Hawaiian Chicken and Pineapple
Sweet and tangy chicken breasts grilled to absolute perfection with caramelized brown sugar pineapple. Just 10 min prep!
It’s August. It’s hot. And I’m not on a tropical island sipping a coconut margarita. So this Hawaiian chicken will have to do. For now.
With a quick and easy marinade, this comes together with just 10 minutes prep, so you can really enjoy this all year long, any day of the week.
And when you pair it with that brown sugar pineapple, you’ll be on that tropical island in no time. Although a trip to Hawaii won’t hurt either.
Hawaiian Chicken and Pineapple
Sweet and tangy chicken breasts grilled to absolute perfection with caramelized brown sugar pineapple. Just 10 min prep!
Ingredients
- ¼ cup reduced sodium soy sauce
- ¼ cup pineapple juice
- ¼ cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 tablespoons ketchup
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon Sriracha, optional
- 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro leaves
For the pineapple
- 1 large pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into 8 to 10 wedges
- ¼ cup brown sugar
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together soy sauce, pineapple juice, brown sugar, ketchup, garlic, ginger, sesame oil and Sriracha. Reserve 1/4 cup and set aside.
- In a gallon size Ziploc bag or large bowl, combine soy sauce mixture and chicken; marinate for at least 1 hour to overnight, turning the bag occasionally. Drain the chicken from the marinade.
- In another gallon size Ziploc bag or large bowl, combine pineapple and brown sugar.
- Preheat grill to medium high heat. Add chicken and pineapple to grill and cook, flipping once and basting chicken with reserved 1/4 cup marinade until cooked through, about 5-6 minutes on each side.
- Serve immediately, garnished with cilantro, if desired.
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I don’t have a grill. Can I use a cast iron pan?
Wonderful recipe! Great with steak also!
How did you know I need a vacation? This looks like the perfect escape, and I love how easy it is!
I made this with fried rice and broccoli it came out great
This was so good. Added lime juice and did 1/3 if brown sugar and and added yoshida sauce about 1/4 cup. Also did about half of brown sugar on fresh pineapple. Really recommend trying this! Kids age 2, 4, and 11 are it up. We did vegetable fried rice as a side with fresh cucumber slices on the side.
This was so good! Followed the recipe exactly and served with spicy pineapple rice. Delicious! Thanks for the great recipe!
My family requests this every time we get together. It’s just delicious. I’ve always made it following the recipe exactly. I also grill green/yellow/red peppers with sweet onions and zucchini with it as well. It’s a keeper.
My go to chicken dish! It is so easy to make and taste delicious. Small tweaks that we make are using coconut aminos instead of soy sauce due to my low sodium diet. We also add a tad more seasame oil and pineapple juice. Regardless if my husband and I are making it for ourselves or for our family and friends, it is always a huge hit.
I’m about to make this and have read that if you use fresh versus canned pineapple juice, that is what can make the difference in the texture of the chicken. Fresh pineapple juice contains bromelain which can make the chicken mushy, while canned pineapple juice has the bromelain extracted. Trying to figure this out as I only have fresh pineapple juice so I think I’ll leave it out of the marinade and add it at the very end. Thanks
Made it with the Sriracha and added green and red bell peppers, perfect heat! No leftovers!!
I found this recipe a couple years ago and it’s still my go to. Lately I have been using it on thighs instead and cooking them in the crock pot because I’m short on time. I use all the liquid leftover to make into a sauce. It is delightful.
I just made this, and it is a new family favorite recipe!
The only thing I did different was doubling up the marinade, and the 1/4 cup of reserve marinade I added 1/4 cup of pineapple juice. I also just used can pineapple rings instead of fresh, and basted it with the reserve marinade.
Can’t wait to use the leftovers cubed up in wraps.
Chicken was lovely and flavorful. The pineapple was the best part since I love grilled pineapple. Great recipe. Easy and delicious.
This recipe was fabulous. I used the marinade as a sauce on sauteed chicken and added some red bell pepper and served it over brown rice with fresh pineapple.
Sounds great!
I am wanting to try this recipe, but am concerned about the long marinade time with the chicken and the pineapple juice. In the past, when I’ve used pineapple juice as a marinade for chicken, if it is left on too long (greater than 1 hour), the chicken texture changes and almost comes out a mushy texture. What are your thoughts/experiences?
I personally have never had any issues but as always, please use your best judgment regarding substitutions/modifications to suit your needs.
I know this is a late reply but this happens bc the the pineapple juice is cooking the chicken. You can’t marinate for a long time without it becoming mushy.
I prepared the marinade without the sriracha and placed chicken breasts that I split in half into a plastic bag with the marinade. I let them sit for 5 hours in the refrigerator. I cut the pineapple into 1/2 inch rounds and only put on the brown sugar on and grilled with the chicken. I put the chicken and pineapple on a bun with lettuce, tomato and onion. It was delicious. I encourage others to try this recipe; it is easy and so tasty.
Hey, so I live in a fairly small apartment and we don’t have grills, I have a foreman grill but it doesn’t work the best. can I use the oven? And if so how do I cook it? Thank you 🙂
Unfortunately, without further recipe testing, I cannot answer with certainty. As always, please use your best judgment regarding substitutions and modifications.
Normally I don’t comment on recipe pages – I just get the recipe and go. But this one…this recipe…h’ohmygod. It’s so good that I couldn’t stop myself from shouting it from the digital rooftops!
I did tweak a few things, but only because I found this recipe after we finished our grocery shopping – not because I didn’t agree with your recipe (otherwise why am I here, even?),
We had a few tuna steaks, but because I’ve never prepared tuna steaks before, I had no idea where to even begin. In hindsight, why the hell did I buy them if I didn’t know how to prepare them? Well, obviously that’s what the internet is for!
Anyway, I had to improvise since I didn’t have some of the *exact* ingredients that you used.
– Instead of pineapple juice, we had pineapple mango juice, which my fiance and I agreed: Ehhh…close enough!
– We only had Whataburger spicy ketchup – this was the one that I had the most reservations about. Whataburger ketchup is the best ketchup known to man, but that’s because it has things like onion powder and garlic powder. The spicy ketchup also includes jalapeno pepper puree, so I was worried that those extra ingredients might change the taste of the recipe.
– We didn’t have sesame oil – we only had olive oil
– We didn’t have fresh ginger – only ground ginger, so I substituted 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger in place of the 1 tablespoon of fresh ginger
– We didn’t have any Sriracha, but I thought maybe the spicy Whataburger ketchup might help to supplement that. Side note to self: buy more Sriracha.
-We didn’t have any cilantro either…side note to self: buy cilantro.
*We kept all of the measurements the same minus the ground ginger, but that was only because if I had done 1 tablespoon of ground ginger, I might have turned dinner into one of the Weasleys.
So, even with those accommodations, it was delicious! I would definitely love to be more prepared next time and try everything to a T, but that being said – I was pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out!
Cooked this exactly as directed and it WAS AMAZING!!!! Made it with coconut rice and veggies kabobs. Incredible combo! Definitely a recipe to keep. Thank you for posting!!!
So I don’t have pineapple juice but I do have an actual pineapple. Can I just crush about 1/4 a cup worth and add it to the marinade and soak it overnight?
Yes, absolutely.