Miso Maple Roasted Chicken

A round white cast iron baking dish is viewed from above. In the dish are 6 roasted chicken cutlets with miso maple marinade. There are sesame seeds and scallions sprinkled on top, and next to the dish is a pile of cutlery and extra scallions and seeds.

Miso Maple Roasted Chicken

Sticky, umami-rich and golden, these roasted chicken thighs are just the best. Using combi steam to roast the chicken makes it a little faster to cook, and helps to prevent the edges from drying out.

Prep Time15

Cook Time30

Marinating Time2

Total Time2 45

Course: Main Course, Marinades and Sauces

Cuisine: American, Asian, Western

Keyword: maple chicken, miso chicken, miso maple chicken

Servings:

Calories: 356kcal

Ingredients

2 cloves garlic minced
1/2 inch piece ginger grated
3 Tbsp white miso paste see notes
1/3 cup maple syrup
2 Tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
3 lb chicken thighs bone-in, skin-on
1 1/2 tsp flaky salt
1 tsp white sesame seeds for garnish (optional)
2 green onions scallions, sliced, for garnish (optional)

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Marinate the chicken

Make the marinade in a large bowl: combine the garlic, ginger, miso paste, maple syrup, soy sauce and sesame oil, and mix until smooth and well combined.
2 cloves garlic, 1/2 inch piece ginger, 3 Tbsp white miso paste, 1/3 cup maple syrup, 2 Tbsp dark soy sauce, 2 tsp toasted sesame oil
Sprinkle the flaky salt over the chicken pieces, then add the chicken to the marinade and mix well to coat (you can skip the salting but I preferred the result with this extra step). Try and get some of the marinade under the skin a little. Set the chicken aside in the fridge to marinate; about an hour is ideal, anywhere up to overnight is fine. If you haven't got time to marinate, don't worry, the dish will still be lovely if not quite as deeply flavored.
3 lb chicken thighs, 1 1/2 tsp flaky salt

Roast the chicken

When your chicken is done marinating (or when you can't wait any longer to cook dinner!), preheat your oven to Combi Steam, 400°F/200°C, 20% (low) humidity. You just want enough steam here to boost the moisture and cook the chicken faster; you don't want to steam it.
While the oven heats up, remove the chicken from the marinade, allowing any excess to drip off. Place the pieces into a large baking dish or tray, skin side up.
Put the baking dish in the oven and cook until the chicken is tender and the skin dark golden brown and crispy on top, about 30 minutes depending on the size of your chicken thighs. If the chicken is done but the skin isn't browned enough, you can switch your oven settings to broil/grill briefly, until the skin is how you'd like it.

Serve

When the chicken is done, scatter sesame seeds and sliced green onions over the top, and serve immediately with a green salad, noodles or bread. I like to take the whole dish to the table and serve it straight from there.
1 tsp white sesame seeds, 2 green onions

Notes

Servings sizes. This recipe serves 6 at my house (the given weight is equivalent to 6 decent chicken cutlets). If you have very big eaters allow for it to serve 4.
Miso paste. Miso paste is an excellent ingredient, and not just for Japanese food! It lends a deep umami/savory/sweet note to all kinds of sauces, marinades and can even be rubbed straight onto vegetables or meat as a kind of all-in-one marinade. I mostly use white miso paste as it's milder and sweeter, but you can also use stronger red miso for this recipe. If you go for red miso paste, halve the amount of soy sauce you add to your marinade.
Chicken. Most often, I prefer boneless, skinless chicken thighs for these kinds of simple roasted chicken meals. But for this one, try bone-in and skin-on thighs if you can get them. They make for juicier, more tender meat, and the slightly longer cooking time for bone-in chicken gives the marinade time to really brown and caramelize. Can't get bone-in chicken thighs? You can use a mix of chicken pieces, or split a whole chicken, either butterflying or cutting it in half for roasting.
To serve. Want to serve this with noodles, like I often do? If you’re as lazy as me, you can push the almost-cooked chicken to the side of the pan, dump a package of pre-cooked, cold Hokkein noodles into the pan on top of the cooking juices, and return the whole thing to the oven for 7 or 8 minutes until the noodles are heated through and softened. Toss the noodles with that delicious marinade-come-sauce and serve them alongside the chicken with diced cucumber or quickly stir-fried vegetables.
Other things to do with this marinade. If you love this marinade and suddenly find yourself wanting to put it on everything, you're not alone. I also love it on salmon fillets and pork tenderloin. I'd assume it'd work really well on pork chops too, though I'd barbecue those rather than using my steam oven to cook, so the fat renders more nicely.

Nutrition