The Best Grilled Hawaiian Style Huli Huli Chicken

Huli-huli chicken is a grilled chicken dish in Hawaiian cuisine, prepared by barbecuing a chicken over mesquite wood, and basting it with a sweet huli-huli sauce. Huli means to turn, reverse, or curl over.This recipe has been adapted so that you make it at home. The sauce is what makes this chicken taste so good.

Last year, Craig and I spent a glorious week on the Hawaiian island of Maui. During the flight, I flipped through the pages of the free magazine that the airline tucks into the back of each seat. There was an article about Huli Huli Chicken that looked and sounded so delicious. I hoped to find some during our vacation.

Huli-Huli Chicken is one of those great “only-in-Hawaii” foods. In 1955, Ernest Morgado of Pacific Poultry barbecued his version of teriyaki chicken for a farmers gathering.

The chicken was such a hit, it became a favorite Hawaii fundraiser, raising perhaps millions over the ensuing years for schools, softball teams and hula halau (hula groups).

The chicken was cooked between two grills. The grills had to be flipped over. And since huli is the Hawaiian word for turn, thus was born the name Huli-Huli Chicken.

Huli-Huli chicken all but disappeared after Morgado asserted his rights to the trademark, and started marketing a bottled sauce under that name.

Of course, you can still buy Huli-Huli-style chicken in the Islands, practically anywhere you see billows of great-smelling smoke emanating from a large roadside grill. It won’t be called Huli-Huli Chicken. But that’s pretty much what it is. 
 —Source— 

Alas, we never did find Huli Huli chicken, while visiting on Maui though we ate some fabulous food.  I was reminiscing about our Hawaiian vacation, and got to thinking about this Hawaiian chicken dish.  As always, I found a few recipes for Huli Huli chicken. I chose one of my most trusted sources, “Cook’s Illustrated” and found a video and recipe on their sister website “Cook’s Country“. 

Cook’s Country’s twist on making Huli Huli chicken is to marinate the chicken with many of the flavors found in Huli Huli sauce. Here’s Cook’s Country’s explanation of why they adapted their recipe this way: To mimic a Hawaiian rotisserie, we used a moderate number of coals spread in a single layer over the entire grill. The direct heat rendered
the fat and crisped the skin, but the chicken was far enough from the coals to avoid burning. Most Huli Huli Chicken recipes instruct cooks to marinate the chicken in the sauce, but with so much sugar, it burned every time we grilled the chicken. Our solution was to use only soy sauce, water, and sautéed garlic and ginger as a brine. We grilled the
chicken skin-side up to render the fat, and then turned it skin-side down to finish cooking and to crisp the skin (just one turn sufficed). Makes sense to me!

 

Cook’s Country adapted this recipe for using either charcoal (our Weber) or a gas grill.  The marinade doesn’t take a lot of work to mix. We start with 2 quarts of water and 2 cups of soy sauce.

Next, fresh minced ginger and garlic is quickly sauteed in a little oil, until fragrant, and then added, and stirred…

Since I was grilling for the two of us, I bought only one whole chicken (rather than two). I asked my butcher to cut out the back, and split the chicken in half. The chicken can marinate for at least one hour, but no more than eight hours (otherwise it will become too salty).

Let me preface that this Cook’s Country’s Huli Huli sauce is sticky, sweet and spicy– and I’m going to make this sauce again, and again– and not necessarily just for chicken. In fact, I think the sauce would be awesome on ribs!

To make the sauce, we use 16 ounces of pineapple juice, brown sugar…

 

 To keep things on the Hawaiian side, I served this with sticky rice and Hawaiian Macaroni Salad.

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Hawaiian Style Huli Huli Chicken

Huli-huli chicken is a grilled chicken dish in Hawaiian cuisine, prepared by barbecuing a chicken over mesquite wood, and basting it with a sweet huli-huli sauce. Huli means to turn, reverse, or curl over.This recipe has been adapted so that you make it at home. The sauce is what makes this chicken taste so good.

Prep Time8 hours hrs

Cook Time1 hour hr

Total Time9 hours hrs

Course: main

Cuisine: Hawaiian

Keyword: Grilled Chicken, Hulu Huli Chicken

Servings: 4 servings

Author: Debby – www.AFeastfortheEyes.net

Ingredients

BRINE:

• 2 quarts water
• 2 cups soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 6 garlic cloves minced
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger grated

CHICKEN:

• 4 chicken split halves* (about 8-pounds total); Split chicken halves are whole chickens that have been split in two through the breastbone.

GLAZE:

• 3 6-ounce cans pineapple juice
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar packed
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 4 garlic cloves minced
• 2 tablespoons fresh ginger grated
• 2 teaspoons** chili-garlic sauce

Instructions

Make ahead:

• Both the brine and the glaze can be made ahead and refrigerated for up to 3 days. Do not brine the chicken for longer than 8 hours or it will become too salty.

Brine chicken:

• Combine water and soy sauce in large bowl.
• Heat oil in large saucepan over medium-high heat until shimmering.

  Add garlic and ginger and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

  Stir into soy sauce mixture.
• Add chicken and refrigerate, covered, for at least 1 hour or up to 8 hours.

Make glaze:

• Combine pineapple juice, sugar, soy sauce, ketchup, vinegar, garlic, ginger, and chili-garlic sauce in empty saucepan and bring to boil.
• Reduce heat to medium and simmer until thick and syrupy (you should have about 1 cup), 20 to 25 minutes.

Prep grill:

• Seal wood chips in foil packet and cut vent holes in top. Open bottom vents on grill. Light about 75 coals. When coals are covered with fine gray ash, spread evenly over bottom of grill. Arrange foil packet directly on coals.
• Set cooking grate in place and heat, covered with lid vent open halfway, until wood chips begin to smoke heavily, about 5 minutes.
• (For gas grill, place foil packet directly on primary burner. Heat all burners on high, covered, until wood chips begin to smoke heavily, about 15 minutes. Turn all burners to medium-low.) Scrape and oil cooking grate.

Grill chicken:

• Remove chicken from brine and pat dry with paper towels.
• Arrange chicken skin-side up on grill (do not place chicken directly above foil packet).
• Grill, covered, until chicken is well browned on bottom and meat registers 120°F, 25 to 30 minutes.
• Flip chicken skin-side down and continue to grill, covered, until skin is well browned and crisp and thigh meat registers 170 to 175°F, 20 to 25 minutes longer.
• Transfer chicken to platter, brush with half of glaze, and let rest 5 minutes.

  Serve, passing remaining glaze at table.

Notes

Flavor notes from Cooks Country: Authentic huli huli chicken is grilled over kiawe wood, from a hardwood tree that is a species of mesquite. The test kitchen finds mesquite wood chips too assertive for long-cooked chicken and pork dishes; after an hour or two, the smoke turns the meat bitter. But we liked them in this comparatively quick recipe. Our Huli Huli Chicken recipe will work with any variety of wood chips, but if you care about authenticity, mesquite is the chip of choice.

Suggested side dish: Hawaiian Macaroni Salad and Sticky Rice

Recipe source: Cooks Country

Tried this recipe?Mention @afeastfortheeyes or tag #afeastfortheeyesblog!

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