Copycat Chipotle Honey Chicken Recipe

Sticky, smoky, and gloriously sweet, this chipotle honey chicken recipe will allow you to create this versatile fan-favorite dish at home. Eat it on its own, in a bowl, or on a tortilla: This recipe is endlessly customizable and tastes good just about any way you choose to serve it.

We all have our favorite fast food joints, the ones where just a whiff of the smell takes you back to sitting at those fluorescent-lit tables, eating from paper containers, and drinking more soda than you probably should. For Ksenia Prints of At the Immigrant's Table, that memory is of Chipotle, whose Americanized takes on Mexican food somehow manage to feel healthy while also being undoubtedly fast-casual. And if you're as devoted to their Chipotle Honey Chicken as we are, then this copycat Chipotle recipe might make you lose the takeout menu.

Made in under 30 minutes of active work and with just a simple but flavor-packed spicy-sweet marinade, it couldn't be easier to recreate this Chipotle dish in the comfort of your own kitchen. All you need is a cast iron pan and a blender, and you can have these restaurant-worthy strips of spiced chicken ready in no time to customize to your heart's content.

To make the marinade itself, you'll need chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, honey, garlic cloves, chili powder, dried oregano, ground cumin, rice vinegar, grapeseed oil. To season the chicken, you'll need kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, and boneless, skinless chicken thighs. If you want to enjoy the full Chipotle experience, make sure to stock up on your favorite accoutrements. We recommend a selection of warm tortillas, black beans, fresh salsa, lime wedges, avocado slices, and sour cream.

Blend the chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, honey, garlic, chili powder, oregano, cumin, rice vinegar, 3 tablespoons oil, salt and pepper until smooth.

Place the chicken thighs in a glass container or heavy-duty zip bag, and pour ¾ of the marinade over the chicken, ensuring full coverage.

Set aside the remaining marinade.

Seal the chicken and refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours, removing the chicken from the refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking.

Remove the chicken from the marinade, letting excess drip off.

Transfer the reserved marinade to a small saucepan.

Dilute the marinade with a few teaspoons of water and stir until it coats the bottom of the saucepan.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes to create the glaze.

Preheat a cast-iron pan with the remaining grapeseed oil to medium heat.

Sear the chicken on the cast-iron pan for 5-7 minutes per side, until its internal temperature reaches 175 F.

Brush the chicken with the reduced glaze on both sides during cooking.

Rest the chicken 5 minutes before slicing against the grain.

Serve with preferred accompaniments for tacos, bowls, or burritos.

Chicken can be a fairly bland and delicate protein on its own, and the easiest way to add flavor to the meat is by using spices and marinades. While marinades for beef and lamb focus on tenderizing the meat, chicken marinades are more focused on adding flavor. In our recipe, we are using chicken thighs, which are part of the dark meat of the chicken and therefore are more flavorful, however, it is still paramount that we add as much flavor into our chicken as possible prior to cooking.

If you're short on time, one could assume that rather than marinating our chicken, we could simply make a sauce and pour it on the chicken after cooking. However, the marinade needed to give this chicken its signature smoky-sweet flavor is quite robust and acerbic; simply transforming it into a sauce would be way too harsh. If you are short on time, we recommend doing a short marinade — even a half hour will do. Another option would be to transform the whole marinade into a glaze by cooking it and then mixing in yogurt or sour cream to make it more palatable on its own. Your chicken will be noticeably less flavorful and paler in color, but the whole thing will still taste delicious.

If you want to follow in Chipotle's model, we recommend serving this honey chipotle chicken in a number of ways. You can prepare it as part of a rice bowl, a salad bowl, or in a wrap.

To make this chicken into a rice bowl, simply cook white rice and place it at the bottom of a pasta bowl — about 1 cup of rice will do. This is also a good way to use up leftover rice. If you're keeping low carb, substitute half or all the rice for diced Romaine lettuce or kale mix. Then, add chicken in the middle, and other toppings around in clusters, or on top of the chicken. We love pairing it with black beans, which can be cooked for about 10 minutes with extra marinade. The other usual toppings will work — a sweet mango salsa would be great, along with some sour cream, avocado, and fajita veggies from our sheet pan chicken fajita recipe. 

To make it into a wrap, go with flour tortillas for the Tex-Mex vibe. Layer on the chicken, and then spread or smear your favorite accoutrements — salsa, sour cream, avocado, and a touch of lime juice are just perfect.