
I love fried chicken of all kinds, but of all the fried chicken in the world, Karaage is my absolute favorite. This Japanese fried chicken is an exquisite balance of taste, texture, and aroma, and like pizza, it's even good served cold in a bento box lunch.
What is Karaage
Karaage, is a deep-fried dish where a protein or vegetable is coated in potato starch and deep-fried until crisp. Chicken is the most common protein, but it's also made with seafood, such as blowfish. These days, Karaage is almost always seasoned, but this wasn't always the case.
Karaage (から揚げ) vs. Tatsutaage (竜田揚げ)
Historically, the term Karaage referred to any ingredient coated with flour or starch and then deep-fried without being seasoned.
To the east of Osaka, there is a river called Tastutagawa, which is famous for the beautiful autumn foliage surrounding it. When chicken is marinated in soy sauce before being coated in starch and fried, it turns the color of autumn leaves, which is how Tastutaage is said to have gotten its name. By this definition, what most of us know as Karaage is technically Tastutaage.
That being said, in modern parlance, the two names are used interchangeably, and while there may be some regional preferences, "Karaage" is the more commonly used of the two.
Ingredients for Karaage
Chicken
Although Karaage can be made with almost any kind of meat or fish, it's most commonly made with chicken. Specifically, you want to use skin-on boneless chicken thighs. There are two reasons why thigh meat will always taste better than breast meat. The first is that the type of muscle tissue in the legs of chickens is fundamentally different from that of breast meat. They are built for endurance and contain a higher concentration of myoglobin, which gives leg meat its characteristic dark color and umami-rich taste.
The second is that leg meat is fueled by fat (vs. glycogen for breast meat), which why thigh meat typically has higher fat content than breast meat. We've all heard the saying that "fat=flavor," but it's not just flavor that the fat imparts. As meat cooks, the muscle fibers contract and expel water, but since fat takes longer to render out, the leg meat ends up juicier and harder to dry out.
I also like to use skin-on thighs for Karaage because the skin helps insulate the meat (at least on one side) from the high temperature of the oil. When it's done frying, most of the oil should be rendered out of the skin, making it nice and crisp, while the underlying meat is tender and juicy. Finding boneless skin-on chicken thighs in the US can be challenging, so I've made a tutorial on How to Debone Chicken Thighs, which also shows you how to debone whole legs.
The last thing to consider with chicken for Karaage is to use the best quality chicken you can find. This means using fresh chicken that has not been previously frozen, and ideally a heritage breed that's been raised cage-free. Ice crystals that form during freezing rupture cell walls, which make meat spongy, also allow the liquids to drain out faster as the meat cooks. Most supermarket chickens are "broilers" that have been bred for several commercially favorable reasons (like reaching maturity more quickly), none of which include things like better texture or flavor. This is why traditional heritage breeds tend to taste better (but also cost more). Free-range birds also tend to taste better because they get more exercise. They also eat a more varied diet, as they're snacking on natural foods in their environment other than commercial chicken feed.
Seasonings
There are so many ways in which Karaage can be seasoned, but to this day, the best Karaage I've ever had was simply seasoned with soy sauce, sake, and ginger. This is why my marinade is so basic. The soy sauce brings the salt and umami, while the sake imparts a mild sweetness and a synergistic boost of umami. The ginger smooths over any gaminess in the thigh meat, while enzymes like Zingibain help tenderize the chicken.
Some people like to add garlic to their marinade, but I find this overpowers the chicken's flavor, which is why I don't add it to mine. I also don't recommend adding anything overly sweet, such as fruit juices, mirin, or sugar to the marinade as it will burn and make your chicken dark and bitter.
For variations, you can marinate the chicken for Karaage using a salt brine, curry powder, or chili powder, and I've even swapped out the soy sauce for fish sauce from time to time. My Shio Karaage Recipe features garlic, black pepper, and sake for a lighter flavor.
