Huli Huli Chicken Hawaiian Tropical Chicken

Serve it up with a side of pineapple rice or macaroni salad as you hula dance your way to the table (you won’t be able to help it! 🤷🏻‍♀️)

Huli Huli Chicken – tropical food!

There’s just no chance that you cook this without doing a little hula dance. It’s the vibe. It’s the smell. It’s the satisfying dripping, shiny glaze, the caramelised edges, the anticipation of the smiles and sheer happiness on the faces of those fortunate enough to eat this. This is just the sort of food that just makes everyone happy! Tropical food has that way about it, don’t you think?? So just give in to the temptation – and swish those hips!! “Huli” means “turn” in Hawaiian, and refers to the traditional method of cooking this with a grilling basket, turning it over hot coals.

Hawaiian Huli Huli chicken marinade

This tropical recipe is all about the marinade – and there’s two key secret ingredients here: IMPORTANT NOTE about pineapple juice: do not use fresh pineapple juice sold in the fridge, or puree your own using fresh pineapple. Fresh pineapple contains a strong natural tenderiser that will make your chicken way too soft. That natural chemical (called bromelain) is killed in the process of preparing pineapple juice for long shelf life, so use any form of pineapple juice sold in aisles (ie not in fridge) – juice of canned, vac packed juice (poppers or similar) or bottles.

How long to marinade chicken

3 hours is the bare minimum, but you’ll be most rewarded with 24 hours – even up to 48 hours – so the marinade really gets into the chicken flesh. However, if you don’t have the time, 3 hours is enough to get the flavour infusion started, then just do extra generous basting.

How to make Huli Huli Chicken

Nothing groundbreaking here – marinade the chicken, reserve some for basting, cook the chicken on the BBQ or stove, basting frequently so you get a lovely glaze. Why reserve for basting? For hygiene reasons – because the marinade gets tainted with raw chicken. You can baste using the used marinade, but you have to cook the basted side for 1 1/2 – 2 minutes after each baste. Which, for this particular recipe, doesn’t work because we want to baste-flip-baste-flip frequently. (Same for any other chicken marinade you want to baste frequently, like the Honey Soy Chicken I shared last week).

Tropical sides for Huli Huli Chicken!

Here’s a few suggestions for on-theme dishes to serve on the side. Think – fresh, juicy, lime, coconut, mango, colourful! (Tip: Thai and Vietnamese flavours are very suited to Tropical theme menus)

Pineapple fried rice from last week – which I actually shared in anticipation of this recipe. Not only is it tropical, you can use the juice from a can of pineapple pieces to make this recipe, and the pineapple to make the rice. Though in this case, I use a can of pineapple slices – juice for the marinade, grilled the slices for garnish, as pictured. More starchy sides – Coconut lime rice, Prawn mango summer salad (skip the prawns if you want), Corn avocado salad, grilled corn, Cowboy bean salad, vermicelli noodle salad, cucumber salad Warm weather favourites – potato salad, coleslaw, macaroni

And lastly, just in case you’re eyeing off this Huli Huli chicken in anticipation of a big tropical feast, here are a few desserts and drink suggestions!