Korean Chicken Thighs with Gochujang Glaze
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These delicious Korean chicken thighs are marinated in a sweet and smoky chili paste called gochujang and make an easy weeknight meal. Serve them with a side of rice for a full meal. You will LOVE them!
I could honestly talk about how good these Korean chicken thighs are until I’m blue in the face. But don’t take my word for it – here’s what one recipe tester had to say:
Hands down the best chicken recipe I can remember making. It brings the heat and sweet and made me think I was eating at a restaurant. This will be added to my normal dinner rotation.
~Jessie F.
These Korean chicken thighs are sticky, savory, sweet, and just a little spicy — basically everything I want from an easy weeknight chicken recipe. The sauce caramelizes in the oven and clings to the chicken beautifully, creating deeply flavorful edges while the thighs stay juicy and tender inside.
The flavor combination here is what makes this recipe so good. Gochujang brings warmth, depth, and a gentle fermented chili flavor, while honey balances it all with sweetness. Soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, and ginger round things out with lots of savory flavor that makes it taste as if it took much longer to make than it actually did.
I also love how simple this recipe is. With just a handful of pantry-friendly ingredients and minimal prep, it’s the kind of dinner that’s easy enough for busy nights but flavorful enough to feel exciting. Finished with sesame seeds and green onions, it’s perfect served with rice and something fresh on the side.
Is this a traditional Korean chicken thigh recipe?
This chicken thigh recipe features Korean flavors, but it’s not a traditional recipe. To achieve the flavors characteristic of Korean cuisine, we use gochujang, soy sauce, sesame oil, and ginger. It’s a delicious combination.
What to serve with Korean chicken
Let’s make it a whole meal! Alongside your Korean gochujang chicken, here’s some other tasty sides sure to please the entire table:
- Ginger Rice or Cauliflower Rice
- Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Miso Tahini Butter
- Crispy Eggplant Fries
- Spicy Long Beans
- Asian Salad with sesame ginger dressing
How to store
How to store leftover Korean chicken thighs? Store any leftovers in a covered container in your fridge for 3-4 days.
Can I freeze Korean gochujang chicken? Absolutely! You can follow the recipe up to step 2, then pop the chicken in the freezer. Thaw the chicken before baking when you’re ready to eat it.
Korean Chicken Thighs with Gochujang Glaze
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 3 tablespoons gochujang – Korean chili paste (see notes)
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce (use coco aminos for paleo)
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon finely minced ginger
- 2 cloves garlic (finely minced)
- 1 ½ lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
- Sesame seeds and sliced green onions (to serve)
Instructions
- In a medium-sized baking dish, mix the honey, gochujang, coco aminos, sesame oil, ginger, and garlic.3 tablespoons honey, 3 tablespoons gochujang – Korean chili paste, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon sesame oil, 1 teaspoon finely minced ginger, 2 cloves garlic, 1 ½ lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
- Add the chicken thighs and mix them around in the marinade. Let the chicken marinate for 1-24 hours in your fridge.
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the chicken from your fridge and let it come to room temperature while your oven preheats. Bake the chicken for 20 minutes. Turn your oven to broil and broil the chicken for another 5-10 minutes, until the chicken starts to darken.
- OPTIONAL STEP: For a thicker sauce, pour the sauce from the baking dish into a small frying pan and boil it rapidly for 3-4 minutes, until it thickens. Baste the chicken with the thickened sauce and broil it for a few minutes, until it turns dark red.
- Serve the chicken with sesame seeds and sliced green onions on top.Sesame seeds and sliced green onions
Video
Notes
Nutrition
We have thoroughly tested this recipe for accuracy. However, individual results may vary. See our full recipe disclosure here.
More chicken thigh recipes
For more inspiration, check out all of our chicken recipes!
This dish turned out so wonderful for me! I was even happy to have sauce left over. I‘ll be using it to glaze pork chops or hotdogs. Thank you for the recipe!
I’m so happy to hear it was a hit! Such great ideas to use the sauce in other ways!
Followed everything step by step and it did not turn out with a crispy crust or a thin glaze at all
I’m sorry to hear they didn’t turn out. Some chicken is injected with a salt water infusion to plump it up and make it look better in the supermarket. This can cause sauces and glazes to not thicken. One way to get around this is to pour the sauce out of the baking dish and into a small pan and boil it until it thickens. Hope that helps!