Coating
Karaage can be coated with almost any flour or starch, but my personal favorite is potato starch. It results in a light, crisp shell that's similar to potato chips in texture. Cornstarch and wheat flour both result in a denser crust with the former producing a texture similar to tortilla chips, and the later producing a shell that's more like buttermilk fried chicken. In the US, potato starch is produced by Bob's Red Mill and should be available in most upscale supermarkets and online.
As a side note, I prefer using potato starch (over cornstarch) in almost every application, whether I'm thickening a sauce, coating a food, or adding it in to bind ingredients together. If you don't have it in your pantry, I highly recommend ditching the cornstarch and picking up some potato starch instead.
To Double Fry or Not to Double Fry
Double frying is a process in which you fry a food once, remove it from the oil, and then fry it again. This creates a crust with a crunch/crispness that tends to last a bit longer, and I recommend double frying most types of fried chicken, including my Korean Fried Chicken, and Tebasaki. The problem is that the longer overall cooking time tends to overcook the meat. This is fine for wings, where it's really about enjoying the crisp skin, but for Karaage, it's about the juicy, flavorful leg meat, which is why I don't double fry this.
How to make Karaage
Making Karaage is a simple three-step process. First, you need to marinate the chicken. How long you marinate the chicken will affect how salty the chicken is, so you can adjust the marination time to suit your preferences. Generally, I tend to marinate the chicken longer if I'm going to serve it with rice (such as in an onigiri), or I'm planning to pack it into a bento box, and I'll marinate it for less time if it's going to be a stand-alone dish.
Next, the chicken pieces get dredged in potato starch, this is also a matter of preference, and you can go for a very light coating for a thin crisp shell or a thicker coating for a more robust texture.
The final step is deep frying the Karaage, and this is a step that requires a bit of finesse. For me, the perfect Karaage is potato chip crisp on the outside, and juicy enough on the inside to flood your mouth with a savory "soup" of chicken juices. Since chicken needs to be cooked to 165 degrees F to be safe to eat, I like to cook it to an internal temperature of 160 degrees F and let carryover cooking bring the temperature up to 165 F as it rests. A few degrees off and the chicken will either be unsafe to eat, or it's going to be less juicy than it could be. To further add to the challenge, deboned leg meat varies in thickness, so although you want to do your best to cut the pieces roughly the same size, the reality is that some pieces are going to cook faster than others.
Experienced fryers in Japan can consistently judge the chicken's internal temperature by the size of the bubbles forming in the oil around the meat, but this is a skill that takes time and practice to learn. In the meantime, I recommend keeping an instant-read thermometer handy and checking each piece of chicken until you start to feel more comfortable about judging when the chicken is cooked. In my kitchen, I use a Thermoworks Thermapen, which are fast, accurate, and easy to use.
Japanese Chicken Recipes
- Chicken Teriyaki
- Chicken Nanban
- Panko Chicken Fingers
- Chicken Katsu
- Japanese Chicken Curry
Ka-ra-a-ge has four syllables and each one is pronounced as follows:
1) ka like copy
2) ra like rock
3) a like on
4) ge like guest
There's some debate about the origin of the name, but characters 唐揚げ literally mean "Chinese Fried".
Sake is added to the marinade for 4 reasons. The first is that sake contains a ton of amino acids, which creates the taste of umami. The second is that sake, which is made with rice, imparts the rice's unique flavor to the chicken. The third is that it contains some residual sugars which lend a mild sweetness to the marinade without making it sweet. Finally, the liquid will dilute the soy sauce, preventing it from getting too salty.
Unfortunately, there is no great substitute for sake that hits all four of these factors and without introducing unwanted tastes to the dish. For example, the chicken stock will add amino acids and help dilute the marinade, but it won't add rice flavor or sweetness. Fruit juices are too sweet, and the acidity will make the chicken sour. Wine can have the amino acids, and residual sugars, but like fruit juice, it's acidic, which is not desirable.
Although it's not going to taste the same as using sake; chicken stock or dashi with a small pinch of sugar is the best substitute.
There is such a small amount of sake in the marinade; the heat from frying will vaporize most, if not all of the alcohol. If you are concerned about the small amount of alcohol added by the sake, you should also be worried about soy sauce, which contains 2-3% alcohol by volume as a natural byproduct of fermentation (same goes for miso).
