into the pan. It will bubble up immediately then settle down. Simmer for a couple of minutes to thicken.
Add the chicken back in along with the sesame seeds and cook for a further couple of minutes until piping hot and the sauce is thick and sticky.
Expert Tips
Keeping the skin on these chicken thighs is my favourite part as it really crisps up in the pan. However, you can certainly remove the chicken skin if you prefer.
You need to cook the chicken in a single layer. If your pan isn’t big enough then cook in two batches.
Use tongs to turn each chicken piece deliberately over, rather than stirring it all up throughout the cooking as that way it will cook evenly.
Keep the heat medium-low when you add the sauce as you want to avoid the honey from scorching. There should be plenty of sauce to avoid it but if you have cooked the sauce too much and it looks like it’s getting dry then you can add a little more lemon juice or a splash of chicken stock.
The finished dish is ready when the sauce has thickened but is still quite saucy as it continues to thicken after you remove it from the heat.
FAQs
You can make Lemon Honey Chicken soy free by swapping the tamari for the same amount of coconut aminos.
This Lemon Chicken is naturally gluten-free as it uses tamari rather than soy sauce and cornflour to crisp the chicken and thicken the sauce.
You can make Lemon Chicken up to 3 days before you want to serve it. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
The trick is to re-heat this Lemon Chicken without it drying or going soggy. The best method is the oven. Place on a lined baking tray into an oven pre-heated to 200°C / 180°C fan assisted / gas mark 6 / 400°F and bake for 12-15 minutes.
Lemon Honey Chicken freezes well. Allow to cool completely then tuck into an airtight container and store for up to 3 months in the freezer. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before re-heating as above.
Serving Suggestions
Rice. Delicious served with plain boiled or steamed rice. But if you want to push the boat out then egg-fried rice or coriander-lime rice will really level it up.
Noodles. Lovely with stir-fried rice noodles.
Vegetables. This is perfect with greens. Stir-fried pak choi, sugar snap peas, mange tout or broccoli are ideal. I also love some baby sweetcorn with it.
Salad. Lovely with a crunchy chopped salad or a leafy green salad.
More Quick and Easy Dinners You’ll Love
Devilled Chicken is a quick and simple mid-week dinner perfect for the whole family. Oven baked in a rich sweetly savoury sauce with umami vibes this Devilled Chicken is mildly spiced with as much heat as you please.
This Gluten-Free Popcorn Chicken is a total family favourite. Bite sized pieces of chicken are coated in a perfectly seasoned mix of gluten-free flours chosen for optimal crisp factor.
These family friendly Salmon Nuggets are a quick and easy mid-week recipe. Perfectly seasoned with a crispy coating and delicious served with a tangy and lightly spiced dipping sauce. They are also gluten-free and dairy-free to boot so basically tick all the boxes.
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Lemon Chicken with Honey and Sesame Seeds
Ingredients
- 4 boneless chicken thighs with skin - 600-700g
- 1 lemon
- 4 tablespoons cornflour - cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons Chinese five-spice powder
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- 4 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons tamari
- 3 tablespoons sesame seeds
- Spring onions - for garnish
Instructions
- Dice the chicken thighs into 1-2 inch sized pieces.
- Place the cornflour, five-spice, garlic powder, zest of the lemon and salt in a medium sized shallow bowl and whisk together until evenly mixed.
- Toss the diced chicken into the cornflour mixture until thoroughly coated.
- Heat up the oil in a large wide bottomed saucepan or wok until hot then add the chicken, cooking on a medium to hot temperature for 3-4 minutes each side until crispy and cooked through. You may need to cook the chicken in batches if the pan isn’t large enough to accommodate all the chicken in a single layer.
- Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.
- Whisk the honey, tamari and juice from the lemon together until combined then pour into the pan. It will bubble up immediately then settle down. Simmer for a couple of minutes to thicken.
- Add the chicken back into the pan along with the sesame seeds and cook for a further couple of minutes until piping hot and the sauce is thick and sticky.
Notes
Nutrition
Smashed it tonight. Tried it for the first time and my friends and their children loved it. Served it alongside sticky rice and green veg. Thank you again (we also had some of your chocolate cake)… thanks for all the work you put into this website. Looking forward to your cookbook
I made this tonight, with a few substitutions- I hate cutting raw meat so I left it on the bone, used what I had in the cupboard- ginger powder and Sichuan pepper. My husband, who isn't a big fan of chicken, loved it and said it's the best I've ever made. I'll definitely be doing this again.
I'm so happy you enjoyed the recipe!! It definitely a family favourite.
This is delicious tried it last night with fried rice like you suggested and it was a very big hit , will make more next time so we will have leftovers.
Hi Joan, that's lovely to hear - thank you for your feedback!
Love it ! It’s now almost a weekly meal with pok Choi and slim rice/ noodles . Delicious, satisfying and easy in my calorie count . it’s great with a bit of grated ginger Thai 7 spice instead of the 5 spice to mix it up garnished with fresh chilli .
That's brilliant - it's one of our faves too!!
Delicious! Used gf soy sauce instead of coconut amino and garam masala spice as no Chinese 5 spice in cupboard, but successful subs. Lovely and sticky.
I'm so happy you enjoyed the recipe! Thank you for your lovely feedback!!