Hawaiian Huli Huli Marinade Sauce

Huli huli marinade sauce on chicken
Addie2354 / Twenty20
Prep: 10 mins
Cook: 0 mins
Total: 10 mins
Servings: 8 servings
Yield: 3/4 cup

Huli huli marinade is an intensely sweet and savory teriyaki-style sauce popular in Hawaii. It's a simple mixture of brown cane sugar, soy sauce, ginger, and other aromatics. Huli huli marinade is used to marinate chicken or pork, which is then often cooked on a rotisserie and always over an open fire. A grill will do the trick.

"Huli" means "turn" in Hawaiian, and legend has it that the name comes from the fact that its creator, Ernest Morgado, made it by cooking the soy-marinated chicken between two grills, turning the grills on their sides to do so. Luckily for those of us who like to keep things easy, the sauce is so tasty that it more than makes up for anything lacking in a regular single home grill.

Feel free to play around with the sauce. Add a kick of red pepper flakes or hot sauce, even though it most certainly is not traditional. 

This recipe is enough for one large or two small chickens, or about 5 to 6 pounds of chicken pieces if you're making huli huli chicken; or a similar amount of pork. It doubles and even triples just fine if you have a large party or luau in mind.

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup brown sugar

  • 1/4 cup soy sauce

  • 2 tablespoons dry sherry

  • 2 tablespoons ketchup

  • 1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger

  • 1 clove garlic

  • 2 teaspoons sesame oil, optional

  • 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, optional

  • 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes or hot sauce, optional

Steps to Make It

  1. Gather the ingredients.

  2. In a medium bowl, combine the brown sugar, soy sauce, sherry, and ketchup.

  3. Stir to mix everything together and completely dissolve the sugar into the other ingredients.

  4. Peel and mince or grate the ginger; add it to the sauce.

  5. Peel and mince the garlic; add it to the sauce, too.

  6. Stir in the toasted sesame oil, Worcestershire sauce, and/or red pepper flakes or hot sauce, if you like.

How to Use Huli Huli Marinade Sauce

  • Use the sauce to marinate chicken, pork, or even vegetables. Marinate meat for at least an hour (covered and chilled) and up to overnight. Remove the meat from the marinade to cook it and use any remaining marinade to baste or glaze the meat as it cooks; just make sure to cook the meat for at least 15 minutes after the final time you baste it, or you bring the sauce to a boil to kill any foodborne bacteria.
Nutrition Facts (per serving)
34 Calories
0g Fat
8g Carbs
1g Protein
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Nutrition Facts
Servings: 8
Amount per serving
Calories 34
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 0g 0%
Saturated Fat 0g 0%
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 499mg 22%
Total Carbohydrate 8g 3%
Dietary Fiber 0g 0%
Total Sugars 7g
Protein 1g
Vitamin C 0mg 2%
Calcium 9mg 1%
Iron 0mg 1%
Potassium 64mg 1%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

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