Since the chicken for Karaage is marinated, it's typically eaten without a sauce. That being said, you can turn Karaage into many other dishes by coating it with a sauce. Some examples are Orange Chicken and Japanese Sweet & Sour Chicken.
Karaage is one of the most popular bento items in Japan. Aside from being a hit with kids and adults alike, it packs and transports well because it's well seasoned and has a low moisture content.
📖 Recipe
Units
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup soy sauce
- 2 tablespoon sake
- 25 grams fresh ginger (grated)
- 900 grams boneless skin-on chicken thighs (cut into bite-size pieces)
- 170 grams potato starch
- vegetable oil (for frying)
- ½ lemon (sliced into wedges for serving)
Instructions
- Whisk the soy sauce, sake and ginger together in a bowl to combine.
- Add the chicken and mix well to ensure each piece of chicken is coated with the marinade. Cover and refrigerate, allowing the chicken to marinate for at least 1 hour or up to 4 hours.
- When you are ready to fry the karaage, add 1 inch of vegetable oil in a heavy bottomed pot and heat until the oil reaches 340 degrees F (170 C). Prepare a paper towel-lined rack.
- While you wait for the oil to come up to temperature, dredge the marinated chicken in potato starch to coat each piece evenly and set the pieces of coated chicken on a tray.
- When the oil ready, fry the coated chicken in batches. Don't overcrowd the pot, and I recommend batching pieces of chicken that are roughly the same size.
- When the karaage hits an internal temperature of 160 degrees F (71 C), transfer them to the prepared rack and let them rest for a few minutes before serving them.
Fassad says
Can we use Water + Sugar instead of Sake?
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Fassad, sake contains high concentrations of amino acids that gives the taste of umami for this dish. You can use water, but the karaage won't have the umami that it would with sake. I would not recommend adding sugar as it will burn when you fry it.
Jonathan Graifer says
Two questions; how neccessary is the sake, and can I use corn starch if I can't find potato?
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Jonathan, sake is not as important as the soy sauce, but it's the only other seasoning ingredient, which makes it pretty important. It provides all of the sweetness and much of the umami and there aren't any great substitutes. As for the potato starch, if you're in the US, Bob's Red Mill makes it and it's available in higher-end grocery stores or online. This again is pretty important as it's what gives karaage its light crisp texture (cornstarch tends to get more crunchy).
Brandon says
My grocery store doesnt sell Sake, so I substituted it for Mirin and it turned out great!
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Brandon, I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it!
Albert says
I like the simplicity of the ingredients.
The recipe came out great!
Thanks for the recipe.
Marc Matsumoto says
Glad to hear it! You're welcome!
ALocalMWGal says
Hello how much meat is used for this recipe?
Marc Matsumoto says
The amount of chicken is listed in the ingredients.
Rins says
Hi i cant use the sake. What can i use to replace that sake?
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Rins, there's no good substitute for sake as it has a pretty unique set of properties. Your best best is to substitute it with water, but you should be aware that it's not going to have quite as much umami as when made with sake.
Chris J says
Quite delicious--though I found a recip online that was virtually the same as yours. My wife always wants MORE ginger in hers which i anticipated, but it's never enough. Also, knowing my wife, having a dipping sauce would be necessary so I just added a bit of milk to some mayo for her and a bit to my own...along with a dash of Thai chili oil for heat. Good recipe...wherever I got it!
Shane says
Even from the outside, you can see the umami.
I fried these twice. 2 mins at 160, rested, then 1 min at 170.
You can marinade the chicken in whatever you want, but the key is getting the oil temp and cooking times right.
Sid says
Worked perfectly. Potato starch is clearly the key. It was amazing.
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Sid, I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it. Potato starch is great for both coating things as well as for thickening sauces. I've banished cornstarch from my pantry since finding it 😆.
