Pressure Cooker Soy Sauce Chicken

This is the easiest way to cook Soy Sauce Chicken that is super tender and packed with sweet savoury flavour!

Traditionally, this dish was prepared by simmering chicken in a flavourful soy sauce broth until it soaked up all the savoury goodness, but I use a pressure cooker so that I don’t have to keep turning the chicken while it cooks, which frees up my time to do something else (like watch Netflix 😜)!

Here are the key ingredients:

1. Chicken: Start with a high-quality, tender chicken, preferably around 1 kg in weight. The choice of chicken ensures a juicy and succulent end result.
2. Dark Soy Sauce: Dark soy sauce provides the rich, deep colour and robust flavour to the chicken. It also adds a touch of sweetness and balances the saltiness.
3. Aromatics: Fresh ginger slices and green onions add layers of fragrance to the dish, infusing it with a delightful aroma.

The sauce is the heart and soul of this dish. It brings together a harmonious blend of ingredients, each contributing to its unique taste profile:

1. Ginger and Shallots: These aromatic ingredients create a fragrant base for the sauce when stir-fried in oil.
2. Spices: Star anise, bay leaves, and cinnamon bark infuse the sauce with warm and earthy undertones.
3. Soy Sauces: A combination of light and dark soy sauces imparts the perfect balance of saltiness and sweetness, ensuring the chicken is well-seasoned.
4. Chinese Wine: Chinese wine introduces a subtle depth of flavour, and its alcohol content helps tenderize the chicken.
5. Brown Sugar: A touch of brown sugar adds a hint of sweetness, creating a harmonious contrast with the savoury elements.
6. Water: The water thins the sauce to the right consistency, ensuring it envelops the chicken beautifully.

This Soy Sauce Chicken is so easy to make as you don’t need to watch over it! The combination of savoury, aromatic, and tender elements creates a symphony of flavours that your whole family will enjoy; my little toddlers absolutely devoured the chicken with their hands, and even skipped over their rice! So let’s get to it!

Watch How To Make It

Print Recipe

Pressure Cooker Soy Sauce Chicken

This is the easiest way to cook Soy Sauce Chicken that is super tender and packed with sweet savoury flavour!

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Asian, Chinese

Keyword: dinner, easy recipe, lunch, pressure cooker

Servings: 4

Equipment

• Pressure Cooker

Ingredients

• 1 kg chicken
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 2 stalks green onion
• some ginger slices

Sauce

• some ginger slices
• 3 shallots wedged
• 2 green onions stalks (white part) only
• 1 star anise
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 cinnamon bark
• 1 cup light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 0.5 cup Chinese wine
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1.5 cup water

Instructions

• Clean the chicken and pat dry.
• Rub the chicken with dark soy sauce. Then stuff the green onions and ginger into the chicken, and set it aside.
• Heat up the pressure cooker with oil and stir fry the ginger and shallots until fragrant. Add in green onion stalks (white part only), star anise, cinnamon bark and bay leaves.
• Add light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, Chinese wine, brown sugar and water then bring it to a boil.

  Pro Tip: I’m using a 3-litre pressure cooker, so the sauce is enough to cover at least 80% of the chicken. A pressure cooker shouldn’t be more than 2/3 full to avoid liquid being ejected from the pressure release valve.
• Put the chicken breast-side-down, lock the pressure cooker and let it cook over medium-high heat until it whistles. Mine took about 12 minutes to whistle.
• Once it whistle, turn off the heat and let it soak for 20 minutes before you release pressure.
• Take out the chicken and chop it, drizzle as much sauce as you like, then enjoy!

  Pro Tip: Keep the extra sauce for your next round of soy sauce chicken! 😁