Grilled Huli Huli Chicken is a great take on teriyaki sauce with a combination of sweet, tangy, and savory flavors all in one great recipe to create perfectly bold flavor.
Huli Huli sauce recipes can be used with this grilled chicken recipe for marinade, or use the reserved marinade and turn it into sauce for stir fry and serve with rice.
Enjoy this easy grilled recipe during the summer for a refreshing yet savory chicken dinner.
Recipe Ingredients:
- Juice: for this recipe, you will need to use pineapple juice from the bottle or fresh pineapple juice
- Sugar: using brown sugar or coconut sugar that you have on hand
- Sauce: a combination of ketchup and soy sauce for the huli huli marinade
- Seasoning: use ground ginger and minced garlic pantry ingredients to add the perfect flavor
- Protein: use this marinade recipe with boneless skinless chicken breasts or chicken thighs
How To Make Huli Huli Chicken:
Make marinade:
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together pineapple juice, brown sugar, ketchup, soy sauce, ginger, and garlic.
- Pour the soy sauce mixture into a large resealable plastic bag and add the chicken.
Marinade chicken:
- Seal the bag and place in the fridge for at least 4 hours (or overnight).
- Remove bag from the fridge, drain and discard the used marinade from the chicken.
Cook chicken:
- Grill chicken over medium-high heat on your gas grill (or charcoal grill) for 6-8 minutes on each side or until the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 165℉.
Expert Tips:
- If you aren’t up for grilling but don’t want to miss out on this awesome recipe, you can use other cooking methods. Try baking this in the preheated oven at 400℉ until fully cooked through and the juices run clear. It will be around 25-30 minutes.
- Double the recipe for the sauce if you want to reserve the remaining marinade and turn it into a sauce, simmering it in a large saucepan with a cornstarch slurry.
- A simple trick to getting the sauce mixed well (especially if you are using fresh pineapple slices) is to throw everything into the food processor and blend until smooth.
- Crushed pineapple could be used in a pinch with the original recipe
Frequently Asked Questions for Making Huli Huli Chicken:
This particular recipe would be great as a dipping sauce or stir fry sauce. Just leave out the chicken and combine the rest of the ingredients into a small saucepan with a cornstarch slurry (1 tbsp cornstarch with 2 tbsp of cold water) and stir over low heat until it thickens to your personal preference.
Yes! Fresh juice will give this pineapple juice base marinade the best results. You can do this by blending up slices of pineapple until smooth.
When making this recipe, you could also use boneless chicken thighs if you like dark meat or chicken drumsticks. Either way, this huli-huli chicken will turn out great with this delicious marinade.
This would also be perfect to slather on chicken halves, marinate in the sweet and savory sauce, and bake in the oven or air fryer at 375℉ until the chicken reaches 165℉.
If you don’t have ground ginger, the other great option for this huli huli chicken marinade would be to use fresh ginger to get that same delicious flavor
Storage Instructions:
Fridge: Place any leftover chicken into an airtight container for up to 5 days.
What to serve with this recipe:
- Grilled caramelized brown sugar pineapple
- Creamy pasta salad recipe
- Slow cooker creamed corn
- Cheesy garlic green beans
Grilled Huli Huli Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
- ½ cup pineapple juice
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ⅓ cup ketchup
- ⅓ cup low sodium soy sauce
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Equipment
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together pineapple juice, brown sugar, ketchup, soy sauce, ginger and garlic.
- Pour marinade into a large resealable plastic bag and add chicken.
- Seal bag and place in the fridge for at least 4 hours (or overnight).
- Remove bag from fridge, drain and discard marinade from chicken.
- Grill chicken over medium-high heat for 6-8 minutes on each side or until internal temperature of chicken reaches 165℉.
Notes
Nutrition
Did You Make This Recipe?We’d love to hear your thoughts! Leave a review or a question in the comment section below the post.
This was phenomenal! Followed the directions exactly and served it with grilled pineapple on the side. Everyone in the family loved it!
It looks so tasty!
My family loved this! I made a second batch of marinade, added some corn starch and cooked it on the stove top to make a sauce to add to the chicken after it was grilled. Delicious!
This looks so good! I love anything that reminds me of my honeymoon in Hawaii!
wow…..
This is by far one of the best chicken recipes I’ve made in a long time. Overnight marinade makes it very juicy. Even my picky two-year-old will try it! Thank you for the post!
I do almost exactly the same thing, minus the brown sugar, to marinate flank steak.
Nice memory, and great looking recipe, thank you for this!
My family loved this! I made a second batch of marinade, added some corn starch and cooked it on the stove top to make a sauce to add to the chicken after it was grilled. Delicious!
Can I bake this chicken since I cannot grill it?
Can this be baked? If so temp and how long.
You can bake this in the oven. Bake at 400 until cooked through. Until no longer pink and juices run clear. About 25-30 minutes.
You could also bake this chicken.
These look yummy!
Has anyone ever not been able to marinate it at least 4 hrs? If so, did it turn out ok?
We tried it and loved it! Every year we spend 2 weeks in Maui and for the first time in 17 years , we couldn’t go because of the pandemic. So we bought a commercial shave ice machine and made Hulu Hulu chicken and fried rice for July 4th! It’s not Maui but it sure tastes good! Thank you!!!
Hi Teri! I think you just earned “Mom of the Year” with that cute July 4th celebration. Shave ice at home would be so fun. Hoping you make it to Maui soon! Go away Corona!!!
Hi. Could I marinate this chicken as written in the recipe and cook it in the Insta pot using pineapple juice as the liquid? Or Chicken broth?
You should be able to cook the chicken in the Instant Pot. It just needs to have the liquid for the instant pot.
If you do this in the oven do you cover it with foil?
We like to cover it with foil to keep it from drying out.
Can I make ahead and freeze ?
I saw someone else asked about instant pot, could we use the marinade for the liquid to cook the chicken in? How long?
Sure, just place in an airtight freezer container.
You can cook this in the instant pot too. Cook for 12 minutes if fresh and 15 minutes if frozen. You can reduce sauce down at the end to thicken and pour over the chicken, or can make additional sauce to serve with the chicken. Whatever you prefer.
can i use drumsticks instead of breast?
You could, but you will need to adjust the cooking time for drumsticks. We have only made this recipe using chicken breasts.
I made this recipe using chicken thighs and cooked in the oven. It was soo tender and delicious. I will definitely keep this recipe.
Could this be made in the air fryer?
This can be cooked in the air fryer. Use the air fry setting and at 360°(F) for 16-20 minutes, depending on size. Flip the chicken after 10 minutes. You want the internal temperature of the chicken to be 165°(F) when measured with an instant-read thermometer.
Can this be grilled on a black stone grill
Sure, just cook it as you would other chicken breasts on the Blackstone.
My family is picky but this recipe had all of them saying it should be in our regular rotation. Used a grill pan and finished off in oven. Also made a batch of sauce on the side to dip and that was a hit.
The reviews said someone substituted mirin for sherry. I see no sherry in the recipe. Is that why mine is so bland? It’s very cold here and I didn’t want to get the George Foreman out to grill so I airfried it.
We don’t use sherry in this recipe, but you are free to experiment if you want to add Mirin or Sherry
I can’t wait to try this recipe! PS.. you might want to spell check the answer to “Can I make sauce out of the recipe?” 🫣🫣