RetiredGuy says
I had karaage many times when working in Japan at the local red lantern bar. Very memorable. A Japanese restaurant near my home in Philly opened a few years back, complete with the red lantern. I was happy to see they had Karaage on the menu. The happiness abruptly ended when I bit into it and tasted the breast meat! Dame desu ne! It absolutely has to be thigh meat, otherwise it’s not nearly the same experience.
Marc Matsumoto says
In the US, breast meat is more popular than thigh meat. This is reflected in the pricing (breast meat is more expensive in the US, thigh meat is more expensive in Japan), as well as in the relative size of each cut (chicken breasts are larger in the US, chicken thighs are larger in Japan). I suspect the restaurant was just catering to what they think their customers want. But yes, karaage just isn't the same when made with breast meat. I hope you get a chance to try making this yourself sometime😉
Lin says
Thanks, absolutely love chicken karaage !! Watching the video makes me drool. 🙂
That's a really cool looking fryer in the video. What is it ? I fry so much, I might get one.
Marc Matsumoto says
Thanks Lin! The pot I used is a cast iron Dutch oven which came with my fish grill. The maker Rinnai has discontinued this one in favor of an aluminum design so I don't think you can buy them anymore.
Lin says
FYI, seems like there may be Comments section issues on some recipes, I forget which recipe though because I thought the problem was on my end until I found this recipe where I am able to post a comment.
Marc Matsumoto says
Thanks for the heads up. I'm aware of the issue and dumping the Cloudflare cache temporarily fixes it, but the problem eventually comes back. I'll keep working on it.
Bea Zahn says
I have not made this yet. I’ve been forever looking for something new to make. My Family comes for dinner every Wednesday. I’m not sure if they are tired of Gramas meals they ask for. But Grama is. I’m watching a movie on Lifetime, Saying Yes to Christmas. The Japanese Fried Chicken sounded fabulous. You can bet, after reading your Recipe, I will be serving this Wednesday.
Thank you so much.
Bea Zahn
Marc Matsumoto says
You're welcome, I hope your family enjoys it!
Albert says
Very simple, easy to follow and great results. It was hard to find potato starch but corn starch came out great too.
Iris says
I love how you add the science of cooking to your recipes. I then understand why I need sake, soya sauce..etc. I definitely feel more confident about cooking after I have read your recipes.
Keep up the great work! You are amazing!
Marc Matsumoto says
Thanks for the kind words Iris! I'm so happy to hear the extra explanations are helpful!
Iris says
Do you have a recipe for the fried french beans in the picture above?
Thank you.
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi Iris, I just cut up the beans and added them to the oil before frying the chicken. They only take about a minute to fry (they're done when the skin starts to bubble). Then you can sprinkle on some salt. Just make sure the beans are very dry or they will pop and splash oil all over the place.
Ma. Eloisa Miura says
Very well explained and very encouraging to try this simple karaage ingredients.
Marc Matsumoto says
I'm glad to hear this was helpful!
Stephanie Osato says
Excellent recipe instructions.
Marc Matsumoto says
I'm glad to hear this was helpful!
DJ says
Perfect every time! Anybody who has done any Japanese cooking at all has probably made chicken karaage a few dozen times (I think I did my first in 1989). It's a gorgeous dish, usually made mundane by a lot of simple mistakes (wrong cut of chicken, using packaged spices, time marinating<-super important I think, important not to overdo it either lest it be too salty). I also can't stress enough the importance of fresh ginger (verus jar junk, pardon if this one is way too obvious). Temp-checking the oil and finished chicken properly is also key to success. Marc's recipe is, as usual, carefully deconstructed and just really properly rebuilt in zen/minimalist fashion. Downside: I never order this dish at restaurants anymore as I think Marc's method is tastier. Thanks a million!~
Marc Matsumoto says
Hi DJ, thank you so much much for the kind comment. I'm happy to hear this has been helping you out, and I feel you on having a hard time ordering it in restaurants. Even here in Japan it's often just 😕. I can't take full credit for this though because I learned most of these tricks from my mother-in-law. She still makes better karaage than me, but I can't recommend her trick on here because it involves undercooking the chicken😅