Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken Bites

Teriyaki sauce paired with bright and vibrant pineapple makes for a fast and delicious sauce in this weeknight chicken stir-fry. Using a pineapple cordial in the sauce ups the fruity flavor, but you can substitute fresh pineapple juice if needed. The chicken, tender, juicy, and perfectly cooked, are well coated in the sauce and fresh pineapple chunks caramelize until golden brown to amplify the fruit’s natural sweetness. And it all comes together for a deeply savory, umami sauce.

What is a pineapple cordial?

Cordials are drinks made by cooking fruit or other ingredients with sugar into a syrup. The fruit flavors become very concentrated. The resulting cordials are commonly used to make cocktails or non alcoholic drinks that are often served over ice or lightly diluted with flat or carbonated waters. The pineapple cordial in this recipe was created by Paul Calvert, bartender and co-owner of Ticonderoga Club in Atlanta.

What exactly does it mean to stir-fry?

Stir-frying involves cooking food over high heat with a small amount of oil in a wok or large pan that allows enough room to continually stir while it quickly cooks the ingredients. The food being cooked (in this case, the chicken bites), should all be cut to a similar size to ensure even cooking, and they should be small enough to cook quickly. A wok is the traditional cooking pan for stir-fry, but a skillet can also work. If you have a skillet with sloping sides you will be able to stir and move the ingredients around easily.

Notes from the Food & Wine Test Kitchen

For a seriously spicy kick, keep the seeds in the Fresno chiles, but if you want to tame the heat, scrape them out and remove the inner ribs when you prep the peppers.