This is one of Jo’s family recipes for Hainan Chicken Rice. She learned it from her grandmother and she tweaked it just a bit, making it even better!

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Hainan Chicken Rice Origins

Hainan Chicken is named after the place from which it came, Hainan province in southern China. Hainanese Chicken is also an alternate name. This recipe is the quick and easy version of the traditional one.

This recipe is healthy, simple, and quite refreshing whether it’s summer, winter, fall, or spring. Did I mention it’s also pretty easy to make?

I think this Hainan Chicken recipe has been in our repertoire of meal prep recipes for over five years now. Wow! Time surely does fly! And each time that we make this Hainan Chicken recipe, it comes out delicious and quick.

Ingredients

  • chicken thighs with skin on (bone in)
  • ginger
  • vegetable oil
  • rice (to serve)
  • green onions
  • rice wine
  • salt
  • garlic
  • lettuce
  • eggs

Cooking Tools

  • pot for boiling water
  • pan
  • rice cooker (to eat rice with the chicken)
  • grater

And the other obvious cooking tools like knives.

Note: Jo gave me this recipe written like this. I preserved it here. It was just really funny and authentic, so I kept it.

Got questions on what something means? Comment below and we’ll be sure to answer.

How to Make Hainan Chicken Rice YouTube Video

Jo’s Hainan Chicken Recipe

Hainan Chicken over rice makes an easy, light, and refreshing dish for mealprep lunch or dinner

Course dinner, lunch, mealprep
Cuisine asian, Chinese
Keyword hainan chicken
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Servings 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 6 bone in chicken thighs with skin substitute with chicken breast to make it healthier
  • rice wine, not required
  • however much rice you want
  • ginger
  • garlic
  • scallions/green onions
  • Oil – any neutral one. I use vegetable cuz that’s what i have
  • lots of salt
  • lettuce
  • 3 eggs

Instructions

  1. Boil wa in a large pot and add “lots of salt” lol to make the wa salty like sea water.

  2. While wa is boiling, marinate in a little rice wine to remove some chickeny flavors.

  3. When wa is boiling, put the thighs in the pot. Keep fire on til wa boils again.

  4. When wa boils again, TURN OFF FIRE and let the thighs hang out in the wa for 20-25min

  5. While thighs are cookin, start the dipping sauce! Remove the skin from the ginger root and then grate the ginger into a heat-resistant bowl. Grate however much you like to eat with yo chicken. I usually grate 1/4 cup of ginger, depending on how long my arms last. It’s grueling

  6. Chop up a few sprigs of green onions and mix it in with your grated ginger. You can pick the ratio.

  7. Give your arms a rest, by getting a small pan and heating up some oil. You’ll need enough to cover the ginger/green onions. I usually have to heat up oil twice cuz i can’t eyeball the proper amt i need. You’ll know the oil’s hot enough when you stick a wooden chopstick into the oil and bubbles from around the tip

  8. Pour the hot oil over the ginger/green onion mix. It will sizzle! Stir and add salt to taste

  9. Maybe your thighs are done now! Take em out of the wa and let them cool down before choppin em up into servable pieces. Keep the wa it boiled in though!

  10. Time to make the rice! In yo rice cooker, put the amt of rice you want and throw in some garlic, however much you want. Instead of using sink wa, use the wa from the thighs!

  11. If yo rice cooker comes with a steam basket, also steam some eggs! Get a bowl that fits in the steaming area and heat resistant too. I like to spray the bowl with pam to ease washing later. Mix 3 eggs in the bowl. Now put the bowl into the steam basket area. Then pour some of the thigh wa into the eggs and mix again.

  12. Proceed to cook rice normally.

  13. Use remaining thigh wa to boil some lettuce for a few min. Remoob and serve. Sometimes, i cook the lettuce on a pan with garlic instead and pour a scoop of the thigh wa in it

What’d you think of the recipe? Let us know in the comments below.

Check out our other Asian recipes:

Best Steamed Buns Recipe

Yuzu Rice Pudding Recipe