This is probably my most repeated recipe right now. It’s so flavorful, so juicy, and so delicious. It’s a traditional Vietnamese dish, and I’m staying true to those flavors: shallot, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, soy sauce, coriander seed, white peppercorns. However, as I usually do, I’m putting my own unique spin on it.
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Lemongrass chicken is typically made with a fair amount of sugar. With Julia having Genetic Sucrase-Isomaltase Deficiency, I hadn’t made it for a while. But I found this monk fruit sweetener, which is a raw cane sugar replacement. While monk fruit is not my favorite for every application, in this dish? It works perfectly.
This grilled lemongrass chicken is great as your main protein with a vegetable side or sliced up for a noodle bowl or soup. It comes together really quickly. Have I mentioned how tasty this is? Even the kids love it. Let me show you how I make it!
How to Make the Marinade for the Chicken
Once you’ve prepped all of the ingredients*, toast the coriander seeds and white peppercorns together in a dry pan. Add those spices and chopped lemongrass to a mortar and pestle and grind them to release the natural oils and break down the spices. Transfer the mixture and the rest of the marinade ingredients to a bowl and add the chicken.
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*You can make the marinade in a food processor if you’re in a rush, but I find the shallot and garlic have better flavor when they’re grated with a microplane or fine grater.
My preference for this dish is to use boneless skinless chicken thighs. They’re slightly higher in fat but as a fair trade, they’re less expensive, you get way more flavor, and they’re more forgiving. To overcook a chicken thigh you have to really go nuts on it! You want them to cook until they’re 175 degrees with some flexibility if you go over that. Chicken thighs do really well on the grill- you can get a good char without drying them out.
Put the bowl of chicken in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes up to around 4 hours. It doesn’t really add anything beyond that time. I only marinated mine for 30 minutes this last time, and it was jam-packed with flavor still.
How to Grill the Lemongrass Chicken
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Remove the chicken thighs from the marinade and shake off as much of the chunks of garlic and ginger as you can.
Heat your grill up on high, and then drop the temperature to around medium because the sugars can be prone to burning. You’re cooking it just long enough on the grates to get that beautiful caramelized color and grill marks. Then move it up to the warming rack on your grill and close the lid to trap all the heat and let it finish cooking in that convection environment.
Once a thermometer shows the chicken is up to 175 degrees, remove it from the heat and let it rest at room temperature for 5-10 minutes to ensure the juices stay in the chicken.
What to Serve with Grilled Lemongrass Chicken
Garnish the grilled chicken with Thai chilis, green onions, cilantro, and serve! I love to have a sweet fish sauce called Nuoc cham on the side: it’s a super basic mixture of water, fish sauce, sugar, and lime juice or vinegar.
This grilled lemongrass chicken has incredible umami flavors with a beautiful color. Even though there’s no conventional sugar, nobody knows the difference! It just has a hint of sweetness with complex spices. It’s great with rice or noodles. It’s perfect on a salad. You’ll be inventing new ways to use it all the time!
Need to Make a Substitution?
Monk fruit sweetener: If you’re not trying to avoid sugar, you can use regular cane sugar or honey in equal parts.
White peppercorns: You can sub black peppercorns, but hear me out: I used to think that white pepper was kind of a waste of space. and I even said as much, but some of my friends from Asia said that I’m wrong and they showed me some ways to use it. Well, I converted! For Asian-inspired food, the white pepper flavor fits a lot better.
Coriander seeds: Can’t find this? Check in the Latin America/Mexican section of your local big-box grocery store. If you’re still not finding it, go ahead and skip it. Ground coriander won’t be the same.
Chicken thighs: You can use chicken breast, but get tenderloins or cut the chicken breasts kind of thin so the marinade has more surface area. No need to pound it out like a cutlet though.
