Thai Chicken (Gai Yang)
Dec 08, 2025 03:53 AM
This Thai Chicken recipe is an easy way to make Gai Yang at home, Thailand’s famous barbecue chicken. It uses a fragrant Thai marinade that delivers street-stall delicious – without pounding pastes, lighting coals or wrestling a whole chicken! Serve with Coconut Rice and swoon.
If you’ve ever travelled through Thailand, you’ll know exactly what Gai Yang is and why I’m obsessed with it – smoky, savoury, aromatic Thai BBQ chicken sold by street vendors who churn out perfect chargrilled chicken all day long. It’s the kind of food that makes normally civilised humans revert to full caveman mode. Oh yes, you can totally picture me right??! Fred Flinstone would approve!
Traditionally, whole butterflied chickens are marinated in a fragrant paste made by pounding ingredients like lemongrass and garlic with a mortar and pestle, then grilled slowly over charcoal until bronzed and juicy.
I wanted to recreate the flavour of authentic Gai Yang to make it more home-cook friendly. So I use boneless thighs, a stick blender for the marinade and cook it on the BBQ or stove. Simplifying street foods in this way can fall short – but for Gai Yang, the marinade is so good, it works great!
Ingredients:
- 2 lb / 1 kg chicken thigh fillets (skinless, boneless)
Marinade
- 1 large lemongrass stalk , white part only, reedy outer layers removed, sliced 5mm / 1/5" thick
- 4 cloves garlic , peeled (whole)
- 2 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce , or any all-purpose soy or tamari
- 2 tsp dark soy sauce
- 3 tbsp (tightly packed) brown sugar or palm sugar
- 2 tbsp oil , vegetable, canola, or any other neutral flavoured oil
Sauce options *optional*- CHOOSE ONE
- Nam Jim Jaew – traditional Thai Dipping Sauce for meat
- Lime Sweet Chilli Sauce
- Bottle of sweet chilli sauce
Garnishes / sides
- Lime wedges
- Red chili , finely sliced (optional)
- Cilantro / coriander leaves (optional)
- Coconut rice
Prep Time:
8 minutes
Cook Time:
12 minutes
Total Time:
20 minutes
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