I made this for dinner last night! I grilled the chicken thighs as it was too hot to turn on the oven. Even my picky teenager loved it.
Great idea to use the grill! I actually made a similar recipe last year because it was too hot to turn on the oven here, too! https://www.theendlessmeal.com/gochujang-korean-bbq-chicken/
Recipe looks great, bought some gluten free gochujang and exited to try it. One questions: what is the purpose of using parchment paper? Just curious. Thanks!
Just to prevent the chicken from sticking to the pan. It makes clean up easier, too. 🙂
Hey! I haven’t tried the recipe but just a note: gochujang is NOT paleo or gluten free. The first ingredient is wheat. :/
It’s easy to make your own gochujang or to buy gluten=free. Links for both options are in the recipe. 🙂
This is actually really freakin good! I didn’t bake it but did mix everything together and used my sous vide. After it was cooked I broiled it skin side up and it turned out amazing!
What a great idea to use your sous vide!!
This was wonderful and pretty easy to make! I did have a LOT of liquid, and the sauce didn’t stay thick when cooking because of this. I suspect it was just the water from the thighs, so there was a lot of juice leftover once everything was cooked. But it was great, and I would cook it again for sure. My girlfriend and her sister loved it as well.
That can happen sometimes with chicken. To thicken the sauce quickly, you can pour it into a pan and boil it rapidly for a minute or two until the extra water evaporates. Happy to hear the recipe was still a hit!
Most of the sauce was gone after baking, is this supposed to happen? I would like more sauce when I eat it.
Yes, the sauce reduces a lot when it’s cooked. You can always double the sauce ingredients next time if you’d like to have more. 🙂
Made this tonight! SO delicious!! The entire family loved it, which is a feat. 😉 . This will absolutely become a regular in our home.
That’s so great to hear! Hooray!
Thank you for this recipe! I live in Alabama and was not able to find gochujang so I picked up a bottle of Hoisen instead. I am not sure that this is a good substitute as I don’t really know a lot about cooking but we love the taste so I am sticking with it. We make this dish almost once a week or when my husband doesn’t feel like cooking. Thanks for sharing your amazing recipes!
Hoisen is delicious! It doesn’t have the spiciness or smoky flavor of gochujang … but I bet it’s so good in this recipe! I might just have to try that myself. 🙂
I want to make this, but we have a severe soy allergy in our family and all brands of gochutang contain soy. Can you recommend a replacement ingredient (soy free) for the gochutang?
I think the best option would be to make your own but to substitute coco aminos for the soy.
Our new favorite!
That’s so great to hear!
Made this with my sister last week and we haven’t been able to stop talking about how delicious it was! I didn’t have gochujang, but used chili garlic sauce. OMG it was sooooooo tasty! I want to try it with the gochujang though because the sauce didn’t get very thick like the picture looks. We wrote the recipe down and have it in our cook book! Thank you for this delicious recipe!
Horray!! I’m so happy to hear you and your sister loved the recipe. Totally made my day!! 🙂
First time I made it I was unsure now my husband begs for this chicken!!! I’m making it with pork chops tonight instead of chicken I hope it works!
That’s awesome! I’d love to hear how it turned out with pork chops. That’s a great idea!
HOLY GOCHUJANG! I’ve been looking at this recipe for about a week while I gathered the stuff needed and wow was it good! I was skeptical because my only experience with Korean food was the smell coming from the neighbors house which I understood to be coming from the jar she sometimes kept outside, I later learned that was Kimchi, still haven’t braved myself to try that.
I cooked the boneless thighs on a raised wrack and it was amazing. I can’t wait to cover everything in this Gochujang, going to try the same sauce for tofu for my mom. Nice suttle spicyness and tang and the fresh ginger! Will be keeping this and looking at some of your other recipes!
Thank you for sharing.
Ha ha omg I love it! You totally made my day.
And be brave and try kimchi … it’s really good. Think spicy saurkraut. Yum!
I don’t think i’ll be able to find gochujang where I live! 🙁 I’m an hour outside of the city.
Do you have some ideas about what I could substitute for it? Siracha? Do you think it would be too spicy for my 6&8 year olds?
thanks, erin
I wouldn’t substitute Sriracha as it has quite a different flavor. Have you tried Amazon? That’s where I always turn when I can’t find something. So easy!
It’s not super spicy so as long as they can handle a little heat they’ll be ok. 🙂